How To Invest

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

[text_ad]

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.

[text_ad]

Read More Close
How To Invest Library Archives
A: Global UAV Technologies, $0.08, symbol UAV on the Canadian Securities Exchange (Shares outstanding: 124.8 million; Market cap: $10.0 million; www.globaluavtech.com) was called Alta Vista Ventures before moving into the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), or drone, business in 2017.

While the company changed its name to Global UAV Technologies in May of that year, it maintained its listing on the Canadian Securities Exchange (CSE)....
A: The Invesco S&P SmallCap Health Care ETF, $135.19, symbol PSCH on Nasdaq (Units outstanding: 5.9 million; Market cap: $797.6 million; www.invesco.com), invests in smaller U.S. firms involved in the health-care industry....
A: SiteOne Landscape Supply, $87.86, symbol SITE on New York (Shares outstanding: 40.2 million; Market cap: $3.4 billion; www.siteone.com), is the biggest national wholesale distributor of landscaping supplies in the U.S....
Canada’s legalization of marijuana for recreational use is now set for October 17, 2018. That should boost cannabis production and sales—and the appeal of marijuana stocks for investors. However, even for aggressive investors, it’s important to understand the risks associated with these stocks.

Share prices for many Canadian cannabis stocks have soared since mid-2016—although most have now given back some of those gains.

The speculative appeal of Canadian marijuana stocks continues to attract investors looking for a “ground-floor opportunity.” However, the pioneers in an industry are not always the ones who survive....
A: Excelsior Mining, $1.15, symbol MIN on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 206.3 million; Market cap: $237.2 million; www.excelsiormining.com), is focused on bringing its Gunnison copper project in Cochise County, Arizona, to production.

The company believes that it will soon have all required permits in place to begin construction....
A: West Fraser Timber, $92.20, symbol WFT on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 73.9 million; Market cap: $7.0 billion; www.westfraser.com), is the largest North American softwood lumber producer (with a 10% market share)....
A: Bloomin’ Brands Inc., $20.07, symbol BLMN on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 92.8 million; Market cap: $1.8 billion; www.bloominbrands.com), owns and operates 1,494 restaurants (1,200 company-owned and 294 franchised) in 48 states and 19 countries....
When a hedge-fund manager goes into a performance slump, media and investor reactions often leave me with an odd feeling. They make me wonder, “Why does this surprise you?”

The media and the investors they quote seem to treat a hedge fund manager’s slump as a temporary departure from a predictable career path—like a series of bombs by an Oscar-winning film star, or an unreadable experimental novel by your favourite author, or, depending on your politics, Hillary Clinton’s loss to Donald Trump.

For example, John Paulson pole-vaulted to the top of the hedge-fund heap in 2008, with a superbly timed bet against the subprime mortgages that were financing the real-estate boom....
A: Norbord Inc., $54.30, symbol OSB on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 86.6 million; Market cap: $4.7 billion; www.norbord.com), is one of the world’s largest producers of oriented strand board (OSB)....
A: Supremex Inc., $3.20, symbol SXP on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 28.4 million; Market cap: $90.9 million; www.supremex.com), is a leading North American maker of envelopes (81% of total revenue) and also sells packaging and specialty products (19% of revenue)....