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
A: If you take account of your own financial and personal circumstances and temperament, and if you invest as we advise (diversifying across most if not all of the five main economic sectors, while confining your investments mainly to well-established companies), you will automatically buy some growth stocks and some value stocks; you will also automatically buy some small-company stocks and some big-company stocks....
Finning International’s shares have gained over 197% since the COVID-19 pandemic, as governments invested in new public infrastructure projects. That has increased demand for its construction equipment. New mining projects in Canada and South America have also spurred its growth.

The company’s customers operate in cyclical industries, which adds to its risk....
INTACT FINANCIAL CORP., $288.21, is a buy. The stock (symbol IFC on Toronto) offers investors exposure to Canada’s largest provider of property and casualty insurance. Intact insures more than five million individuals and businesses. Its major brands are Intact Insurance, Canada BrokerLink and belairdirect.

In a bid to add value for investors, the company acquired OneBeacon Insurance Group for $1.7 billion U.S....
CORNING INC., $52.44, symbol GLW on New York, is a leader in materials science, specializing in the production of glass, ceramics, and optical fibre. The company has over 52,000 employees worldwide and manufactures products at 124 plants in 15 countries.

Corning operates in five segments: Optical Communications (35% of sales), Display Technologies (25%), Specialty Materials (13%), Environmental Technologies (10%), and Life Sciences (6% of sales)....
MCDONALD’S CORP., $308.55, New York symbol MCD, is a buy.

This fast-food giant is the world’s largest fast-food chain with over 43,000 restaurants in 119 countries. It serves a wide variety of food but is best known for its hamburgers and french fries.

The company reported lower-than-expected revenue for its latest quarter, mainly due to a drop in traffic at its U.S....
CISCO SYSTEMS INC., $64.87, Nasdaq symbol CSCO, is a top pick for 2025.

Through their shares, investors tap a global producer of hardware and software that links and manages computer networks.

With the April 2025 payment, Cisco will raise your quarterly dividend by 2.5%....
TELUS CORP., $21.80, Toronto symbol T, is your #1 Income Buy for 2025.

The company is Canada’s largest wireless carrier with 13.88 million subscribers (including non-cellphone devices such as tablets). It also sells landline phone, Internet and TV services in B.C., Alberta and eastern Quebec.

Starting in 2011, Telus began rewarding its shareholders with twice yearly dividend increases....

You Can See Our Income-Seeking Portfolio For March 2025 Here.


This month we update our Portfolio for Income-Seeking Investors.


In light of the current market volatility, investors are paying more attention to dividend yields (dividends paid per share divided by the current stock price)....
Alimentation Couche-Tard has rewarded our subscribers with big gains over the years. We first recommended this convenience store giant in our December 2008 issue at $15.50 a share. Since then, the stock has split 3-for-1 and then 2-for-1. That takes our cost down to $2.58 a share—and gives you a tremendous 2,708.1% gain!

Note that Couche-Tard’s growth by acquisition still carries risk—more on that below, including an update on the company’s most recent attempts to purchase the 7-Eleven chain....
RESMED INC., $236.94, is a buy. The firm, symbol RMD on New York, helps investors tap the growing market for medical devices used to treat sleep apnea. ResMed’s CPAP (nasal continuous positive airway pressure) devices are also used to treat patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as well as other respiratory conditions.

With each new machine ResMed sells, it also acquires a potential long-term customer for replacement parts....