Looking for investing ideas? Here’s your weekly digest of the Globe’s latest insights and analysis from the pros, stock tips, portfolio strategies plus what investors need to know for the week ahead.
It’s grim in the energy sector, but this company is worth owning
These are dark days for Canada’s energy sector, Gordon Pape writes. Low prices for oil and natural gas and a lack of significant progress on new pipeline capacity have hit share prices hard.
As of Friday’s close, the S&P/TSX Capped Energy Index was showing a one-year loss of 40 per cent, and it continues to trend down.
But amid all the carnage, there are a few energy stocks that are still worth owning. One of them is Keyera Corp. (KEY), which is not a component of the energy subindex.
Keyera is a midstream energy company that services oil and gas producers in the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin. Its activities include natural gas and natural gas liquids gathering and processing, storage, transportation, logistics and marketing services. It also provides diluent logistics services for oil sands customers. It owns a network of more than 4,000 kilometres of pipelines and 17 natural gas processing plants. The company operates mainly in the Edmonton/Fort Saskatchewan region of Alberta.
Read also: ‘Everything is getting worse’ for Canada’s energy sector as foreign investors flee
Venturing beyond China for Asian dividends
Investors apprehensive after weeks of Hong Kong protests may consider giving up on Asia’s growth prospects, Scott Clayton writes. However, there are lots of expanding markets outside of China and Hong Kong in Southeast Asia.
That region’s burgeoning middle class remains its long-term catalyst for economic growth. Neither the Sino-U.S. tariff war nor the tumult in Hong Kong is likely to change that. Both factors could, in fact, spur development as investment dollars look for alternatives to China.
Our search started with a look at the holdings of the top regional exchange-traded funds – we see ETFs as the best way for Canadians to invest in the region.
We then applied our TSI Dividend Sustainability Rating System, which awards points based on factors including raising divided payments in the last five years, a strong balance sheet and a long-term record of positive earnings and cash flow sufficient to cover divided payments.
Companies with 10 to 12 points have the most secure dividends, or the highest sustainability. Those with seven to nine points have above average sustainability; average sustainability, four to six points; and below average sustainability, one to three points.
This generated six Southeast Asian names:
Which Brookfield should you own? Here’s a simple solution
The Brookfield name has been attached to a head-spinning number of deals over the past year, David Berman writes, either through Brookfield Asset Management Inc. or one of the alternative asset manager’s four publicly traded operations. How should investors approach this multi-headed behemoth?
The pace of deals underscores Brookfield’s tremendous size and influence in the area of “real assets” – the pipelines, toll roads, buildings and terminals that underpin the global economy. But it also raises questions about whether investors should focus on Brookfield Asset Management or explore the more specific strategies of its four Brookfield-labelled entities.
One approach: Stick with the parent.
Brookfield Asset Management has spun off some of its operations into publicly traded entities that give investors pure plays on infrastructure, real estate, renewable energy and private equity. The parent company is a significant investor in each, and also generates management fees from these investments and private funds.
This approach has rewarded investors with market-beating gains for the four spin-offs over the past five years.
Read also: Brookfield acquires mortgage insurer Genworth Canada in $2.4-billion deal
Apartment REITs are enjoying scorching gains. Here are four to consider
With rents soaring and vacancy rates shrinking, finding an affordable apartment has become a challenge for a growing number of Canadians, John Heinzl writes.
As my colleague Matt Lundy recently reported, demand for rental units is overwhelming the supply, and the problem isn’t going away any time soon.
In my capacity as an investing columnist – and a parent who wonders how his kids will ever be able to afford a place of their own – I’d like to offer a suggestion from the “if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” school of investing:
Consider owning apartment real estate investment trusts.
The same factors that are making life difficult for renters are generating higher revenues for apartment REITs and sending their unit prices up sharply.
Will such scorching gains continue? Well, yields and valuations are not as attractive as they once were, so investors should probably temper their expectations. However, I believe apartment REITs will continue to benefit from the tight rental market, rising rents and the tailwinds of immigration, population growth and urbanization.
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Shopify eclipses BCE to become 10th most valuable public company in Canada
In becoming a rising force in global e-commerce, Shopify Inc.’s stock has caught fire, and on Aug. 20 the company passed venerable BCE Inc. in stock market value, Tim Shufelt writes.
The Canadian software company’s shares are up by 164 per cent so far this year, trouncing all the U.S. internet behemoths and capturing the attention of the market’s biggest growth and tech investors.
Already larger than some better-known American peers, including eBay Inc., Shopify’s scorching rally has also vaulted it into the ranks of Canadian corporate elite.
Its $56.2-billion market capitalization makes it the country’s 10th largest public listing, surpassing media and telecom giant BCE and closing just shy of $500 a share on Tuesday.
If the company can’t maintain its torrid pace of expansion, shareholders could be forced to endure a painful reckoning. Like many fallen growth names before it, Shopify’s sky-high valuation could make for a long drop if fortunes change. The company trades at more than 20 times next year’s revenue estimate and has yet to report an annual profit.
For more than 800,000 internet merchants, however, Shopify has become the platform of choice to sell everything from socks to coffee.
Read also: Shopify to launch warehouse network for merchant clients
What investors need to know for the week ahead
Big-bank earnings season continues in the week ahead, with Bank of Montreal and Bank of Nova Scotia reporting on Tuesday, followed by Toronto-Dominion Bank on Thursday. Other companies releasing their latest financial results include Best Buy and Hewlett-Packard. Economic data on tap include: U.S. durable goods orders for July (Monday); Canada’s current account deficit and U.S. real GDP for the second quarter, as well as U.S. wholesale and retail inventories for July (Thursday); Canada’s real GDP for the second quarter and U.S. personal spending and income for July (Friday).
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