3.5 year – 2.20% + MORE Nov 12th

This GIC rate is offered by DUCA Financial Services and was updated on 2014-10-20. Click on the link above to get more details or apply online.

Top 200: Overview
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Nine stocks made it into the All-Star list this year by earning at least one A and one B on our value and growth tests.
Two of this year’s top stocks, Cervus Equipment (CVL) and WestJet Airlines (WJA), were also in the All-Star team last year. Cervus runs the largest group of John Deere dealerships in Canada and has a presence in the commercial, industrial and equip- ment sectors. WestJet is well-known as one of the larger airlines in Canada.
Fairfax Financial (FFH) is the only stock to get both an A for value and an A for growth. It’s a sprawling insurance-focused conglomerate run by noted value investor Prem Watsa from its headquarters in To- ronto. Much like Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A), the firm has added non- insurance companies to its family of companies in recent times. (I own both stocks.)
The other All-Stars with the best value grades are Capital Power (CPX) and Maple Leaf Foods (MFI)…

SAN FRANCISCO – Comcast CEO Brian Roberts is moving “full steam ahead” with the company’s proposed $45 billion acquisition of Time Warner Cable despite the uncertainty raised by President Barack Obama’s call for tougher regulations on high-speed Internet service providers.
As part of its commitment to getting the Time Warner deal done, Roberts said Comcast Corp. still intends to spend about $20 billion during the next two years to improve its Internet service and other products.
Roberts’ stay-the-course remarks, made to reporters during a presentation Wednesday in San Francisco, contrasted with a cautionary statement from AT&T’s CEO Randall Stephenson. In earlier appearance at an investment conference, Stephenson said AT&T Inc. is scaling back on its spending plans until the Federal Communications Commission determines the new rules governing Internet service providers.
The FCC has spent most of this year re-examining the regulations after a federal appeals court overturned guidelines designed to ensure all Internet traffic is treated equally, a concept known as “net neutrality…

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Double-A stocks
We congratulate PulteGroup and Valero Energy for taking home the double-A prize this year. As it happens, Valero was also highly ranked last year.
PulteGroup (PHM) is a large home builder that operates in about 50 major metropolitan markets and calls Atlanta its home. The firm is still recover- ing from the 2008 downturn, which hit the U.S. real estate and financial markets hard. Despite the slow recovery, PulteGroup returned to profit- ability in 2012, started paying dividends again in 2013, and appears to be on the road to better times. Valero Energy (VLO) owns 15 petroleum refineries and sells transportation fuels in more than 7,400 retail outlets. It operates in the U.S. and the U.K., and many Canadians will recognize its Ultramar stations. The firm has an excellent long-term growth record but it ran into a rough patch in 2008. Since then it has returned to profitability and pays a higher dividend than it did before the crash…

Being successful in today’s challenging market depends on many factors. While some of those factors can be controlled, others can’t. Managing the costs you pay for investments, for instance, is something you can control, making low-cost Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs) a wise choice for any portfolio.
What are ETFs?
ETFS were first introduced in Canada in 1990. They are similar to mutual funds in that they allow investors to invest in a diversified portfolio of securities. However, like a stock, ETFs are listed and traded on an exchange and can be bought and sold directly during trading hours.
ETFs are generally passively managed index investments that track the performance of a broad market benchmark (or a specific portion of it) and are usually classified as equity, bond, or commodity ETFs.
How do ETFs work?
Like mutual funds, ETFs pool money from multiple investors to buy stocks, bonds, or other assets, depending on the mandate. In addition, most use a market-weighted indexing approach, which means their value is expected to move in line with the index they seek to track…