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
ISHARES S&P INDIA NIFTY 50 INDEX FUND $30.98 (Nasdaq symbol INDY; buy or sell through brokers; us.ishares.com) is an ETF that aims to invest in the 50 largest, most liquid Indian securities. Indian stocks have moved up steadily since the May 2014 election of Narendra Modi as prime minister. India still needs to modernize its transportation,communications and electrical infrastructure. It also needs to reform its inefficient, corrupt bureaucracy....
ISHARES AUSTRALIA INDEX FUND $27.34 (New York symbol EWA; buy or sell through brokers) is an ETF that holds the 72 largest Australian stocks. Its MER is 0.48%. The fund’s top holdings include Commonwealth Bank of Australia, 11.1%; BHP Billiton, 10.0%; Westpac Banking Corp., 9.2%; Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, 7.8%; National Australia Bank, 6.9%; Wesfarmers, 4.3%; Woolworths, 3.9%; CSL Ltd., 3.1%; Woodside Petroleum, 2.4%; Rio Tinto, 2.3%; Telstra Group, 2.0%, Macquarie Group, 1.4%; and Westfield Group, 1.3%. Australia benefits from its stable banking and political systems. It is also rich in natural resources and close to key Asian markets with vast potential, including India and China....
Pembina Pipeline and Veresen both trade at high multiples to their per-share cash flow. But both have strong growth prospects and high dividend yields. We think they have further gains ahead. PEMBINA PIPELINE $52.77 (Toronto symbol PPL; Shares outstanding: 327.0 million; Market cap: $16.8 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 3.3%; www.pembina.com) owns pipelines that carry half of Alberta’s conventional oil, 30% of Western Canada’s natural gas liquids (NGLs) and almost all of B.C.’s conventional oil. Pembina bought rival Provident Energy, which extracts, transports and stores NGLs, for $3.2 billion in 2012....
ALLIED PROPERTIES REIT $35.76 (Toronto symbol AP.UN; Units outstanding: 69.5 million; Market cap: $2.5 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk; Dividend yield: 3.9%; www.alliedpropertiesreit.com) is selling 4.9 million units to the public at $35.30 each to raise $172.5 million. The REIT will mostly use the funds for acquisitions, including its recent purchase of 460 King Street West in downtown Toronto for $15 million. This addition completes Allied’s ownership along the eastern and southern perimeters of a large block at King and Spadina. The REIT can now use the block for a major redevelopment project. Allied REIT is still a buy.
NEWMONT MINING $26.31 (New York symbol NEM; Shares outstanding: 498.8 million; Market cap: $13.3 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 0.4%; www.newmont.com) recently shut down its 48.5%-owned Batu Hijau copper/gold mine in Indonesia. The move was in response to the Indonesian government’s ban on raw material exports, which is aimed at pushing miners to process more ore in the country. Newmont has now agreed to develop a new smelter with Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (New York symbol FCX), which also operates a copper mine in Indonesia. In addition, Batu Hijau has signed new deals to supply copper to two Indonesian companies that plan to build their own smelters. These developments should let Batu Hijau comply with the new regulations. The mine will probably reopen in the next few weeks....
TELUS $39.87 (Toronto symbol T; Shares outstanding: 619.0 million; Market cap: $24.6 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.8%; www.telus.com) gets 55% of its revenue from its 7.9 million wireless subscribers across Canada. It also has 3.3 million phone customers, 1.4 million high-speed Internet users and 865,000 TV subscribers. In the three months ended June 30, 2014, Telus’s earnings per share rose 16.7%, to $0.63 from $0.54 a year earlier. Revenue increased 4.4%, to $2.95 billion from $2.83 billion. Wireless revenue rose 6.1%, thanks to new wireless subscribers and rising use of smartphones, which generate higher fees than regular cellphones. Revenue gained 2.4% at the wireline (land line) division, where an increase in Telus TV and high-speed Internet subscribers more than offset customers cancelling land lines and switching to wireless devices....
Switching to a discount broker makes sense for many investors. It’s sure to cut your per-trade commission costs. But high per-trade brokerage commissions are rarely if ever the sole reason for poor investment results. If you are unhappy with your results, you should check to see if you are making one or more of these four main investing mistakes:
- Buying and selling too often
- Buying too many low-quality investments
- Failing to diversify, or
- Buying too many stocks in the broker/media limelight.
Cominar REIT, $19.28, symbol CUF.UN on Toronto (Units outstanding: 128.2 million; Market cap: $2.5 billion; www.cominar.com), is Quebec’s largest commercial property owner. In all, Cominar holds 526 properties, including 132 office buildings, 164 shopping malls and 230 industrial and mixed-use buildings. These properties contain 39.5 million square feet of leasable space located in Montreal (57%), Quebec City (21%), Ontario (12%), the Atlantic provinces (7%) and Western Canada (3%). Cominar’s occupancy rate is 93.9%. The trust continues to grow by acquisition. In the first half of 2014, it bought 30 properties for $358 million. That increased Cominar’s leasable space by 2.5 million square feet, of which 2.0 million is in the Greater Toronto Area....
Hardwoods Distribution, $10.28, symbol HWD on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 16.5 million; Market cap: $170.0 million; www.hardwoods-inc.com), is one of North America’s largest distributors of high-grade hardwood lumber and specialty sheet goods. The company mainly purchases these products from hardwood lumber mills and sells them in the home construction, renovation and institutional markets. It operates through 33 distribution centres across Canada and the U.S. Hardwoods converted from an income trust to a conventional corporation in July 2011....
Penn West Petroleum, $8.30, symbol PWT on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 492.6 million; Market cap: $4.1 billion; www.pennwest.com), is one of Canada’s largest oil and gas producers. In May 2013, the company appointed former Suncor CEO Rick George as chairman to bring in much-needed measures to shore up its finances and boost its value. Penn West’s shares traded at $10 when George took over, down from a peak of $47 in 2006. The stock rose as high as $13.50 last year, but had moved back down to $10 in mid-July 2014. Since then, it has dropped a further 17%, to today’s price, after Penn West announced that it is re-examining its accounting practices going back several years....