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
A: US Critical Metals Corp., $0.38, symbol USCM on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE) (Shares outstanding: 30.3 million; Market cap: $11.4 million; www.uscmcorp.com), is focused on mining projects in the U.S.


Through joint ventures with public and private-sector partners, the company has a stake in several rare-earth mining projects—all exploratory or in early stages of development.
A: Kinross Gold Corp., $25.17, symbol K on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 1.2 billion; Market cap: $30.5 billion; www.kinross.com), is a senior gold mining company with a diverse portfolio of mines and projects.


In the U.S., the company operates mines in Nevada (Round Mountain and Bald Mountain) and in Alaska (Fort Knox as well as the Manh Choh development project). In Canada, it owns the Great Bear development project in Red Lake, Ontario, while in Brazil, Kinross operates Paracatur, a mine in the Minas Gerais region. Also in South America, it operates the La Coipa mine in the Atacama region of Chile, along with the large Lobo-Marte development project. In Africa, the company’s Tasiast mine in Mauritania benefits from expanding production.
A: We continue to like the outlook for one of our TSI Stocks of the Year for 2025, FirstService Corp., $270.32, symbol FSV on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 45.4 million; Market cap: $12.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; www.firstservice.com). The company offers management services to condominium corporations and a growing list of niche services to individual homeowners (see below).


FirstService boosted its earnings 27% in the most-recent quarter through its well-managed acquisition of several small firms. Those businesses depend on recurring business from existing homeowners and are less vulnerable to the ups and downs of new home sales. They also immediately added to the company’s overall revenue and earnings.
We have seen a nice increase in questions from our Inner Circle members over the last quarter or so. (Just below is a prime example.) Your emails have kept us busy, and they offer insights into what investment issues have seized your attention. Keep the emails coming!
We think investors will profit most—and with the least risk—by buying shares of well-established companies with strong business prospects and strong positions in healthy industries. You should also take care to spread your money out across the five main economic sectors: Manufacturing & Industry, Resources, Finance, Utilities, and Consumer.