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
We think investors will profit most—and with the least risk—by buying shares of well-established companies with strong business prospects and strong positions in healthy industries. You should also take care to spread your money out across the five main economic sectors: Manufacturing & Industry, Resources, Finance, Utilities, and Consumer.
Index funds are mutual funds that invest so as to match market-index performance. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) hold baskets of stocks that represent stock indexes.
ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks.
A: Private REITs are unlike Choice Properties and other conventional REITs, which are publicly traded. Private REITs themselves calculate the value of their units (usually just twice a year, but sometimes quarterly) and needn’t reveal all the information that’s available to investors in publicly traded investments.


Private REITs tout that lack of transparency as a benefit—since it avoids the volatility and speculation of public markets.



On the other hand, staying private also cuts the likelihood that nosy outsiders and analysts will find out about and draw attention to hidden risks and problems that the REITs happen to suffer from.
A: Ecolab Inc., $257.03, symbol ECL on New York (Shares outstanding: 283.2 million; Market cap: $77.7 billion; www.ecolab.com), develops and markets chemicals and services for cleaning, pest elimination, sanitizing, and maintenance. It sells to customers in foodservices, food and beverage processing, healthcare, government, education, and retail.


The company operates through four main business units: Global Water (49% of revenue) serves customers in the water, food & beverage, paper, and textile-care fields; Global Institutional & Specialty (39%) sells its products to restaurants, hotels, schools and hospitals; Global Pest Elimination (8%) helps detect and eliminate pests; and Global Life Sciences (4%) makes pharmaceutical, personal care, infection and containment control systems.
A: Alphatec Holdings Inc., $19.50, symbol ATEC on Nasdaq (Shares outstanding: 148.6 million; Market cap: $2.0 billion; www.atecspine.com), is a California-based medical technology company; it develops technology for the surgical treatment of spine disorders.


The company’s products include Alpha InformatiX, which provides imaging, navigation and robotics for spine surgeries, 3D imaging, and spinal implants.



Founded in 1990, Alphatec underwent a transformation in 2018, replacing its executive management, most of its board, and a majority of its staff with spine experts focused on innovation and design.
A: Purpose Core Dividend Fund ETF, $36.82, symbol PDF on Toronto, (Units outstanding: 9.4 million; Market cap: $349.0 million; www.purposeinvest.com), holds U.S. and Canadian stocks that its managers view as ready to maintain or increase their dividends.


The fund holds mostly high-quality companies, including AbbVie, Agnico Eagle Mines, CIBC, TC Energy, TD Bank, Enbridge, Manulife Financial and Bank of Nova Scotia.
A: Agnico Eagle Mines, $223.22, symbol AEM on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 502.1 million; Market cap: $118.7 billion; www.agnicoeagle.com), owns gold mines in Canada, Australia, Finland and Mexico.


Specifically, it owns the La Ronde, Canadian Malartic, Goldex, Maccassa, Detour Lake, Meliadine, Meadowbank and Hope Bay mines in Canada. Outside of this country, it holds the Fosterville mine in Australia, the Kittila mine in Finland, and the Pino Altos and La India mines in Mexico.



Agnico has made some key acquisitions to spur its output over the last few years.
A: Choice Properties Real Estate Investment Trust, $14.64, symbol CHP.UN on Toronto (Units outstanding: 723.8 million; Market cap: $10.8 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.choicereit.ca), owns 703 properties, with 68.1 million square feet of retail, industrial, mixed-use and residential space. Investors also benefit from its high 97.8% occupancy rate. George Weston Ltd. (Toronto symbol WN) owns 61.7% of the trust.


With the April 2025 payment, the REIT raised your monthly distribution by 1.3%. Investors now receive $0.064167 a unit instead of $0.063333. The new annual rate of $0.77 yields a high 5.3%.