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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Itron Inc., $40.03, symbol ITRI on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 39.3 million; Market cap: $1.6 billion; www.itron.com), sells technology and services to about 8,000 electric, gas and water utilities in 130 countries. These clients use the company’s products to collect and analyze their customers’ consumption data. Itron’s technology helps utilities turn their distribution systems into “smart grids,” which give consumers more control over their consumption, including helping them use power at off-peak hours, when rates tend to be lower. In the three months ended March 31, 2014, Itron’s revenue rose 6.1%, to $474.8 million from $447.5 million a year earlier. The company lost $254,000, or $0.01 a share, compared to a profit of $2.6 million, or $0.06. Excluding unusual items in both years, earnings per share were unchanged at $0.31....
Zurich Insurance Group AG (ADR), $29.85, symbol ZURVY, on the U.S. over-the-counter bulletin board (ADRs outstanding: 1.5 billion; Market cap: $44.7 billion; www.zurich.com), is a Swiss-based insurance firm with worldwide operations. Its main listing is on the SIX Swiss Exchange. Zurich reported a 19.8% rise in profits in the three months ended March 31, 2014, to $1.27 billion, or $0.86 per ADR, from $1.06 billion, or $0.75 per ADR. The company profited from both lower catastrophe-related losses and its cost-cutting efforts. To further boost its profits, the company will now cut 800 jobs, or about 1.5% of its workforce....
Catamaran Corp., $43.78, symbol CTRX on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 204.7 million; Market cap: $9.2 billion; www.catamarancorp.com), is a pharmacy benefits manager. (These companies negotiate discounts from pharmaceutical firms so their clients—employers—can provide drug benefits to their workers at less cost.) Catamaran also provides information technology services to the health care benefits management industry. The company bought Catalyst Health Solutions for $4.4 billion in July 2012. It then changed its name to Catamaran from SXC Health Solutions Corp. The combined business is now the fourth-largest pharmacy benefits manager in the U.S. by prescription volume: it manages over 350 million prescriptions each year on behalf of 32 million customers....
ON Semiconductor Corp., $9.26, symbol ONNN on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 441.0 million; Market cap: $3.9 billion; www.onsemi.com), designs and makes energy-efficient chips for electronic devices, including computers, video game systems, TVs, music players and smartphones. It also makes chips for automobile emission control, interior lighting and safety equipment, such as air bags. Automotive customers supply 30% of ON Semiconductor’s sales, followed by industrial/military users (21%), communication equipment makers (17%), consumer product companies (17%) and computer makers (15%). Customers in Japan and other parts of Asia account for 70% of sales. The company has a long history of expanding by acquisition....
OCI Resources, $25.91, symbol OCIR on New York (Shares outstanding: 9.8 million; Market cap: $518.7 million; www.ociresources.com), is a limited partnership that operates OCI Wyoming LP’s trona-ore mining and soda ash production business. Through its facility in Wyoming’s Green River Basin, OCI Wyoming is one of the world’s largest and lowest-cost natural soda ash producers. The facility has been operating for more than 50 years and has roughly 75 customers, including manufacturers and chemical producers. OCI Resources listed on the New York exchange and sold shares the public on September 18, 2013, at $19 each....
A: Cadiz Inc., $8.02, symbol CDZI on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 16.2 million; Market cap: $130.7 million; www.cadizinc.com), aims to tap an aquifer located beneath 34,000 acres of the eastern Mojave Desert in California. It will then sell the water to the drought-stricken suburbs and subdivisions in the Los Angeles Basin. The proposal involves pumping 16.3 billion gallons a year up to 200 miles from the aquifer toward the coast. The water will travel through a 43-mile pipeline that Cadiz wants to build along a railroad line and then merge into the Colorado River Aqueduct, which flows into Los Angeles. Cadiz appears to have the necessary permits to pump from the aquifer. It also has six utilities in the Los Angeles area that are ready to buy the water. The shares jumped at the start of May 2014, after the Orange County Superior Court upheld the Santa Margarita Water District and the County of San Bernardino’s decision to approve Cadiz’s project....
Telus continues to upgrade its wireless and Internet services, with plans to spend $2.2 billion on these improvements this year. That’s helping it attract more subscribers in a highly competitive market. At the same time, the company is expanding its e-commerce operations....
TORSTAR $7.86 (Toronto symbol TS.B; Shares outstanding: 79.9 million; Market cap: $629.2 million; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 6.7%; www.torstar.com) is up over 20% since early May, when it agreed to sell its Harlequin book-publishing subsidiary to News Corporation (symbol NWSA on New York), the parent company of publishing firm HarperCollins.
We’ve long pointed out that Torstar had a great hidden asset in Harlequin, especially in light of the romance publisher’s successful expansion into e-books.
In 2013, Harlequin supplied 29% of Torstar’s revenue and 32% of its earnings....
We’ve long pointed out that Torstar had a great hidden asset in Harlequin, especially in light of the romance publisher’s successful expansion into e-books.
In 2013, Harlequin supplied 29% of Torstar’s revenue and 32% of its earnings....
RIOCAN REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT TRUST $27.64 (Toronto symbol REI.UN; Units outstanding: 304.4 million; Market cap: $8.4 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; Dividend yield: 5.1%; www.riocan.com) is Canada’s largest real estate
investment trust (REIT), with interests in 340 shopping malls containing over 82 million square feet of leasable area....
investment trust (REIT), with interests in 340 shopping malls containing over 82 million square feet of leasable area....
ISHARES CDN REIT SECTOR INDEX FUND $16.48 (Toronto symbol XRE; buy or sell through brokers; ca.ishares.com) holds the 15 Canadian real estate investment trusts in the S&P/TSX Capped REIT Index. The weight of each REIT is limited to 25% of the ETF’s value.
iShares CDN REIT’s expenses are 0.60% of its assets....
iShares CDN REIT’s expenses are 0.60% of its assets....