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
Dear Inner Circle member,


Let me give you a short overview of how my market outlook has changed since the recent U.S. Presidential election.


Before the election, I assumed, like most observers, that Hillary Clinton was sure to win. I took her at her word that she would “build on the Obama legacy.” To me that means that she would continue to raise taxes, and continue to add to regulation of the economy and business....
A: Questor Technology, $0.74, symbol QST on the TSX Venture Exchange (Shares outstanding: 26.4 million; Market cap: $19.8 million; www.questortech.com), makes waste-gas incinerators for the oil and gas industry.


The company’s incinerator technology aims to help companies dispose of methane gas, hydrogen sulphide gas, volatile organic hydrocarbons, hazardous air pollutants and BTEX gases (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene)....
A: TransAlta, $7.33, symbol TA on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 287.9 million; Market cap: $2.1 billion; www.transalta.com), is one of the biggest operators of coal-fired electric generating plants in Alberta.


Alberta Premier Rachel Notley has mandated that electric plants phase out coal power in the province by 2030....
A: The Score Inc., $0.20, symbol SCR on the TSX Venture Exchange (Shares outstanding: 295.5 million; Market cap: $56.2 million; www.thescore.com), delivers customizable sports news to fans through their mobile phones and computer desktops....
A: IBI Group Inc., $6.07, symbol IBG on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 31.2 million; Market cap: $188.1 million; www.ibigroup.com), began operating in 1974 and is now the eighth-largest architectural firm in the world....
A: Novo Nordisk A/S (ADR), $35.78, symbol NVO on New York (Shares outstanding: 2.0 billion; Market cap: $91.2 billion; www.novonordisk.com), is a major producer of diabetes-care products, including insulin....
A: Ekso Bionics, $4.66, symbol EKSO on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 20.1 million; Market cap: $93.7 million; www.eksobionics.com), develops ready-to-wear, battery-powered exoskeletons. Those modern-day suits of armour aim to improve the strength, mobility and endurance of the wearer....
A: Savaria Corp., $10.89, symbol SIS on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 35.4 million; Market cap: $382.6 million; www.savaria.com), makes products for people with limited mobility.


The company has two main businesses:


Accessibility (81% of revenue) makes elevators for homes and businesses as well as stairlifts (electrically powered chairs used to carry a person up and down a flight of stairs) and platform lifts (powered devices used to lift a wheelchair and its occupant over a step).


Adapted Vehicles (19%) installs ramps and lowered floors in minivans so they can accommodate wheelchairs....
A: Aphria Inc., $5.00, symbol APH on the TSX Venture Exchange (Shares outstanding: 98.6 million; Market cap: $493.0 million; www.aphria.com), is a licensed producer of medical marijuana based in Leamington, Ontario. Not only does it sell to retail patients, it also sells to other Canadian licensed producers.


Aphria currently operates 43,000 square feet of medical marijuana greenhouses....
Dear Inner Circle member,


Donald Trump’s election only becomes official on December 19, when the Electoral College electors in each state meet to cast their votes. However, the election outcome is already having an impact on U.S. foreign policy. It’s a big change from the Obama approach to foreign policy, which you could sum up as, “If we play nice with other countries, they’ll play nice with us.”


On June 24, 2010, for instance, the White House issued a document entitled: “U.S.-Russia Relations: ‘Reset’ Fact Sheet.”


The document began: “In one of his earliest new foreign policy initiatives, President Obama sought to reset relations with Russia and reverse what he called a “dangerous drift” in this important bilateral relationship.” The document went on to describe how the President would engage with the Russian government and people so that they can pursue common interests with win-win outcomes.


In his 2012 re-election campaign, Obama ridiculed his Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, for saying that Russia was America’s “number one geopolitical foe.” That same year, at a meeting in Seoul, South Korea, Obama told Russia’s then-president Dmitry Medvedev that he would have “more flexibility” to discuss contentious topics such as missile defense with Russia after he won re-election....