BCE provides wireless, broadband, television, and landline phone services in Canada. It is one of the Big Three national wireless carriers, with over 10 million customers constituting about 30% of the market. It is also the incumbent local exchange carrier—the legacy telephone provider—throughout much of the eastern half of Canada, including in the most populous Canadian provinces: Ontario and Quebec. BCE has a media segment that holds television, radio, and digital media assets. BCE licenses the Canadian rights to movie channels including HBO, Showtime, and Starz.

With the current stock turmoil, global stocks, and especially stocks that pay dividends, are a potential option for investors. While the S&P 500 has fallen 12% year to date, the EAFE Index of large- and mid-cap stocks based in countries other than the U.S. and Canada has gained 1%. That's quite a change from the recent record. Over the past five years, the S&P 500 has advanced 109% compared to a 50% gain in EAFE. But the underperformance has given global stocks a valuation advantage, particularly in the area of dividends. Consider that the EAFE dividend yield of 3.0% is roughly 175 basis points higher than the comparable S&P 500 dividend yield. We think global dividend stocks continue to offer opportunity, particularly given the endless speculation over the direction of interest rates in the U.S., which has created market-timing headaches for equity income investors. These investors have endured recent wide swings in prices for rate-sensitive equity groups such as utilities, REITs and MLPs. In our view, investing in international income stocks is one way to increase portfolio diversification while reducing sensitivity to volatile U.S interest rates. Investing in overseas stocks carries its own set of risks, including the impact of currency exchange and geopolitical turmoil. But there are also a number of positives in this asset class for U.S. investors, including a wide selection of companies that pay dividends, robust industry diversification, and, as we have mentioned, higher yields and lower valuations. Argus has recently boosted its global coverage, and recommends the following international dividend stocks, each of which has at least a long-term BUY rating from an Argus analyst. This list of approximately 25-30 companies offers exposure to eight of the 11 major industrial sectors, and includes companies from 10 countries.

Operating under the name Bell Canada, BCE is one of Canada's largest communications companies. The company has two operating segments: Bell Communication and Technology Services and Bell Media.

Last week's calm in insider-sentiment data from Vickers Stock Research apparently was a one-week wonder, as stock indices and insider-sentiment readings are again moving in wild fashion. We started focusing on concerning insider-sentiment data back in mid-January, much of which was coming from companies that trade on the Nasdaq. That carried on for multiple weeks and, on occasion, the NYSE data would also sour. Last week, the data seemingly calmed -- but stocks did not respond in kind, and Friday capped a week in which the major indices dropped by as much as 2.5%. So how did insiders respond? Not so well. The sell/buy ratios from Vickers are bullish under 2.00, neutral from 2.00 to 6.00, and bearish over 6.00. The current one-week ratios are 9.00 for the NYSE (versus 5.03 last week) and 5.21 for the Nasdaq (4.19 last week). That results in eight-week ratios of 5.66 for the NYSE (versus 5.02 last week) and 6.54 for the Nasdaq (6.18 last week). So the data is neutral-to-bearish and trending in the wrong direction. Investors, insiders included, appear to be struggling with many issues in the early months of 2025. On a sector basis, selling was the greatest in Healthcare over the last week, with shares valued at $97 million sold versus $10 million bought, and followed by Industrial, Consumer Discretionary, Financial, and Energy. There were no sectors in which insider buying outpaced selling. This week, analysts at Vickers highlighted insider transactions of interest at Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE: RCL) and Ameriprise Financial, Inc. (NYSE: AMP).