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: The linkage between oil prices and pipelines is multi-faceted.


In the short-term, due to long-term contracts and other arrangements, the impact of falling oil prices is minimal for most major pipeline companies.


However, a sustained period of depressed oil prices could result in lower volumes being transported....
Dear Inner Circle Member,


We see our three-part Successful Investor approach as the best foundation for building an investment portfolio that expands your prospects for growth and keeps your risk exposure in check. As you probably know, it has three key parts:


  1. Invest mainly in well-established, profitable, dividend-paying stocks;

  1. spread your money out across most if not all of the five main economic sectors;

  1. downplay or avoid stocks in the broker/media limelight.

I’ve written about aspects of it many times in our newsletters....
A: NeuLion Inc., $0.64, symbol NLN on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 282.0 million; Market cap: $180.4 million; www.neulion.com), is an online video technology company headquartered in Plainview, New York. It takes the live feed of content providers and encodes and edits it....
A: Neovasc Inc., $1.15, symbol NVCN on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 78.7 million; Market cap: $84.5 million; www.neovasc.com), develops and markets specialty cardiovascular products.


Neovasc’s products in development include the Tiara, a transcatheter system that is used to implant a replacement mitral valve in a patient’s heart....
A: Panera Bread (formerly symbol PNRA on Nasdaq), is now a private company following its acquisition by Luxembourg-based JAB Holdings. It’s the investment vehicle of Germany’s billionaire Reimann family. It has snapped up several U.S.-based breakfast and coffee companies in recent years and now owns Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Keurig Green Mountain, Caribou Coffee and Peet’s Coffee & Tea.


The Panera bid was formally announced on April 5, 2017, and helped lift the stock about 20% to its purchase offer of $315 U.S....
Dear Inner Circle member,


In doing research for my latest quarterly letter to clients, I was struck once again by today’s lop-sided view of the long-term market outlook. You’ll find lots of references to how far and how fast the market has gone up in the past eight years, compared to the long-term averages....
A: Pure Multi-Family REIT LP, $8.45, symbol RUF.UN on the Toronto Venture Exchange (Units outstanding: 66.4 million; Market cap: $652.4 million, www.puremultifamily.com), is a Canadian based, publicly traded REIT that owns U.S. multi-family real estate assets.


The REIT first sold units to the public and began trading on the Toronto Venture Exchange at $5.00 in July 2012.


Pure Multi focuses on luxury resort-style apartment communities in sunbelt locations such as Dallas, Houston and Phoenix....
A: BMO Discount Bond Index ETF, $15.81, symbol ZDB on Toronto (Units outstanding: 31.3 million; Market cap: $494.9 million; www.etfs.bmo.com), aims to match the performance of the FTSE TMX Canada Universe Discount Bond Index.


The 76 bonds in the portfolio have an average term-to-maturity of 9.7 years....
A: Check Point Software, $113.64, symbol CHKP on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 163.4 million; Market cap: $18.7 billion, www.checkpoint.com), designs and makes firewall security systems to protect computers and mobile devices from online attacks.


The company generates 45.3% of its revenue from software updates and maintenance; 29.0% of its revenue from products and licenses; and 25.7% from software-as-a-service subscriptions.


Check Point first sold shares to the public at $14.00 a share and began trading on Nasdaq on June 29, 1996.


The company’s revenues have risen steadily over the last five years, despite a rising U.S....
Dear Inner Circle Member,


Last week I wrote about “mental chewing gum-type” market indicators: the kind that keep your mind busy in the same way that chewing gum keeps your jaw busy, while providing comparably little nourishment. You can contrast them with what I’d call “food-for-thought” indicators....