CN still has years of growth ahead

Article Excerpt

CN’s shares have jumped 75% in the past five years, mainly due to the company’s strong focus on efficiency and heavy spending on new locomotives and tracks. Those investments have helped the company handle rising freight volumes of grain, fertilizer and forest products. The lack of new pipeline capacity has also forced oil producers to ship more of their crude by rail. We feel CN is in a strong position to keep expanding its earnings. As well, since the company operates in all three signatories to the new U.S.-Mexico-Canada free trade agreement, that pact helps to cut its risk. CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAY CO. $109 (Toronto symbol CNR; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 725.3 million; Market cap: $79.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 5.5; Dividend yield: 2.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.cn.ca) operates Canada’s largest railway. Its 32,200-kilometre network stretches across the country, and passes through the U.S. Midwest to the Gulf of Mexico. Ottawa nationalized the company in 1922, as railways were critical…