2012

MicroSoft is updated and rated Buy at $26.55. It has a few weak quarters but the next couple of quarters could be quite strong with the upgrade cycle of Windows * and other product upgrades. I own some and may add to my position.
...

RioCan preferred shares are updated and rated Weak Sell / Hold. The company has the right to redeem these at $25 in March 2016 and for that reason we don't think this is a good investment.
RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust is updated and rated (low...

U.S. markets were down over 1% at times today but ultimately closed down only slightly.
The outcome of this fiscal cliff episode remains quite uncertain. I perhaps should have sold some stocks today to reduce my risk. But I decided to just let thing...

U.S. markets were open today. The Dow fell 0.2%. So far the market is basically brushing off fears of the possible tax increases and spending comes due to come into effect on January 1 unelss lawmakers make a last minute deal to avert that.
Bank of ...

Canadian Western Bank Preferred shares are updated and rated Sell at $26.87. This preferred share is included because 1. When it was first added to this Site, near the market lows in 2009, it traded at $21.80 and was a good investment. 2. Looking at ...

Melcor Developments is updated and rated (lower) Strong Buy at $15.60. It's my third largest holding.
FirstSerivce preferred is updated and rated Weak Buy at U.S. $25.41 to yield 6.9%. I could rate this higher based on the yield. But the company has ...

Berkshire Hathaway is updated and rated Buy at $89.83. It does not look like a real bargain based on earnings. But the fact that Buffett is buying shares for Berkshire up to 120% of book value (it's currently at 121%) gives a lot of confidence. The 1...

Today was a negative day on the markets and for our stock picks. In particular RIM was down 22%. Bank of America was down 2.0%, Wells Fargo was down 1.7%, Toll Brothers down 2.0%. Stantec was down 2.9% erasing most of its rather strange 4.1% increase...

It was a good day for our stocks picks. In particular Bank of America was up 2.9% to $11.52. And Stantec was up 4.1%.
Tomorrow may be a down day as hopes for solving the fiscal cliff apparently took a turn for the worse after the close today. It seem...

After two very strong days our stock picks slipped a little today. The Dow was down 0.7% as hopes for an agreement on tax and spending changes (to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff) start to fade. Toronto was up 0.6%.
Markets may slip further unless a...

It was another very strong day for many of our stock picks. Bank of America up 3.3%, Wells Fargo up 1.7%. Stantec up 2.4%, Canadian Western Bank up 2.0% Looking at the overall markets the Dow Jones was up 0.9% and Toronto was up 0.4%.
I thought about...

Well, I was pleasantly surprised at some of the gains today. Wells Fargo up 3.7%. Bank of America up 4.0% and Toll Brothers up 4.4%. I understand that this was mostly due to hopes for a deal on the fiscal cliff. Therefore the gains could evaporate if...

Constellation Software is updated and rated Buy. This company has done very well. This past Spring it completed a process that was designed to boost its share price by putting the company up for sale (that was later canceled but it succeeded in pushi...

The market was generally down somewhat today. This is not surprising and probably represents a sort of exhalation after the build up to the FED move yesterday. I should have few more updates for our stocks in the table above by Sunday.
...

Notable stock price movements today included, Berkshire up 2.3% (about which, more below). Research in Motion up 5.8%. Toll Brothers up 3.9%. This made for a good day for our stock picks even with Wal-Mart down 2.8%.
The reason Berkshire Hathaway ros...

Canadian Tire had a good day and rose 3.3% to $69.70. This puts it 6.8% above its closing price from December 3. Not spectacular ,but not bad. While there was always the risk that it could go lower, this stock certainly looked attractive at $66 and $...

Nothing too exciting happened with our stock picks today.
Toll Brothers was down 1.4% and Canadian Tire was up 1.4%.
...

Bank of America is updated and rated Speculative (higher) Buy at $10.64. This stock is up 32% since we officially added it to this site last March 11 rated Speculative Strong Buy at $8.05. It is also up 48% since we updated it (and noted that I had a...

Toll Brothers is updated and rated Speculative Buy at $30.77. It is speculative because its earnings need to grow a lot to justify its share price. I have about 4.5% of my portfolio invested in Toll Brothers. I am not that keen to buy more but I woul...

