26 Stock Top Picks and 3 ETF (Dec 14-20)

(A Top Pick Dec 14/18, Up 109%) Makers of screen technology out of Idaho. Their technology shortened the width of the screen, which allowed manufacturers to add more technology in the same phone body. He sold out at $207. It will give another opportunity to buy in, but there is more competition coming.

(A Top Pick Dec 14/18, Down 38%) He sold this. A cloud computing software company that sells infrastructure appliances to data storage companies. They were successful early, but competition came in and their shares have fallen.

5G? CSCO has a 14 times PE ratio and 2.8% dividend yield. They have been able to grow by buying a lot of companies. 5G spending may get delayed in to 2021, so this may reduce earnings this year. They have made acquisitions to be able to compete with their peers.

Warren Buffet has 43% of his portfolio in APPL. APPL is a wonderful brand and strong company. He does not own it today. What worries him a little is that more than half of their revenues come from iPhone sales. They are diversifying, but it will take time. People are tending to keep their phones…

Warren Buffet has 43% of his portfolio in APPL. APPL is a wonderful brand and strong company. He does not own it today. What worries him a little is that more than half of their revenues come from iPhone sales. They are diversifying, but it will take time. People are tending to keep their phones…

The best valuation opportunities are in Canada, he thinks. He would sell WPX for the tax loss and buy Parsley instead, who has better exposure to Canada.

The best valuation opportunities are in Canada, he thinks. He would sell WPX for the tax loss and buy Parsley instead, who has better exposure to Canada.

Speculative buy you thought? If you are bullish on oil, it can be a good buy. He sold it at $0.34 so he could buy others that did not have the same financial risk. He bought it back at $0.40 before the rally up. He sold it after making 100% in a week. There will…

It is probably one of the better managed exploration and production companies in Canada. It is a little bit higher risk/reward than some of the others. This is one of the companies he would look at in this group. It will recover or could be acquired or merged with.

They have a strong international footprint, half in Alberta and the rest in Europe and elsewhere. Distinguishing them from Canadian peers is that European production exposes them to higher Brent oil pricing. Like its peers, VET had to cut their dividend by around 75% last spring, but this reduced the cash burn and bought them…

(A Top Pick Jun 20/19, Down 66%) Of course, have been impacted by oil prices. They continue to pay down debt. Q2 and Q3 will have lower cash flows. It's been beat up and have a slight bounce from the low. He'll buy in Q4 during tax-loss selling. Nothing to move this stock up in…

Sell Banks for Pipelines? He likes this strategy. Balance the weight between both he suggests. Pipelines are economically sensitive these days, due to their weightings in the energy ETFs. ENB, TRP and PPL have been particularly sensitive. He thinks the valuations warrant investment here.

They're in northeast BC where Tourmaline is consolidating land and assets, near LXE. So, LXE will become topical. LXE has reached an inflection point after acquiring a lot of land and pushed the Montney play to the northeast. Now, they need a lot of capital to move to full development. They're talking to potential buyers,…

Why would both go on on the same day? The VIX (VXX-N) tracks the expectation of volatility over the next month. Volatility changes. If the market (SPY-N) is going up then typically volatility comes down. If the catalyst for a rally is thought to be short lived, then volatility can go up as well.

This is an excellent hedge for Canadian investors. Don't look at the yield. If we see more panic it will do well. Canadian investors can also benefit from the currency swing.

It's a good place to start, low-cost and liquid. Long-term this is set up for a good return. But this is very broad-based, overweighting the winners of recent years. He prefers specific

He has looked at the US or niche producers in Canada. This would be the best of the Canadian producers, though. He feels they will be the dominant leader without question.

He sold it several months ago, because it outperformed like crazy in late-2018. That was expected, because healthcare is the most defensive sector and Q4 was a bear market with fears of a recession. LLY made an acquisition in oncology and one of their big drugs got withdrawn. Novo Nordisk may launch a diabetes drug…

Canadian bank for dividends? For a 10-15 year time horizon, the Canadian banks are a pocket of value. They are trading less than 10 times forward earnings, which already include loan loss provisions. They have high asset qualities. Buying here is a winning formula for the long term. The dividend will pay you to wait…

Doesn't like the merger with POW. Sell PWF and buy Aecon? Don't because Aecon has its own issues, and the merger makes sense. PWF/POW was an old-1980s structure and needed to consolidate to raise the overall value. Problem is, there's is little growth in the company's existing businesses. Mutual funds are getting crushed by ETFs,…

(A Top Pick Dec 20/18, Up 30%) A mid-cap specialty insurer. It can charge higher premiums as it is in niche markets. Their investing was very successful and they had lower insurance payouts.

He wants to be defensive right now. A multi-utility operating in Canada and the US. 99% of their assets are protected, so this protects them from volume declines and they have no exposure to commodity prices. They have increased the dividend for 46 years consecutively. Yield 3.66% (Analysts’ price target is $57.71)

The company has some projects underway that will increase their cost profile going forward. They will be doubling their throughput. They are moving to also increase their production of copper.

They have probably found the richest new silver discovery in the last 20 years, in central Mexico. They own 44% of it. Given the pullback from last week, this is a great time. They don't need leverage to silver.

(A Top Pick Jul 11/19, Down 28%) Continues to own it. He believes in it long term. Fertilizer is oversupplied for now, though. He likes their retail operations in the west, U.S. and Australia. Also likes their digital apps. They are a big cash flow machine and pays a 5.5% dividend yield.

(A Top Pick Jun 27/19, Up 3%) This one has been resilient. He would continue to buy it. We have to move goods and it benefits from trade overseas. The relative strength has been quite good.

Tax differences? For a Canadian investor, there really is not much difference between BIP.UN and BIPC. US investors face different issues regarding limited partnerships. It was a strategy by Brookfield to increase liquidity and it is why BIPC trades at a premium to BIP.UN -- it was also added to the Russell Index. If you…

(A Top Pick May 13/19, Down 27%) He's disappointed, though many stocks are also down. He bought it when FedEx had already fallen 40% off highs. It seems like they've turned the corner with problems integrating DHL in Europe, and that big cyberattack from a few years ago is behind them. During the pandemic, FedEx…

(A Top Pick Dec 20/18, Down 14%) He sold at just around $13. The largest auto parts distributor in Canada. The company fired their CEO and announced a strategic review and nothing has happened since. They have done nothing to reorganize. He would not touch it.