Super Micro Computer, $33.30, symbol SMCI on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 46.5 million; Market cap: $1.6 billion; www.supermicro.com), makes servers and server components. The company posted sharply higher results in the latest quarter: in the three months ended December 31, 2014, its revenue rose 41.2%, to $503.0 million from $356.4 million a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, earnings per share jumped 85.7%, to $0.65 from $0.35, beating the consensus estimate of $0.47. The company continues to gain market share, and it’s expanding successfully into products for cloud computing. Super Micro was in the news after reporting its strong results—but the limelight entails far broader coverage from brokers and the media than what the company received. Current examples of in-the-limelight stocks include high-profile companies like Facebook, Tesla, Netflix and so on....

CI Select 50i50e Managed Portfolio Fund is a balanced mutual fund, holding a mixture of stocks and bonds. It holds 50% of its assets in bonds and 50% in Canadian, U.S. and foreign stocks. The fund has a 2.32% MER. We don’t generally recommend balanced funds, as bonds are unlikely to perform well over the next few years, if only because interest rates will likely hold steady or rise. That means the fund would only earn interest income on its bonds; instead of capital gains, its bond holdings could produce capital losses. The CI Select 50i50e Managed Portfolio Fund holds mostly corporate bonds, which are riskier than government bonds and have risk levels that vary widely. Some corporates are almost as safe as government bonds and offer only slightly higher yields. Others offer higher yields but are much riskier....

SolarCity Corp., $52.13, symbol SCTY on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 96.6 million; Market cap: $4.9 billion; www.solarcity.com), provides rooftop solar systems for homeowners, businesses, schools and government agencies in the U.S. The company creates a customized energy plan for each customer, then sells, finances, engineers, installs, monitors and maintains the system. Customers can “sell” any electricity they don’t use onto the power grid for credits they can use to “buy” electricity at night. SolarCity continues to grow quickly. In the three months ended December 31, 2014, the amount of megawatts deployed rose 70% from a year ago, the number of megawatt orders booked jumped 103%, and SolarCity added 21,318 clients, bringing its total to 189,657 as of the end of the quarter. In 2013, it had a customer base of 44,579....

Northland Power Inc., $17.15, symbol NPI on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 149.7 million; Market cap: $2.9 billion; www.northlandpower.ca), develops, builds, owns and operates natural-gas-fired power plants, wind farms, solar projects and hydroelectric facilities. The company converted to a corporation from an income trust on January 1, 2011. Northland owns or has stakes in 1,345 megawatts of operating generating capacity, with an additional 640 megawatts (400 megawatts net to Northland) under construction and another 456 megawatts (348 megawatts net to Northland) with awarded power contracts....

Most investors would agree when I say that Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) started out as the most benign investment innovation that has come along in our lifetimes.

However, as often happens after the successful launch of any new investment product, the financial industry soon came up with new, improved ETFs. The new models came with a wider variety of investor appeal, along with new wrinkles and extra costs.

The first ETFs had a simple goal: cutting fees for investors. Each new ETF aimed to copy the performance of a particular stock index (minus the costs of creating and running the ETF, of course). Most of the model indices were well-known, widely followed collections of actively traded stocks.

These days, new ETFs aim to broaden investment opportunities for investors, and create new profit opportunities for the financial companies that sponsor them.

Instead of giving you a low-cost way to copy the results of a standard market index, new ETFs aim to mimic much narrower indices and higher-risk strategies. They may give you a way to invest in a particular foreign stock market—coupled, in many cases, with an arrangement that hedges against movements in the foreign currency in which that foreign market carries on its trading. Or they may give you a way to participate in a particular stock-market strategy.

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Market Vectors Agribusiness ETF, $54.21, symbol MOO on New York (Units outstanding: 26.1 million; Market cap: $1.4 billion; www.vaneck.com), aims to track the Market Vectors Global Agribusiness Index, after expenses. This index includes shares of agricultural firms from around the world. To be included, a company must be publicly traded, have a market cap over $150 million U.S. and meet certain minimum trading volumes. The index contains five major subsectors: agriculture chemicals and fertilizers, agricultural products, agricultural equipment, livestock operations, and biofuels (including ethanol and biodiesel). The geographic breakdown of stocks in the Market Vectors Global Agribusiness Index is as follows: the U.S. (48.9%), Canada (11.0%), Switzerland (8.1%), Japan (6.4%), Singapore (4.1%), Norway (3.8%), the Netherlands (3.1%), Malaysia (3.0%), China (1.9%), Australia (1.9%) and other countries (7.8%)....

