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: Keyera Corp., $27.81, symbol KEY on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 209.3 million; Market cap: $5.8 billion; www.keyera.com), provides a number of midstream services to the oil and gas industry, including the collection, processing, storage and shipment of oil and gas....
A: Jollibee Foods Corporation, $6.20, symbol JBFCF on the Nasdaq over-the-counter market (Shares outstanding: 1.1 billion; Market cap: $6.8 billion; www.jollibee.com.ph), is a multinational operator of fast-food restaurants based in the Philippines....
Global food giants are eager to spur growth—either by swapping their sugary offerings for more healthful treats or by acquiring and then streamlining smaller competitors. Apart from market leaders PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, other big firms, like Kraft Heinz, are looking to make more acquisitions.

Below are special reports on two smaller food companies that we cover in our Spinoffs, Takeovers & Special Situations newsletter....
A: B2Gold Corp., $3.95, symbol BTO on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 939.4 million; Market cap: $4.0 billion; www.b2gold.com), owns five mines: the Limon and Libertad gold mines in Nicaragua; the Otjikoto mine in Namibia; the Masbate mine in the Philippines; and the new Feloka mine in Mali.

B2Gold also holds a 49% interest in Colombia’s Gramalote project.

The company was formed by the management team of Bema Gold after Kinross Gold bought out that mining firm in early 2007.

Six years later, in 2013, B2Gold completed its $1.1 billion purchase of CGA Mining (symbol CGA on Toronto)....
A: Artis REIT, $9.31, symbol AX.UN on Toronto (Units outstanding: 153.8 million; Market cap: $1.4 billion; www.artisreit.com), owns 234 properties, totalling 24.8 million square feet of office (42.5%), industrial (43.5%) and retail (14.0%) space.

The REIT has holdings in both Canada and the U.S.: Alberta (15.6% of the total), Ontario (15.9%), Manitoba (15.6%), Saskatchewan (5.9%), B.C....
A: The Vanguard Conservative ETF Portfolio, $24.04, symbol VCNS on Toronto, holds roughly 40% of its assets in Vanguard stock ETFs and 60% in bond ETFs. This $117.8 million ETF started up on January 25, 2018, and has a 0.22% MER. The ETF yields 3.1%.

The Vanguard Balanced ETF Portfolio, $22.58, symbol VBAL on Toronto, has the opposite proportions to the Vanguard Conservative ETF Portfolio....
A: Altria Group Inc., $49.14, symbol MO on New York (Shares outstanding: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $92.8 billion; www.altria.com), is a U.S.-based holding company that operates in three main areas:
  1. Smokeable products (cigarettes and cigars) supplied roughly 86% of Altria’s operating profits in 2017....
“I’m a very old man and I’ve worried a great deal about a lot of things in my life, most of which never happened.”

—Attributed to Mark Twain, Thomas Jefferson, and various other historical figures

The stock market has gone through sharp up-and-down moves in the past few weeks....
A: Enghouse Systems, $68.30, symbol ENGH on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 27.2 million; Market cap: $1.9 billion; www.enghouse.com), is a software and services provider.

The company operates through two business groups: Interaction Management (59% of total revenue) sells software for managing customer interactions; and Asset Management (41% of revenue) offers technology solutions for network operators and software solutions for transit and transportation operators.

Over the past five years, revenue for Enghouse Systems rose steadily from $179.9 million in 2013 (fiscal years ended October 31) to $325.4 million in 2017.

Earnings jumped 21.9%, from $24.3 million in 2013 ($0.94 per share) to $29.7 million ($1.14) for 2014....
Here’s the text of the most-recent letter I sent to our Portfolio Management clients in November. This will be our last Inner Circle mailing for 2018. Our next issue will go out on Wednesday, January 2, 2019.

Now is a good time for us to thank you for your membership and participation in our Inner Circle, your trust, and the kind comments we get from you each week....