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
New Flyer Industries, $12.90, symbol NFI on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 55.5 million; Market cap: $716.0 million; www.newflyer.com), is the leading transit bus maker in the U.S. and Canada. It also provides parts and service. In the three months ended September 30, 2014, New Flyer’s revenue rose 17.7%, to $360.8 million from $306.5 million a year earlier. The gain was mainly due to a 7.6% increase in bus deliveries and a 40.7% rise in parts and service revenue. Earnings per share rose 28.6%, to $0.18 from $0.14. New Flyer’s long-term outlook is sound. Transit spending is steadily rebounding as vehicle fleets age and government finances improve. However, bus manufacturing and service remain highly competitive businesses, as competitors try to rebuild their backlogs. That could limit the company’s profit growth....
Royal Dutch Shell plc (ADR), $67.49, symbol RDS.A on New York (ADRs outstanding: 3.2 billion; Market cap: $215.1 billion; www.shell.com), owns or invests in the many companies that make up the Royal Dutch Shell Group. The Netherlands-based oil giant operates in 70 countries and is involved in all areas of the oil and gas industry. It also has interests in chemicals and other energy-related businesses. Shell appointed Ben Van Beurden as CEO at the start of this year, taking over from Peter Voser. Under Van Beurden, the company continues to exit unprofitable, risky or non-essential projects, with plans to sell $15 billion worth of assets by the end of 2015....
RepliCel Life Sciences Inc., $0.34, symbol RP on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 54.9 million; Market cap: $18.7 million; www.replicel.com), aims to develop and patent its hair-loss treatment. RepliCel’s technology uses cells taken from each patient’s own healthy hair follicles to reproduce and “reintroduce” cells to the affected areas. RepliCel also believes it can use its technology to treat a variety of issues that stem from cell deficiencies, including chronic tendinosis and aging skin. In late 2013, Shiseido Company, a major Japanese hair care and cosmetics firm, paid RepliCel $4.1 million for an exclusive licence to its RCH-01 male pattern baldness cell therapy in certain Asian countries, including Japan, China and South Korea....
Cardiff Energy, $0.16, symbol CRS on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 31.0 million; Market cap: $5.0 million; www.cardiffenergy.com), is a junior oil and gas exploration firm. It first sold shares to the public and began trading in April 2012. Cardiff holds interests in 15 producing oil wells, one producing gas well and three shut-in oil wells in the Lincoln County area of central Oklahoma. It also has holdings in other parts of the state, including seven producing oil and gas wells in the Garvin County area and interests in the Buzzard Sand oil property in Osage County. So far the company has very little production: in the three months ended June 30, 2014, it generated just $45,547 in revenue from its interests in the Oklahoma wells....
We haven’t found any specific lumber or forest products companies we want to recommend as buys. But here’s a look at Canfor and West Fraser Timber: Canfor Corp., $27.25, symbol CFP on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 135.4 million; Market cap: $3.7 billion; www.canfor.com), is a leading North American producer of softwood lumber, with 5.2 billion board feet of annual capacity located across Western Canada and the southeastern U.S. The company also has exposure to softwood pulp markets through its 50.4% ownership of Canfor Pulp LP....
Hercules Technology Growth Capital, $15.31, symbol HTGC on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 63.3 million; Market cap: $982.9 million; www.htgc.com), provides loans to venture capital-backed technology companies in a range of fields, including biotechnology, life sciences and renewable energy. Since it started up in December 2003, Hercules has committed more than $4.4 billion to over 290 companies. It looks for firms with annual revenue between $10 million and $200 million. Hercules aims to cut its risk by concentrating on senior secured debt investments and diversifying its funding across many firms....
If you visit a vacation resort this winter, you may get invited to a complimentary dinner, cocktail party or other event. In return for the free drinks, food or entertainment, all you’ll have to do is sit through a pitch for an “investment” in a time-share. It may be worthwhile to attend, depending on what else you have to do. But in my experience, time-share purchases rarely provide you with any real advantage. You might look on time-shares as the vacationers’ version of the new stock issue. Some of them seem to work out well for some people, at least for a while. But on the whole, it’s a good idea to stay out of new issues, and an even better idea to stay out of time-shares. Before buying any time-share, check the Internet for resales of comparable time-shares. You’ll often find they sell way below the initial time-share sales price....
The ALPS Sector Dividend Dogs ETF, $38.79, symbol SDOG on New York (Units outstanding: 24.3 million; Market cap: $942.6 million; www.alpssectordividenddogs.com), is an ETF that applies the “Dogs of the Dow” theory on a sector-by-sector basis using the stocks in the S&P 500. The fund’s MER is 0.40%. The Dogs of the Dow approach involves buying the lowest-priced, highest-yielding stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. At the end of each year, you pick the 10 stocks from the 30-stock Dow with the highest dividend yields. You then invest an equal dollar amount in each, hold them for one year and repeat these steps annually. The ALPS Sector Dividend Dogs ETF picks five stocks from each of the 10 sectors as defined by the S&P 500 index—consumer discretionary, consumer staples, energy, financials, health care, industrials, information technology, materials, telecommunication services and utilities. The ETF picks the stocks with the highest dividend yields. Each holding is then equally weighted so that every company has a similar influence on the ETF’s total return. The end result is a portfolio of 50 large cap stocks....
Here are four we cover in our Wall Street Stock Forecaster newsletter. Three are buys and one is a hold. C.R. Bard, $166.50, symbol BCR on New York (Shares outstanding: 74.9 million; Market cap: $12.6 billion; www.crbard.com), continues to develop successful new medical devices. For example, it should soon receive approval to start selling a catheter that uses a drug-coated balloon to treat clogged arteries. Products like this are helping Bard offset the 2.3% tax it has to pay on certain medical devices it sells in the U.S. under Obamacare. C.R. Bard is a buy. Pfizer, $30.29, symbol PFE on New York (Shares outstanding: 6.3 billion; Market cap: $190.4 billion; www.pfizer.com), is the world’s largest maker of prescription drugs. Its main brands include Lyrica (epilepsy), Celebrex (arthritis), Viagra (erectile dysfunction) and Prevnar (a pneumonia vaccine). The company also makes popular over the-counter drugs, including Advil (pain relief), Centrum (vitamins) and Robitussin (cough syrup). Pfizer is a buy....
Concordia Health Care, $46.76, symbol CXR on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 28.9 million; Market cap: $1.3 billion; www.concordiarx.com), is an Oakville, Ontario-based specialty pharmaceutical company that acquires and sells established drugs, mainly in the U.S. The company aims to acquire the rights to relatively small, mature products as opposed to the newer treatments that larger drug companies target. Concordia recently announced that it would acquire the North American rights to the epilepsy drug Zonegran from Eisai Inc. for $190 million. The purchase is expected to close shortly....