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An Amazon pickup location is seen at the University of California in Berkeley, California, U.S. August 14, 2017.STAFF/Reuters

Let's not kid ourselves, we all love drama in one form or another – the mammoth global entertainment industry is built on this. The highs and lows of investing and trading can provide their own kind of dramatic excitement, to the point where it can be measured neurologically. Jason Zweig, Wall Street Journal columnist and author of Your Money and Your Brain, wrote that "The brain activity of someone making money on their investments is indistinguishable from a person high on cocaine or morphine."

The attraction to drama can take positive and negative forms, leading both to thrill-seeking big bets on speculative investments and also a morbid fascination with apocalyptic market forecasts.

Tony Isola, head of the educator divisions of Ritholtz Wealth Management, recently applied these thoughts to the concept of investor risk management,

"We tend to ignore the risks of familiar things. Instead, we focus on risks that are novel and never before seen… stressing out with people who have the same misguided view of risk will make things worse …"

For Mr. Isola, the antidote to this harmful thought pattern is "Focus on the familiar risks that you tend to ignore while anxiously waiting for the four horsemen of the Apocalypse to arrive." These familiar, decidedly undramatic risks include investment fees, taxes, inflation and lack of diversification.

We are all hardwired to fixate on extremes, both positive and negative, and this often obscures far more probable, and more pedestrian market outcomes. The market future is most likely a lot more boring than we fear or hope – that's why we'll keep going to the movies.

-- Scott Barlow is The Globe's in-house market strategist

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Stocks to ponder

Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd.
  Last month, the company completed a transformational acquisition, which may further expand the stock's valuation. The stock is up an impressive 23 per cent year-to-date with an additional 22 per cent upside forecast. Jennifer Dowty explains.

Quebecor Inc. The stock was last featured in the Breakouts report in January and since then, the share price has rallied over 20 per cent. When you find a stock that is outperforming, whose share price is being driven higher due to solid fundamentals, you hold on to the stock and enjoy the ride higher. This stock falls into that category of outperformers, writes Jennifer Dowty.

Magna International Inc. Good news if you've been waiting to invest in Magna International Inc.: Falling U.S. vehicle shares have been weighing on the share price of the Canadian auto-parts giant over the past year. The bad news? The shares likely have further to fall before they offer an ideal buying opportunity. Magna is highly exposed to changes in vehicle sales. At times when sales are expanding, Magna sells more chassis, seats, powertrains and electronics to the world's biggest auto manufacturers – and the company's profit swells. But when sales decline, sales and profit can get hit and so can the share price. David Berman explains.

The Rundown

Why the abnormally large gap between the TSX and S&P 500 won't last

The unshakable oversupply of crude oil is again proving capable of restraining Canadian stocks, which are falling ever further behind the U.S. market. But aside from oil, the balance of forces seems to tilt in favour of a rebound in domestic stocks. Tim Shufelt explains.

Canadian markets flatline as sectors swap wins

The more Canadian stocks change, the more they stay the same. Since the mid-point of the year, underlying Canadian equity performance has largely reversed, making leaders of first-half laggards and laggards of leaders. The net effect, however, has been nil, with the S&P/TSX composite index continuing to meander along roughly where it was last December. Tim Shufelt explains.

Forget Amazon. Here's the real reason retail stocks are slumping

Retail stocks have been annihilated recently, despite the economy eking out growth. The fundamentals of the retail business look horrible: Sales are stagnating and profitability is getting worse with every passing quarter. Jeff Bezos and Amazon get most of the credit, but this credit is misplaced. Today, online sales represent only 8.5 per cent of total retail sales. Amazon, at $80-billion (U.S.) in sales, accounts only for 1.5 per cent of total U.S. retail sales, which at the end of 2016 were around $5.5-trillion. Although it is human nature to look for the simplest explanation, in truth, the confluence of a half-dozen unrelated developments is responsible for weak retail sales. Vitaliy Katsenelson explains.

Stock-price rebound elusive for Cameco, Potash

Oh, woe is Cameco, what with uranium prices what they are. Yet the crash in potash makes it a bit of a tossup which of the former Canadian commodity superstars will keep investors waiting longer for reward. That's a reasonable conclusion from peering at the outlooks for Cameco Corp. and Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan Inc., the latter set to combine with fertilizer/ag retailer Agrium Inc. to form a new concern, "Nutrien." Certainly, there are bulls who see an end to the current malaise, and the stocks overwhelmed by the negative sentiment. At the same time, however, there are sufficient warnings to suggest that value investors might get trapped waiting for a near-term comeback. David Milstead explains.


Others


Monday's Insider Report: Companies insiders are buying and selling


Tuesday's Insider Report: Companies insiders are buying and selling


The Globe's stars and dogs for the past week



Number Crunchers


Eleven U.S. stocks with sustainable, rising dividends



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Compiled by Gillian Livingston

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