Building the ‘perfect portfolio.’

If 2016 is anything like 2015 — and it is shaping up to be so, since many of the fundamentals remain the same — investors need to position themselves accordingly. That means a careful assessment of your portfolio is in order. Make sure you’re not taking risks where you’re not comfortable, and don’t assume you’re adequately protected from market volatility just because you own several stocks in a wide variety of sectors. With that in mind, here are some suggestions for building that always-elusive, as-perfect-as-possible portfolio. The strategy is barbell-like, in that it calls for holdings in stable and steady companies that are often labelled boring, while at the same time targeting growth from tech stocks that should be less sensitive to economic cycles than their peers. By Jonathan Ratner

SAFE AND STABLE

Canadian National Railway Co. (CNR/ TSX)

It may not get as much attention as its rival Canadian

Pacific Railway Ltd., but don’t forget Hunter Harrison headed up Canadian National Railway Co. before he left for its main rival — and successfully improved both its financial and operational performance.

CN is also more diversified in terms of the type of goods it carries when compared to CP.

Effie Wolle, chief investment officer at Toronto-based GFI Investment Counsel, believes CN is the type of stock investors should be comfortable owning for the next 10 or 20 years, in large part because it doesn’t face any obsolesce risk. “Railways will still be transporting goods across the continent,” he said. “So if you’re not trying to guess if revenue tonne miles are going to be up or down every quarter, but instead focus on whether the stock compounds efficiently, it’s a strong business that is there for all seasons.”

Brookfield Asset Management Inc. ( BAM. A/ TSX)

The importance of targeting companies with strong management teams cannot be understated when picking a stock.

In the case of Brookfield Asset Management Inc., investors should also be comforted by the fact that its senior executives have a lot of skin in the game.

“They are basically owner- operators,” said Felix Narhi, a portfolio manager at Vancouver-based PenderFund Capital Management. “When you’re there for a multi-decade period, you make different decisions than someone who gets promoted to CEO and is only there for five years.”

As a leader in the alternative asset management space, Brookfield has exposure to what is arguably the most lucrative business around these days. And because these assets tend to be very sticky and have low capital costs, it tends to be very valuable, although at times difficult to quantify.

Onex Corp. (OCX/ TSX)

As the premier private equity company in Canada, Onex has generated some of the most impressive returns in the country dating back to the early 1980s.

Gerry Schwartz is still in charge, but Narhi noted that a second generation of management, which has also been there for well over a decade, possesses the same DNA as the company’s founders. “They’ve stuck to what they know when looking for new deals,” Narhi said. “They help improve companies and have patient capital. That’s really been the magic of their success.”

The company’s revenue may be lumpy at times as a result, but patient investors have been rewarded. Asset management also has relatively low capital costs, and given Onex’s long- term track record, who wouldn’t want to invest with them?

Toronto- Dominion Bank ( TD/ TSX)

The Canadian banking sector hasn’t exactly been great to investors this year. Concerns about their exposure to the energy sector, the housing market and the Canadian economy as a whole, have held back returns. So too have persistent worries about slowing growth.

The group has still been a great place to be for long-term investors, and TD Bank is no exception. It can also be argued that TD screens better than its peers in terms of areas you want to avoid.

Gabriel Dechaine at Canaccord Genuity noted that TD has relatively low exposure to capital markets, both in absolute terms and when considering this businesses’ contribution to the bank’s overall earnings growth.

He also pointed out that from a geographic standpoint, TD has less exposure to oil and gas-centric provinces such as Alberta (both directly and indirectly), and has a healthy source of growth in its U.S. banking division.

DISRUPTORS

Facebook Inc. ( FB/ Nasdaq)

Your kids may not think Facebook is cool anymore, but their grandparents do, and you sure spend too much time on the social network with more than 1.5 billion monthly active users.

What’s most compelling about this often-touted tech stock is its ongoing generation of very high and very profitable growth. That’s a very rare combination, and one that reminds Mark Mahaney at RBC Capital Markets of Google Inc. back in 2007.

Much of the credit should go to Facebook’s management and its prioritization of improving the experience for users, while at the same time developing better solutions for advertisers. The company is investing in many attractive near and long- term growth opportunities, ranging from video ads, monetizing Instagram, messaging platforms and even virtual reality.

It had a huge cash pile of more than US$15 billion at the end of the third quarter, as well as free cash flow of US$1.4 billion for the three-month period, despite what appears to be its highest-ever level of capital expenditures of US$780 million.

Amazon. com Inc. ( AMZN/ Nasdaq)

Everyone knows Amazon.com Inc. has shaken up the traditional retail sector. Where else can you get products delivered to your door in an hour (if you live in the U.S. or Britain), and who else is exploring the use of drones to make this process even faster?

If that’s not enough (it shouldn’t be), the company generates more than US$25 billion in quarterly revenues, due to strong growth in both North American and international markets.

Owning in large part to the initial success of its Prime rapiddelivery service, Amazon is poised to take more market share in the e-commerce space, while demonstrating the advantages and flexibility of first-party inventory, versus the third-party approach used by other retailers.

Meanwhile, J.P. Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth noted that its Amazon Web Services business continues to innovate at a rapid space, with an increasing focus on the lucrative enterprise space. “While we believe it is still early in cloud adoption overall, Amazon Web Services is the clear leader as is less vulnerable to competitive pricing actions as the market is maturing into one based on more than just price,” he said.

Shopify Inc. ( SH/ TSX)

Besides the fact that Shopify is behind a growing number of online purchases these days (pay attention when you find those Boxing Day deals), it’s also a home-grown Canadian tech company, something that’s not exactly commonplace. Investors are always hungry for names like this given Canada’s concentration in the resource and financial sectors.

Shopify’s e- commerce software is used by merchants in more than 150 countries, with the U.S., U.K., Canada and Australia accounting for the lion’s share of its revenue. However, the company is looking to work on more language localization in the next two years, with a focus on regions with high credit card penetration rates, where e-commerce is more popular.

It’s also probably looking into other areas such as merchant funding, but for now, it has its eyes set on expanding in areas like shipping.

Shopify got a big boost in September when Amazon.com Inc. told its merchants it was shutting down its own web store platform, with Shopify chosen as its preferred partner.

RBC Capital Markets analyst Ross MacMillan noted that the majority of Shopify’s merchants sell clothing, with designers and small brands using the platform to sell directly to consumers. So with same-day deliver services such as Uber Rush become more available in major cities, the company expects this disruptive force will gain momentum.