Perhaps the biggest news in the Canadian markets today was Loblaws Companies plan to spin off its real estate into a separate Real Estate Investment Trust. Loblaw's shares closed almost 14% higher on the news. Canadian Tire rose 2.3% today, probably ...

Markets were modestly higher today.
The strongest performers included Bank of America up 5.7%, Walgreen up 3.8% and Stantec up 1.8%. On the other hand Toll Brothers was down 3.9%.
I noticed that Canadian Pacific did not release any estimate of its "c...

Canadian Western Bank fell 3.5% to $28.00 today after announcing good but not-quite-as-good-as-expected earnings. I will consider adding to my position at this price.
Toll Brothers was out with good earnings but the stock price fell 1.8%. Keep in mi...

Canadian Tire continued to sink today. Down 1% to $65.25. This is (at least temporarily) unfortunate for those of us that own it but may prove to be an opportunity for buyers.
In my experience it is unusual for a large cap company to trade down near ...

I mentioned just below the Costco special dividend. It turns out this will be funded by debt. So taht means it won't impede the growth plans of the Company. I had mentioned in the notes on January 15, 2012 (and possibly on other dates as well) that "...

With the Dow down about 100 points at this moment, I would be inclined to consider buying as opposed to feeling at all panicky. Sure, the market may continue to fall and for that reason I am not in any great rush to grab bargains, but overall buying ...

The Dow ended the day up 107 points or 0.8% but had been down about 100 points earlier in the day. Toronto ended the day up 0.2%.
Costco announced a special $7 dividend and rose 6% today. It is truly a great company. But it never seems to look cheap...

And so begins another week in the market as the year rushes to a close now...
Dow down 0.3%, Toronto down 0.2%
Our stocks picks appear to be down a bit more than that, notably Stantec down 2.1% and Shaw down 1.8% and it seems almost everything on our...

I have updated my personal portfolio composition. I find that tracking my portfolio composition and including the value ratios is quite useful for me. And unlike most stock pickers I am willing to share that information. You know not only what I say,...

Today's star performer was, once again, Research in Motion. Up 17% to an even $12.00. It started this year at $14.50, so it is still down 17% on the year. But it is up 97% from its low of $6.10. Clearly there was money to made and money to be lost by...

Research in Motion was up another 5.5% today to $10.23. It is only a week ago that I had bought 700 shares at $8.48. And I probably should buy some more but I always find it hard to buy higher. And of course it is a speculative pick.
There are many w...

I mentioned a couple of times that the Hudson's Bay IPO looked to be proceeding quite slowly. It has finally closed. They sold I understand $365 million of shares rather than the hoped for $400 million. And the price at I believe $17.50 is lower than...

Okay, so the Dow was up 1.6% today and Toronto was up 1.4%. This gain today is not something I expected or could have predicted. Nor is it much a surprise. Stock markets rise and stock markets fall. Luckily, they mostly rise over time. An investor wi...

Walmart is updated and rated (higher) Buy at $68.03. If it stays at this price on Monday I plan to buy back some of the shares I sold a couple months ago at higher prices.
Markets were reasonable strong on Friday.
Notable winners among our stocks inc...

I took a quick read of the Walmart Q3 report that caused its share price to drop 3.6%. I could not see the bad news. It all looked good to me. Continued modest growth is what I saw. I would be inclined to buy Walmart on this pull-back.
It was a weak ...

Tuesday was another negative day in the markets. Canadian Tire was down a bit more. I can not give any assurance that markets will not continue to all. I do know that Canadian Tire at $67.40 is a better investment than it was at recent prices in the ...

Another down day on the markets. Dow down 1.5%, Toronto down 1.7%.
Well, the fact is that all the days of our investing lives cannot be happy days (nor all the weeks, all the weeks, all the months or all the years).
Notable losers included Bank of A...

I had said I would buy back some of the Toll brothers that I had sold if the price got down to about $31. The price today was $31.30 and so I decided to buy 300 shares.
...

Today is a holiday for some, but the markets are open.
The big news among the stocks on our list was a friendly take-over offer for the Brick Ltd. at $5.40 per share. The stock is up 52% form it's close on Friday. And it is up 126% from the $2.35 at ...

Stantec is updated and rated (higher) Buy at $37.14. It is up 35% this year. And is up 1386% since we first
looked at it way back at the inception of this site in 1999. While it is not as attractive today as it was then or on the several occasions wh...

