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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.



Why bank stocks are a good bet in 2020 - and beyond

Royal Bank of Canada was the top performer of the Big Five Canadian banks over the past two decades with an annualized total return of almost 14 per cent, but the others weren’t far behind, John Heinzl writes. For the 20 years ended Dec. 31, Bank of Nova Scotia returned 12.1 per cent annually, Bank of Montreal 11.7 per cent, Toronto-Dominion Bank 10.5 per cent and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce 10.4 per cent.

Will the next 20 years be just as prosperous? It’s impossible to say, as bank earnings and stock prices are affected by a multitude of factors including economic growth, the housing market, interest rates, loan losses and new forms of competition. But betting against the banks would be a mistake in my view; they are among the most powerful institutions in the country, with operations that span lending, wealth management, investment banking and insurance. They also pay attractive yields – currently averaging about 4.5 per cent – and during times of economic prosperity they raise their dividends regularly.

More from John Heinzl: Yield Hog model dividend growth portfolio as of Dec. 31, 2019

Two Canadian dividend stocks this $2.6-billion fund manager is buying – and one she’s taking profits in

Investors may want to lower their expectations heading into 2020, particularly after the double-digital market gains in 2019, says Michele Robitaille, managing director of Canadian equities at Guardian Capital LP. Ms. Robitaille, whose team manages about $2.6-billion in assets (the firm over all manages about $28.3-billion), expects markets to “grind slowly higher” in the year ahead amid a more cautious outlook from companies and investors.

The Globe recently spoke to her about her take on the markets and what she’s been buying and selling. Lately, she’s been adding more shares of Pembina Pipeline and Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, while trimming Brookfield Renewable Partners. Here’s why.

Canada’s guru of dividend growth tallies up his 2019 results

Tom Connolly shut down his investing newsletter a year ago after a run of close to 40 years, but he’s still managing his own portfolio and sharing the details, Rob Carrick writes. His strategy has always been dividend growth, which means focusing less on yield and more on a company’s record for consistently increasing its cash payouts to shareholders over the years.

There are 31 stocks in the model portfolio. Mr. Connolly divides them into four categories: Telecom, utilities, financials and lower-yield with higher dividend growth and financials. The lower dividend, higher growth stocks come from sectors such as industrials and consumer staples. Here are the 2019 dividend growth stars in each of the four categories. Some standouts include Telus, Canadian National Railway and Enbridge.

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What 26 market prognosticators are predicting for the TSX in 2020 (and how their 2019 forecasts panned out)

With Canada’s major stock index posting its best year in more than a decade, it was the bullish forecasters who came out on top in 2019. Just not too bullish, David Milstead writes. To evaluate market mavens’ predictions, The Globe and Mail looked back at the Reuters poll of forecasts for the 234-stock S&P/TSX Composite Index for 2019. The broadest measure of Canadian stocks closed Tuesday at 17,063.43, up 19.1 per cent from its close at the end of 2018. Three firms just about nailed it: Manulife Investment Management, Fiera Capital and a small Toronto outfit called RKH Investments.

After a robust 2019, market forecasters are hesitant to predict another boom year for Canadian equities. The median forecast for the S&P/TSX Composite Index for the end of 2020 is 17,625, which would represent a gain of just more than 3 per cent, according to a survey of 26 market prognosticators conducted by Reuters. Here is a list of the forecasts.

Read more: Gordon Pape’s five fearless predictions for markets in 2020

These trends of the past decade made investors smarter and richer, and they can do the same in the 2020s

Investors have never had a better decade than the 2010s. Certainly, the U.S stock market did incredibly and Canada was solid. But the real gains were in investor empowerment, Rob Carrick writes. A decade of competition, innovation and regulation has brought lower costs, more choice and more transparency to individual investors. Here is a look at some of the highlights. They include the rise of robo-advisers, the debut of balanced ETFs and the burgeoning popularity of fee-for-service financial planning.

What investors need to know for the week ahead

In the week ahead, Canadian employment numbers for December will be released Friday. Other economic data on tap include Canada’s merchandise trade deficit and the U.S. goods and services trade deficit for November, plus U.S. factory orders for that month (Tuesday); U.S. consumer credit figures for November (Wednesday); Canadian housing starts for December and building permits for November, as well as U.S. real GDP for the third quarter (Thursday); U.S. wholesale inventories for November (Friday). Companies releasing their latest financial results include EXFO, Aphria, Constellation Brands, Corus Entertainment and Walgreens Boots Alliance.

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