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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WSP’s projects—both those recently completed and those ongoing—are varied. They include a two-million-square-foot Children’s hospital in Atlanta; a 1,325 megawatts offshore wind farm in Italy; a 12-storey shipping centre in Hong Kong; and National Bank’s new 40-storey head office in Montreal.
In October 2025, the company completed the acquisition of Ricardo plc, a U.K.-based global consulting firm with two units:
The company has two main business segments: Kratos Government Solutions (KGS), and Unmanned Systems (UAS).
KGS mainly serves the U.S. defence department, intelligence agencies, and allied international governments. It is Kratos’s largest segment, contributing about 75% of its sales. Overall, product sales contribute 63% of KGS’s revenue; with maintenance services contributing the remaining 37%.
The company spun off its Health Care division as a separate firm called Solventum Corp. (New York symbol SOLV) on April 1, 2024. That business makes products that treat and prevent infection in wounds; it also manufactures dental filling materials, and filtration and purification products.
Investors received one share of Solventum for every four shares of 3M they held. 3M retained a 19.9% stake in the new firm, but it plans to sell those shares within the next five years. The split has left 3M to focus on its core operations. At the same time, it has helped to spur its stock to a 27.8% gain since the start of the year.
Still, in a bull market like today’s—the S&P/TSX Composite is up 20.4% so far this year—conservative investors often wind up selling some of their best stocks way too early.
In short, they’re afraid that even high-quality stocks have gone up “too far, too fast.” For the same reason, many other investors will hesitate to buy these highfliers, regardless of their attractive growth prospects. (See below for one IC member’s question on 3M.)
Before taking either approach, think twice.