Canadian Tire is updated and (still) rated (lower) Strong Buy at $69.81. The market appears to be discounting the value here due to fears of the impact of Target coming to Canada.
...

Toronto was down 0.3% and the Dow was down 0.9%.
Among our Stock Picks, Canadian Tire got pushed down 3.3% despite releasing what seemed to be a reasonably good earnings report and despite increasing its dividend. I took the opportunity to buy 200 sh...

The excitement of the lead up the U.S. election has quickly dissipated in the realization that the election has not changed the government.
The Dow was down 2.4% and Toronto was down 1.1%
Bank of America was particularly hard hit down 7.1% I would vi...

In what seemed to be a surprise, U.S. markets were quite strong this U.S. election day. The Dow was up 1.0%.
The attention now will turn to what is next including the "fiscal cliff" of potential tax hikes and spending cuts at the end of December. Fut...

This week starts out with Toronto down very slightly and The Dow up slightly. Toll Brothers was up 3.7% today to $33.39. I had said I would consider buying back some of what I sold a while back at higher prices if it gets down to $31. Obviously, I ma...

At the bottom of the stock list above, I have listed, courtesy of a Globe and Mail article, the fund trading symbols for several bank deposit accounts that pay 1.25%. Over the years I have generally kept my investment account cash in literally cash. ...

Stantec was a big gainer today, up 8.4% to $37.29 after it released Q3 earnings. Our last update had rated it (lower) Strong Buy at $31.25 on May 27. See the detailed comments under May 27. It was rated Strong Buy at the start of this year at $27.5...

Markets did not move much today. RIM was up 3.7%, but that is just "noise" for this company. Bank of America was up 2.2%. Toll Brothers was down 2.2% to $33.01. This despite the fact that house prices are rising. I has some some earlier at higher p...

With the U.S. markets closed there was not too much excitement on the markets. But Toronto was up 0.5%.
The latest Case Shiller Home Price index is out and showed a 0.9% increase. The fifth monthly increase in a row.
I was wondering if Berkshire Hat...

With the U.S. markets closed for a "storm day" today (and tomorrow, Tuesday) not too much seemed to happen in the Canadian markets.
I saw some discussion that Canadian Tire needs to reduce costs. I am not sure how true that is. I do worry tht is's d...

Shaw Communications is updated and rated Buy at CAN $21.06. It's also a high yield stock at 4.6%. Shaw is up 4% this year to date, which combined with the dividend of 4.6% has been a good investment. It trades at 13 times earnings which is ostensibly...

Toronto was up 0.9% while the Dow was up 0.2%. Constellation Software was up another 1.8% to $116.20. We had last rated it (lower) Strong Buy on April 1 at $89.35. They will release earnings after the close on Wednesday next week and I plan to update...

Markets were down just slightly today. As for our stock picks, we had Toll Brothers up 2.0%. We have already had big gains on this one this year, and it does look expensive at this time. But it certainly may continue to rise if the U.S. housing reco...

As most you will have noticed, the DOW was down 1.8% today, Toronto was down 1.4% and the S&P 500 was down 1.4%.
These kind of days are not unusual and simply reflect the realities of stock investing. And I am afraid I can offer no comfort that the m...

The Canadian Q3 earnings season has begun with Canadian National Railway reporting slightly better than expected earnings. We had last rated it as a Buy on July 27 at $88.40. While we have not updated it for this latest earnings release I see no reas...

The Dow was down 1.5% on Friday and Toronto was down 0.4%. But our stock picks held up quite well. We did have Microsoft down 2.9%, but we also had Toll Brothers up 1.1% and Canadian Tire and Melcor unchanged. And given the big drop in the Canadian d...

While the markets were down very slightly today, our stock picks did reasonably well.
Hudson's Bay Company is going to go public again. It was founded through the issue of a charter by King Charles II on May 2, 1670 as the Governor and Company of Ad...

With another strong day in the markets we should keep in mind that there will be down days as well. Overall invesing in stocks tends to be rewarding but it can and will have its downs as well as ups.
The TSX was up 0.4% while the Dow was up very slig...

Another good day in the markets... It was good in particular to see Canadian Tire up 1.8%.
The Q3 earnings season is just in full swing in the U.S. and about to get started in Canada. So between that and the usual economic news there is lots to push...

