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: Purpose Core Dividend Fund ETF, $27.78 symbol PDF on Toronto, (Units outstanding: 13.0 million; Market cap: $361.1 million; www.purposeinvest.com), holds U.S. and Canadian stocks that its managers view as able to sustain and grow their dividends.

The fund holds mostly high-quality companies....
Dear Inner Circle member,

Here’s the text of the most-recent letter I sent to our Portfolio Management clients in late October:

“Emergency government measures can have unpleasant, unforeseeable side effects for the economy and investors. But you need a long-term perspective to see the link between cause and effect.

The 2008/2009 financial crisis was the world’s worst financial upset since the 1930s....
A: HIVE Blockchain, $3.47, symbol HIVE on the Toronto Venture Exchange (Shares outstanding: 234.6 million; Market cap: $30.1 million; www.hiveblockchain.com), is new company that aims to profit by “mining” cryptocurrencies like bitcoin.

HIVE began trading on the Venture Exchange on September 18, 2017, after it changed its name from Leeta Gold....
A: Canacol Energy, $4.20, symbol CNE on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 175.8 million; Market cap: $731.9 million; www.canocolenergy.com), is a Calgary-based oil and natural gas production and exploration company with operations focused in Colombia and Ecuador....
A: CanWel Building Materials Group Inc., $6.89, symbol CWX on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 77.7 million; Market cap: $528.9 million; www.canwel.com), distributes hardware, building materials and home renovation products.

Operating from 18 distribution centers across Canada, CanWel serves the new home construction, home renovation and industrial market....
A: DIRTT Environmental Solutions Ltd., $5.88, symbol DRT on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 84.7 million; Market cap: $485.4 million; www.dirtt.net), designs and builds customized office interiors....
A: Stryker Corp., $155.82, symbol SYK on New York (Shares outstanding: 374.2 million; Market cap: $57.9 billion; www.stryker.com), sells a range of medical products, including implants used in joint-replacement; surgical equipment; endoscopic devices (for looking inside the body); communications systems; patient-handling and emergency medical equipment; neurosurgical, neurovascular and spinal devices; and a range of other specialized medical gear.

The company has a history of using acquisitions to expand....
Dear Inner Circle member,

Most of our readers understand that you need a healthy sense of skepticism to succeed as an investor. Most agree that conflicts of interest are the greatest risk you face as an investor. They see how these conflicts can taint advice you get from a broker, a stock promoter, or anybody who has an interest in an investment you’re considering.

You also need a degree of skepticism when you read opinions on matters that touch on investments....
A: Western Copper & Gold Corp., $1.16, symbol WRN on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 94.4 million; Market cap: $115.0 million; www.westerncoppercorp.com), owns the Casino project in the Yukon. The mining site is Western Copper’s sole asset....
A: As a general rule, the safest bonds are issued by or guaranteed by the federal government. Next are provincial issues or bonds with provincial guarantees. After that come corporate bonds.

The risk on corporate bonds varies widely. Some corporates are almost as safe as government bonds and offer only slightly higher yields....