Target raises profit forecast; earnings rise + MORE Nov 16th

It’s Financial Literacy Month and MoneySense is releasing a new cheat sheet on the basics of personal finance for four days this week. On Friday, we’ll have a special Facebook Live testing other magazine editors on their money sense. Tune in live at 3 p.m. on our Facebook page to watch us put them to the test. Follow us and participate if you think you know your stuff.
How often have you taken the time to prepare a well-planned to-do list? And how often have you lost the energy to complete any of the tasks once you finished writing them down? Taking the time to research and meticulously plan is great—and important—but you also have to act on it. But that’s hard to do well if you’re not sure about the best way to execute your plan. To help, here are seven simple steps to help make anyone from the die-hard do-it-yourself trader to the a lazy couch-potato a smarter investor.
1. Keep it simple
We live in a strange paradox. Everyone works hard for their money, and yet a sizeable part of the population doesn’t have any interest in making the best use of that cash…

Delegates from West Virginia hold signs supporting coal on the second day of the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, U.S. July 19, 2016. REUTERS/Aaron P. Bernstein/File Photo
It seems pretty likely at this point that a future President Trump isn’t going to implement a national carbon price in the United States. What does this mean for Canada? Does the result of last week’s election mean that we should scale back our ambition to price carbon?
Unambiguously: No, it does not.
Let’s start with the basics. First, competitiveness pressures from carbon pricing are a real concern. When policy imposes higher carbon costs in Canada relative to other countries, there’s a risk that economic activity or investment—not to mention the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with them—might simply shift toward the jurisdiction with weaker policy. This “leakage” is neither economically nor environmentally helpful. If economic activity and GHG emissions simply relocate across the border, global emissions remain unchanged, despite the cost to Canada from the reductions in output and employment…

MOORESVILLE, N.C. – Lowe’s was beset by hefty charges and meagre traffic in its stores for most of the third quarter, and its profit suffered for it.
A day after rival Home Depot posted banner results and boosted its outlook for the year, Lowe’s fell drastically short of Wall Street expectations and cut its annual outlook, again.
Shares slumped almost 5 per cent before the opening bell Wednesday.
For the three months ended Oct. 28, Lowe’s earned $379 million, or 43 cents per share. A year ago the Mooresville, North Carolina, company earned $736 million, or 80 cents per share.
The current quarter’s results included $462 million in charges related to the winding down of its Hydrox joint venture, writing off projects that were cancelled and goodwill and impairment charges. Stripping out these charges, earnings were 88 cents per share.
Analysts polled by Zacks Investment Research expected 96 cents per share.
Revenue rose to $15.74 billion from $14.36 billion, but that was also shy of most analysts projections…

Cuba’s President Raul Castro and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau review troops during a welcoming ceremony at Revolution Palace in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 2016. (Enrique de la Osa/Pool via AP)
HAVANA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrived in Cuba on Tuesday evening, where the country’s president told him the island nation will not progress any faster than it already is.
Cuban President Raul Castro, the younger brother of legendary Cuban leader Fidel Castro, warned that others have gone through reforms too quickly without regard to the needs of the people, leaving their citizens jobless.
“Even though I have said we have to move slowly, you can go too fast. I have said slowly, but steady,” Raul Castro said through an interpreter.
The message to the Canadian prime minister in a grand room in the Revolutionary Palace in Havana came as Trudeau tries to open up trade opportunities for Canadian companies who want to cash in on the Cuban government’s decision to loosen restrictions on foreign investment…

Third-quarter earnings for Minneapolis-based retailer rose to $608-million from $549-million a year earlier