It seems there are few dull days in the market. Today we had the Dow up 95 points or 0.7%. But Toronto was only up 0.2%. The larger gains among our stock picks were Bank of America, up 3.5%, Toll Brothers up 3.4%, Stantec up 2.4%, Constellation Softw...

FedEx is updated and rated (lower) Buy at $90.40. While the near-term outlook does not appear to be strong, this is a company that I think we can be reasonably sure will grow its earnings per share over the long term. The stock rose about 5.5% late l...

Wells Fargo is updated and rated (lower) Strong Buy at $34.25. This appears to be a good investment. I recently sold some shares at $36.46 and $34.90. I did that to raise cash. Still, I am very tempted to buy those back at this slightly lower price. ...

Wells Fargo released earnings before the open this morning. It opened down roughly 3.5% and remains down roughly 3.5% at this time. (This illustrates why earnings should never be released during trading hours, by releasing before the open, no one got...

The Dow was down 1.0% today and Toronto was down 0.5%
Many or most of our stocks picks were down
Fedex was up 5.1% after announcing some cost cutting moves. Coincidently I intend to update the report on Fedex within the next few days.
Alimentation Co...

Markets were weak on Tuesday with the TSX down 1.2% and the DOW down 0.8%. Most of our stock picks were down. RIM was a particularly notable loser, down 5.5%.
After the close earnings season has kicked off in the United States with Alcoa moderately ...

Markets on Friday were mixed with Toronto down 0.2% and the Dow up 0.3%. However many or most of our stock picks were down. One interesting gainer was Alimentation Couche-Tard up 6.2% in the final hour of trading. The company held its annual meeting ...

It was another strong day for our stock picks. The Dow was up 0.6%, and Toronto was up 0.7%. We had Bank of America up 3.3%, Wells Fargo up 1.5% .. almost everything seemed to be up today.
I should probably be looking to trim a bit more to raise my c...

Our stock picks did well today even though the Dow was only up 0.1% and the TSX was down 0.3%.
We had Toll brothers up 3.7% (although that is not one our top picks now), Bank of America up 2.0% and Wells Fargo up 1.8%. Berkshire Hathaway up 0.7% and ...

Most stocks were down somewhat today as markets focus on various risks including lower earnings and the Europe situation and excess government debts...
One stock on the rise was Research in Motion (RIM), up 6.0% to $8.15.
Regarding Corporate earning...

Stocks had a surprisingly good day after a report showed stronger U.S. factory activity and also apparently becasue Spain signaled it might ask for a bail-out (which, for whatever reason is apparently a positive thing).
Stantec was particularly stron...

P.S. (update to comment) I had forgotten to mention in this post that on Friday I sold my Walmart shares. I had indicated in Thursday's remarks that I might sell my Walmart shares.
Friday marked the end of the third quarter of the year.
While, you m...

It was a decent day in the markets with Toronto up 0.9% and the Dow up 0.5%.
I had heard this morning that some of the economic reports out today related to housing and GDP were weak but tht the market was up on rumors that China would stimulate its ...

Markets were a bit weak again today. Toll Brothers was down 3.8% to $34.16 and its recent high was just over $37. New house prices continue to rise in the U.S. but the number of new home sales in August failed to rise as expected from the July number...

Markets were down somewhat today. I was thinking about the fact that I really should reduce my high equity exposure. So I sold a small amount of my two largest positions, Wells Fargo and Canadian Tire. I also sold some Toll Brothers. This just seemed...

In today's action, Melcor was up 4.3% to $15.90. But this is very thinly traded stock that tends to jump around like that, so this is fairly meaningless.
I bought a small amount of Bombardier today. I have mixed feelings about it. It's balance sheet ...

Bombardier Inc. returns to the list above rated Speculative Buy at $3.71. I wanted to look at it again because the price is well down from its early 2011 level when it reached $7.00. Sometimes a significantly lower price can be a good place to look f...

A mixed day on the markets, Canada down a bit, the Dow up a bit. Canadian Tire did well up 1.4%. I don't see any reason that Canadian Tire will not report a decent quarter for Q3. But it seems the stock is probably not going to do all that much until...

Toll Brothers was up another 3.5% to $36.41. It's now up 177% from its low of $13.16 that occurred just about 12 months ago. But it's "only" up 78% from the $20.42 at which it was originally put on this site. This just goes to show that the gain is a...