The Hershey Co., $102.43, symbol HSY on New York (Shares outstanding: 160.2 million; Market cap: $22.3 billion; www.hersheys.com), is the largest maker of candy and other sweets in the U.S. Its major brands are Hershey’s, Reese’s, Kisses, Kit Kat, Jolly Rancher, Twizzlers, Mounds and Milk Duds.

In the three months ended December 31, 2014, Hershey’s revenue rose 2.7%, to $2.01 billion from $1.96 billion a year earlier. Excluding one-time items, earnings per share gained 20.9%, to $1.04 from $0.86. Earnings rose faster than revenue because the company was able to raise its prices while cutting costs.

Hershey holds cash of $472.0 million, or $2.95 a share. Its $1.5 billion of long-term debt is a low 6.7% of its $22.3-billion market cap.

In February 2015, the company announced plans to use simpler ingredients in response to consumers’ shift toward more natural and locally sourced foods. The move came a day after the U.S. division of Swiss rival Nestle announced a similar plan.

Hershey’s new ingredients include locally produced milk and almonds from California. The company will also use more non-genetically modified sugar and milk from cows that haven’t been treated with hormones. As well, it will avoid artificial flavours and colours.

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Big Bank Big Oil Split Corp. is a split-share company with two types of stock: capital shares ($9.32, symbol BBO on Toronto) and preferred shares ($10.21, symbol BBO.PR.A on Toronto).

The company holds shares of the biggest six Canadian banks, plus 10 large Canadian oil and gas and pipeline companies.

Split-share companies typically issue two classes of shares. Usually the capital shares get all or most of the capital gains and losses, as well as variable dividend income, and the preferred shares get a fixed amount of dividend income.

In the case of Big Bank Big Oil Split, the capital shares receive a monthly dividend of $0.05 a share ($0.60 annually), which gives them a 6.4% yield. The monthly dividend has been as high at $0.09, most recently in 2010.

The dividend income the company gets from its portfolio isn’t enough to pay capital and preferred share dividends and management expenses of 1.22%, in addition to providing a return for the capital shares. To make up the difference, the company has to make a profit by trading its portfolio. It also aims to raise its returns by writing call options on the portfolio’s securities.

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Counsel Corp., $2.15, symbol CXS on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 99.4 million; Market cap: $211.6 million; www.counselcorp.com), operates a residential mortgage-lending business through its wholly owned subsidiary, Street Capital. The company sources its mortgages through a network of independent brokers in all Canadian provinces except Quebec. It then sells the mortgages it underwrites to leading financial institutions. Even though the company sells the mortgages, it continues to handle all communication with borrowers throughout each mortgage’s term. That lets it renew mortgages without the cost of acquiring new ones, which typically involves significant expenses for things like brokers, marketing and underwriting....

Research Frontiers, $5.29, symbol REFR on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 23.9 million; Market cap: $127.0 million; www.smartglass.com), invented suspended particle device (SPD) technology, a film-based system that lets users control the tint of glass or plastic.

The company aims to sell this innovation to clients in four main industries, the largest of which it feels is the automotive business, followed by aerospace, architecture and marine. It also operates its VariGuard division, which seeks to protect light-sensitive artifacts from damage.

So far, Research Frontiers says it has licensed its systems to over 40 firms.

One example is Mercedes’ S-Class luxury car, which will feature Research Frontiers’ SPD-SmartGlass system. The S-Class Coupe, as well as other variants, will offer an optional panoramic roof that uses this technology.

The company’s tinting system has appeal, but it has yet to move far beyond options for buyers in high-end niche markets like luxury cars, yachts, private jets and art galleries. That’s why Research Frontiers’ license revenue was just $1.6 million in 2014, down from $2.2 million in 2013.

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