How To Invest

In addition, Pat thinks then beginner investors should cultivate two important qualities: a healthy sense of skepticism and patience.

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Investors should approach all investments with a healthy sense of skepticism. This can help keep you out of fraudulent stocks that masquerade as high-quality stocks. It will also keep you out of legally operated, but poorly managed, companies that promise more than they can possibly deliver.

If you are a new investor, you should also realize that losing patience can cause you to sell your best choices right before a big rise. All too often, investors buy a promising stock just as it enters a period of price stagnation. Even the best-performing stocks run into these unpredictable phases from time to time. They move mainly sideways in a wide range for months or years before their next big rise begins. (Stock brokers often refer to these stocks as “dead money.”)

If you lack patience, you run a big risk of selling your best choices in the midst of one of these phases, prior to the next big move upward. If you lose patience and sell, you are particularly likely to do so in the low end of the trading range, when stock prices have weakened and confidence in the stock has waned.

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How To Invest Library Archives
Understanding our recommendations: Power Buy—These stocks are our top choices for new buying now. We feel each currently offers the best combination of fundamentals (earnings, sales, cash flow and so on) plus external factors (industry trends and the current share price) to give it a chance of above-average gains
A: Signet Jewelers Ltd., $106.58, symbol SIG on New York (Shares outstanding: 41.0 million; Market cap: $4.0 billion; www.signetjewelers.com), is the world’s largest retailer of diamond jewellery.


The company operates roughly 2,623 stores, most under the names Kay Jewelers, Zales, Jared, Banter by Piercing Pagoda, Diamonds Direct, JamesAllen.com, Rocksbox, Peoples Jewellers, H. Samuel, and Ernest Jones.



In September 2022, Signet completed its acquisition of Seattle-based Blue Nile for $360 million. Blue Nile is a leading online retailer of engagement rings, wedding rings and fine jewellery.
A: Crombie Real Estate Investment Trust, $15.32, symbol CRR.UN on Toronto (Units outstanding: 109.6 million; Market cap: $2.9 billion; www.crombie.ca), owns, runs, and develops real estate assets.


This REIT has 306 properties making up about 8.8 million square feet. Retail properties account for 79.4% of that square footage, followed by retail-related industrial at 13.1%, office, 4.3%, and mixed-use residential, 3.2%.



Crombie’s occupancy rate is a high 97.2%.
A: The Cooper Companies Inc., $75.28, symbol COO on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 198.8 million; Market cap: $13.7 billion; www.coopercos.com), is a California-based healthcare business with two operating segments.


The first segment is Cooper Vision (67% of revenues); it makes and sells soft contact lenses for the vision-correction market worldwide. Cooper Vision specializes in lenses for common eye conditions like astigmatism, presbyopia, myopia, and ocular dryness.



The second segment, Cooper Surgical (33%), focuses on fertility and women’s health. It develops and markets the medical devices, diagnostic products and surgical instruments used by gynecologists and obstetricians.



Over the years, Cooper has expanded significantly through acquisitions.
A: Canadian Tire Corp. (class A non-voting) symbol CTC $250.01 and CTC.A $173.68 (Shares outstanding: 54.1 million; Market cap: $9.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.canadiantire.ca) operates 503 Canadian Tire hardware stores. They sell automotive parts and services, and household and sporting goods. Note—most Canadians live within 15 minutes of at least one of those stores.


The company’s other operations also enrich its outlook. They include 169 stores operating under the PartSource (auto parts) and Party City (party supplies) banners.
The Successful Investor first launched in 1994—31 years ago. In that time, the team and I have fielded thousands of questions from subscribers.


We recently received an interesting one from an Inner Circle member (see below). It’s a question that I’ve seen before over the years, in one form or another. In this most-recent case, the member wonders if it’s OK to depart from the key TSI principle to diversify your portfolio across most if not all of the 5 main economic sectors—Manufacturing & Industry; Resources & Commodities; Consumer; Finance; and Utilities.