The market seems fairly quiet as it settles back after the FED's latest action waits for the next bit of news.
Fedex announced lower expectations. That truly is disappointing because delivery of packages would tend to go up if the economy is improvin...

Markets fell moderately today as the excitement of last week's FED stimulus action wears off. Melcor was down to $14.90 but is thinly traded. I am tempted to add to my position.
Our reference article on Canadian Exchange Traded Funds is updated. This...

I am just reading the annual report for Boston Pizza Royalties Income Fund..
This company (actually entity) is an example of how a share price can increase for reasons not much related to the performance of the company itself. These units have risen ...

I am certainly feeling "pumped" about my investment returns and the performance of the stock picks on this site this year. My own portfolio is up 22.6%. Almost all of the stock picks have done well. A notable exception is Research in Motion. But we d...

As you likely noticed, today was a blow-out day in the markets. The Dow was up 1.5% and Toronto was up 1%.
This, of course , was due to the FED's announcement of additional stimulus consisting of printing money to try to lower interest rates (even th...

It was a decent day on the markets with the Dow up a half percent although Toronto was flat.
The most notable winner among our stocks was Bank of America up 5.2%. This seemed to on talk that it would start to grow its loan base now that it had jettis...

Not surprisingly, markets today gave back some of the big gains from last week.
Apparently the big item this week is an expectation that the FED will announce more "easing" on Thursday. If the FED does not come through then I suppose markets would dr...

What to do now?
I must plead guilty to very (very!) much enjoying the fact that I am up 20.8% this year to date. After quite few years investing my investments have grown to the point where a 21% gain is a very good chunk of money (just under 200k). ...

Our popular article that analyses whether or not the S&P 500 index is fairly valued at this point in time is updated.
Alimentation Couche-Tard is updated and rated Weak Buy / Hold at $49.95. This was a great stock pick for us this year since it ...

It was a very strong day on the markets. Apparently this was mostly due to the announcement that the European Central Bank would support European countries and keep their borrowing costs low by purchasing unlimited amounts of their debt in the market...

Alimentation Couche-Tard released earnings today. Reading through the report the earnings look very good. However the share price has risen a lot since our last update and I will have to crunch some numbers before I arrive at an updated opinion on t...

One of relatively few stocks that were up today was Wal-Mart, up 1.25% to $73.51. It's up 12.5% since we rated it a Buy at $$65.31 on May 28. Considering these facts, and the fact that I have only a small cash position, I decided to sell half my hold...

RioCan Real Estate Investment Trust is updated and rated Weak Buy / Hold at $27.62. It has been a good investment in 2012 since it rose 4.5% and also yields 5%. However, I am not convinced that a 5% yield is attractive going forward given that distri...

Canadian Western Bank is updated and rated (higher) Buy at $28.13. This has been a steady performer over the years. It is up 9.0% this year and that is in addition to a modest dividend yield of 2.3%. Since we first looked at it 13 years ago (and rate...

I have updated the composition of my own portfolio.
...

North American markets were down about 1% today...
I did not have a very large position in Canadian Western Bank and I doubled my position in that company today.
...

Stocks overall did not do much today as the North American stock indexes were approximately unchanged on the day. Canadian Tire however was up 2.5% and Constellation Software was up another 2.1%
Canadian Western Bank released earnings after the close...

I sold about 20% of my Toll Brothers position today based on the updated rating which indicates it is not longer the bargain that it was. The latest Case Shiller home price index came out and showed gained but Toll Brothers stock did not react much. ...

Toll Brothers is updated and rated Speculative (lower) Buy at $32.28. I had hoped it would look better than that. Even assuming house prices and new home sales continue to recover the stock looks expensive. It may continue to rise as the housing mark...

Back from my travels... I am looking tonight at the Toll Brothers report and will update that company in the next day or so.
Our performance figures year-to-date as of today are very good. The way I measure performance is explained under the individu...

So stocks were up nicely today, after being down yesterday.
Many people complain that "these days" stocks are unpredictable. They seem to think stocks used to be predictable. That is utter nonsense. Volatility in stock prices is normal and in fact pr...

Still cruising towards Victoria for a 6 pm docking.
Stocks were down today and our stock picks were almost all down. A notable exception, Constellation Software up 1.8% to $99.90, it has risen up a fair amount in the past month or so.
Stocks fell bec...

