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
Alphabet, the owner of the Google Internet search engine and our long-time favourite among the top U.S. technology stocks, is down roughly 20% since the start of 2022.

That drop is partly due to a weaker-than-expected revenue outlook from Snap Inc. (New York symbol SNAP), the owner of the popular Snapchat online messaging service....
HERCULES CAPITAL INC., $14.07, symbol HTGC on New York, is a business development company (BDC).

Hercules provides senior secured loans to high-growth venture capital-backed companies in innovative industries, including technology, life sciences, and sustainable and renewable technologies.

As well, through its wholly owned subsidiary, Hercules Adviser LLC, the company also maintains an asset management business through which it oversees investments for external parties.

Since its founding in 2003, the company reports that it has made more than $14 billion in loans to nearly 600 companies.

A highlight of the latest quarter was the IPO of Pineapple Energy LLC (symbol PEGY on Nasdaq)....
BANK OF MONTREAL, $136.95, Toronto symbol BMO, is a buy.

The bank is now raising your dividend by 4.5%. Starting with the August 2022 payment, investors will receive $1.39 a share instead of $1.33. The new annual rate of $5.56 yields 4.1%.

Bank of Montreal set aside $50 million to cover potential loan losses in its fiscal 2022 second quarter, ended April 30, 2022....
YAMANA GOLD INC., $7.16, is a hold. The miner (symbol YRI on Toronto) owns and operates five gold mines, in Canada, Brazil, Chile and Argentina. This includes the Cerro Moro gold/silver mine in Argentina. It started up in mid-2018.

Yamana received a $6.7 billion U.S....
3M COMPANY, $145.88, New York symbol MMM, is still a buy for long-term gains.

The company makes over 60,000 consumer and industrial goods, including air purifiers, adhesives, bandages and components for medical devices. Investors tap its main brands, including Post-it notes, Scotch tape, Scotch-Brite cleaning products, Scotchguard protection and Thinsulate insulation.

3M warned this week that China’s strict lockdowns to control the spread of COVID-19 have disrupted its manufacturing operations in that country....
CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY LTD., $94.69, Toronto symbol CP, is your #1 Conservative Buy for 2022.

CP ships freight over a 23,700-kilometre rail network, mainly between Montreal and Vancouver. It also links to hubs in the U.S. Midwest and Northeast.

The company has formed a new alliance with French container shipping firm CMA CGM Group.

Under this multi-year pact, CP will be the primary rail carrier for CMA CGM’s freight through the ports of Vancouver, Montreal and Saint John, New Brunswick....
A: Dole plc, $10.33, symbol DOLE on New York (Shares outstanding: 94.9 million; Market cap: $988.6 million; www.doleplc.com), is a global leader in fresh fruits and vegetables. The company sells more than 300 products sourced from over 30 countries....
A: Pentair plc, $49.65, symbol PNR on New York (Shares outstanding: 165.4 million; Market cap: $8.3 billion; www.pentair.com), is a water industrial manufacturing company with two reportable segments: Consumer Solutions, and Industrial & Flow Technologies.

These segments offer four main groups of products and services:
  1. Pool and spa: Solutions to filter, clean and sanitize water, with automation equipment for remote control.
  2. Water quality: This unit offers water softeners, home filtration systems and UV disinfecting.
  3. Water supply and disposal: Products for residential customers include water supply pumps plus sewage and effluent pumps.
  4. Industrial applications: Solutions for a range of water management, treatment, supply and disposal needs across a wide array of industries such as brewery production, food and dairy, fire protection and industrial spraying.

On April 30, 2018, Pentair completed the spinoff of its electrical unit, nVent Electric plc....
The business of finance seems to attract large numbers of two kinds of people. Some take many things in life way too seriously. Others have a knack for spotting the humour in their work lives, sometimes to a point that jeopardizes their career success.

You can learn a lot about investing if you can bear to listen to the too-serious crowd....
ALTAGAS LTD., $30.47, is still a buy. The company (symbol ALA on Toronto) processes, transports, stores and markets natural gas for producers. It also operates natural gas utilities and is a power generator, with gas-fired, coal-fired, wind, biomass and hydroelectric plants.

Almost all of AltaGas’ assets are now in the U.S....