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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Toronto-Dominion Bank has a strong presence in the U.S., with more branches there than in Canada. The bank continues to gain from an improving American economy, while the weak Canadian dollar enhances the rising earnings it’s seeing from the U.S. TD’s latest acquisition in that country also adds to its prospects. TD BANK $51.38 (Toronto symbol TD; Shares outstanding: 1.8 billion; Market cap: $94.9 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.0%; www.td.com) is Canada’s largest bank, with $1.1 trillion of assets. It operates 1,305 branches in the U.S.—compared to 1,166 in Canada—and owns 41.01% of TD Ameritrade (New York symbol AMTD), a leading online brokerage. Excluding one-time items, TD’s earnings per share rose 4.4% in its fiscal 2015 third quarter, which ended July 31, 2015, to $1.20 from $1.15. Revenue gained 6.6%, to $8.0 billion from $7.5 billion....
ENBRIDGE INC. $52.76 (Toronto symbol ENB; Shares outstanding: 856.7 million; Market cap: $45.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Div. yield: 3.5%; www.enbridge. com) continues to move ahead with the major reorganization it announced in December 2014. The company plans to transfer some of its pipelines and wind farms to 19.9%-owned affiliate Enbridge Income Fund Holdings Inc. (Toronto symbol ENF). This company owns 42% of Enbridge Income Fund (Enbridge Inc. owns the remaining 58%), which holds a variety of businesses, including oil and gas pipelines and solar and wind farms. Asset transfers like this, called drop-downs, free up cash the parent company can use for new projects. The affiliate also benefits because the new assets’ cash flow helps it maintain or raise its distributions to investors....
We think conservative investors could hold up to 10% of their portfolios in foreign stocks. One way to do that is to buy carefully chosen exchange traded funds (ETFs) that have an overseas focus. The best ETFs offer very low management fees and well-diversified, tax-efficient portfolios of highquality stocks. Here’s a look at five international ETFs:...
ISHARES MSCI EMERGING MARKETS EASTERN EUROPE INDEX FUND (formerly New York symbol ESR) has been closed by BlackRock, which manages the iShares funds. Investors were sent a final distribution of the fund’s net asset value, $16.17 per unit, on August 28, 2015. The iShares MSCI Emerging Markets Eastern Europe Index Fund had two-thirds of its assets invested in Russia, including stocks of major Russian firms, such as gas utility Gazprom, oil producer Lukoil and retailer Magnit PJSC. Investor interest in the fund waned after Russia’s currency, the ruble, dropped to nearrecord lows against the U.S. dollar. The ruble’s fall comes in the wake of falling prices for oil and other commodities and Western sanctions after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine....
We have changed our recommendations on these four ETFs from buy to hold: ISHARES MSCI BRAZIL INDEX FUND $23.94 (New York symbol EWZ) is an ETF that’s designed to track the Brazilian stock market. ISHARES CHINA LARGE-CAP ETF $34.67 (New York symbol FXI) is an exchange traded fund that aims to track the Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) China 50 Index, which is made up of the 50 largest, most liquid Chinese stocks....
TRANSCANADA CORP. $43.86 (Toronto symbol TRP; Shares outstanding: 708.9 million; Market cap: $31.2 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 4.7%; www.transcanada.com) wants to build the Energy East pipeline, which would pump oil from Alberta to Eastern Canadian refineries. The plan involves converting parts of its existing natural gas pipeline to handle oil. The company recently signed deals with three major gas distributors (two in Ontario and one in Quebec) that ensure the project will not cut their gas supplies or increase their costs. As part of this agreement, TransCanada will add new, smaller gas pipelines to replace the portions of the main gas line it will convert to oil. These deals help cut Energy East’s risk. The project faces strong environmental and political opposition, but if regulators approve the new line, it could start up in 2020....
ALGONQUIN POWER & UTILITIES CORP. $9.38 (Toronto symbol AQN; Shares outstanding: 239.5 million; Market cap: $2.3 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 5.3%; www.algonquinpower.com) has used acquisitions to nearly triple in size over the past three years and is planning more purchases. The company’s regulated utility businesses now provide water, electricity and natural gas to over 489,000 customers, up sharply from 120,000 three years ago. Its hydroelectric, thermal energy, solar and wind facilities now generate 1,050 megawatts, up from 460. Emera (Toronto symbol EMA), a recommendation of The Successful Investor, our conservative growth advisory, owns 20.9% of Algonquin....
BROOKFIELD RENEWABLE ENERGY PARTNERS L.P. $35.71 (Toronto symbol BEP.UN; Units outstanding: 265.2 million; Market cap: $9.8 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 6.1%; www.brookfieldrenewable.com) owns 209 hydroelectric generating stations, 38 wind farms and five natural-gas-fired plants. In all, it has over 7,000 megawatts of generating capacity. Roughly 26% of that capacity is in Canada, with another 51% in the U.S. and 16% in Brazil. In the three months ended June 30, 2015, Brookfield’s cash flow per share fell 28.4%, to $0.53 from $0.74 a year earlier. That’s because below-normal rainfall slowed the company’s hydroelectric production. The units trade at 15.5 times Brookfield’s forecast 2015 cash flow of $2.30 a share. They yield 6.1%....
The Bank of Canada cut its key interest rate to 0.50% from 0.75% in July 2015. The move came after the bank dropped its 2015 growth forecast for the Canadian economy to 1.1% from 2.0%. The cut partly reflects falling prices for oil and other commodities. Even so, the long-term outlook is for higher interest rates. That’s because heavy deficit spending and the expansion of the money supply in the past few years make higher inflation more likely. We continue to advise against investing in bonds right now. That’s because today’s low interest rates make bonds unattractive, and rising rates would push down their future value....
BCE INC. $52.87 (Toronto symbol BCE; Shares outstanding: 848.1 million; Market cap: $44.1 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 5.0%; www.bce.ca) has sold its 15% stake in the Globe and Mail newspaper to Woodbridge Co., the private firm controlled by the Thomson family. Woodbridge now owns 100% of the Globe. The company didn’t say how much it received, but the sale will let it focus on its main media businesses, including CTV Television, specialty channels, radio stations and their related websites. In the second quarter of 2015, the media division’s earnings rose 2.4% from a year earlier and accounted for 9.8% of BCE’s total....