On board the Celebrity Infinity cruising to Victoria from Skagway today. Stocks were down a bit but our picks did okay with Toll Brothers up 3.8% and Boston Pizza up about 2%. I have nothing to complain about regarding the markets this year. I have n...

I am just leaving Skagway, Alaska tonight. Will arrive Victoria, Thursday at 6 pm. While the Dow was down modestly today, Toronto was up and our Stock picks did okay. Walmart had been down a bit which is probably a buying opportunity and certainly is...

Greetings now from Juneau, Alaska. Shaw and Bank of America were both up about 2% today
...

Greetings from Cape Fox Lodge in Ketchekan Alaska. Internet on the cruise ship is not only expensive but I could not get it to work. I may not be anle to post this week, but probably will find some hotspots in Juneau or Skagway. Stocks did well on Fr...

Stocks had a strong day. Toll brothers was up 5.8%. Microsoft was up 1.9%, Canadian Western Bank up 2%.
So far I am hanging on not taking profits or adding to positions.
Walmart however was down 3% after reporting earnings that were good but not quit...

Our stocks did well today. Notably Canadian Tire up 1.1% and therefore hanging onto the strong gains it made after reporting earnings last week. Couche-Tard up 1.9%. Melcor was up 1.9% but can be somewhat volatile due to thin trading volume. Walmart ...

Wal-Mart was up 0.8% today to $74.01. That puts this company up 23.8% this year to date. For a number of years I Have been explaining that the fact that Wal-Mart was trading under it previous high of about $70 from 1999 was not any fault of Wal-Mart'...

Our stocks hung in okay today with the markets down a little.
I notice that the TMX Group was down 5.5% today.
This is not at all the same TMX Group as it was. Firstly it is in fact a different company. The Maple Group Acquisition Corporation bought ...

Canadian Tire is updated and rated (lower) Strong Buy at $69.57. The Q2 earnings report was very strong.
...

We closed out the week with a relatively flat day for our stock picks on average.
The year to date however has been a lot better than flat.
As of January 1 we had 23 companies rated in the Buy or Strong Buy categories. Notice we use the word compan...

Canadian Tire earnings came out before the open and appear to be quite strong.
...

Canadian Tire came through with good earnings and the stock was up 4.8% today. The actual Canadian Tire stores had about flat sales versus last year but the former Forzani Group stores did well, Marks also did well and financial services did very wel...

The Canadian stock market was down 0.7% today but the U.S. markets were about flat. Toll Brothers was up another 1.9% as a report showed that U.S. house prices are now slowly rising. It reports earnings on August 22.
It is interesting to watch RONA...

Today was a strong day for the Toronto Stock exchange which was up 1.7%. The Dow was up 0.4%.
Lots of modest gains today... among the larger gainers, Stantec up another 2.1%. Toll Brothers was up 2.1% as the market continues to see that the U.S. hous...

Canadian markets were closed on Monday. U.S. markets were up modestly.
Bank of America was up 2.8% to $7.64. While it is speculative and is also very complex it does appear to offer good value. Housing markets in the U.S. appear to edging up and this...

Markets were up strongly on Friday mostly due to a better-than-expected jobs creation number and I think partly due to comments that Germany would not stand in the way of the European Central bank's meddling in the markets.
Whatever the reason it was...

Today the market was down because the European Central Bank did not promise to meddle in the markets immediately. It did however warn (err promise) that it would get ready to meddle before too long.
I view dips caused by this sort of thing as more ...

The market was disappointed that the Fed did not come through with some economic stimulation today. Whatever, the FED has done quite enough meddling. I think it is tomorrow that the hope turns to the European Central Bank to do some meddling.
Overal...

The Case-Shiller report today showed that U.S. house prices rose in May.
We are past the bottom of house prices in the U.S. House prices are higher than the bottom on all 20 Cities in the survey / index. The increases range from 1.7% in New York and ...

Markets were somewhat weak today. There is some anticipation that the Fed further "stimulate" the economy at a meeting this week.
To my mind it is idiotic for the Fed to continue to try to drive down interest rates. They are already about the lowest ...

Some of you may want to consider our longer term and/ or lifetime subscription offers. We now have over 12 years of history of beating the market quite consistently. We can't guarantee to keep beating the market, but we will be using the same methods...

Bank of America is updated and rated Speculative Strong Buy at $7.17. ( As I post this it is up to $7.31 today) As mentioned in the report, this is a very large and complex company and our analysis is relatively superficial. I don't claim any special...

Stocks had a good day on Thursday and as of Friday morning are having another strong day.
Daybook however is down 14% to $23. I have said it does not have the advertising power of Google. But it certainly does have a tremendous amount of web traffic....

I am just taking a look at RioCan's annual report. I am looking at this company with some suspicion. It seems to me it is to some extent a work of financial engineering. It has a high yield. But the dividend appears to be higher than its earnings (se...

There was not too much excitement happening with our stock picks today.
Not surprisingly we continue to get mixed signals. Bad news from Spain. But Caterpillar earnings way up.
A lot is riding on the slow recovery in the U.S. housing market. With h...

A weak day in the markets...
Lots of earnings reports coming in to push individual stocks in one direction or the other... Also of course news from Europe. It never ends.
I have tracked my portfolio on Yahoo Finance for something like 15 years now. I...

As a long-term investor I really should not be concerned with daily market fluctuations. Yet it seems impossible to keep our eyes off the market. I obviously prefer my stocks to go up. I don't mind if the general market or any stock I don't own or ha...

Friday was a weak day on the markets. Bright spots included Toll Brothers, up 4.4% and Walmart up 1.0%.
Also Liquor stores N.A up 2.4% and now up 17% since it was added to this Site as a Buy on April 10. eBay was another winner on Friday up 2.0% and...

Stocks did well on Thursday but our picks suffered with declines from Walmart and Bank of America.
Walgreen, rated (higher) Buy at the start of this year at $33.06 and had languished this year. But yesterday it announced some good news involving a co...

Today was a strong day for U.S. markets with the DOW up 0.8%. This was driven by some good earnings reports and by comments from Ben Bernanke that the U.S. is not likely going into another recession. And, notably due to stronger housing stats in the ...

Markets rose today based on a positive interpretation of Ben Bernanki's comments. Also positive earnings reports from Goldman Sach's and Coke.
Based on an order I placed last month and then more recently renewed, I sold some of my Boston Pizza today ...

The Dow was down 0.4% today (Monday) while Toronto was very slightly up.
A small portion of my Wells Fargo shares sold today based on an order I had placed about a month ago to sell a few shares at $34.00.
Alimentation Couche-Tard released earnings l...

Costco is updated and rated Weak Sell at $94.81. It also looked expensive at the start of this year but has risen 14%. It's an extremely good company. But it simply looks expensive. Possibly there is an argument to pay up for quality but there is als...

The Dow was down 0.25% today and the S&P 500 was down 0.50% and Toronto was down 1.0%
I probably don't need to say this, but as a reminder I have never said that I could predict the direction of the market. What I can do is analyses whether the marke...

In today's "action" the Dow was down 0.4%, the S&P 500 was flat and Toronto was up 0.3%
Our stock picks did okay... Notably Berkshire was up 1.25% to $84.09. The order I mentioned two days ago to sell 100 of my 1300 Berkshire shares at $100 went thro...

Walmart went over $72 today and so my order to sell 300 shares went through at $72. It got as high as $72.58 but closed at $72.11.
Most of our stocks picks were down along with the market but Boston Pizza was up 1.4%. The Canadian dollar was down a ...

Markets were down modestly today, but our stocks picks held in quite well. Walmart, Wells Fargo and Berkshire all edged up a little.
I had an order in to trim my Berkshire position by 200 shares (from 1400) if it should hit $84. With Berkshire at ab...

Our reference article on Global Exchange Traded Funds is updated. Many argue that the best investments are to be found in emerging markets. However most emerging market ETFs do not appear to be obvious bargains, although they may be when the growth i...

Even with some news of stimulus and rate cuts from Europe and China, markets were down somewhat today. Well, that was to be expected after the recent strong gains.
Toll Brothers managed a gain of 2.3% today to $30.25. This stock got as low as $24 onl...

U.S. markets were closed today. The TSX gained another 0.5%
Well before the market opened this morning, the TMX group and Maple group announced positive news about the deal being approved but indicated the Competition Bureau approval, although lookin...

Okay, so the Dow was up another 0.6% today. Toronto was up 2.2%. Oil was up... The Canadian dollar was up.
Walmart powered ahead by another 2.0% today to $70.75. No one seems to have noticed that it has passed its lifetime high from way back in 1999....

The U.S. markets were open today and closed about unchanged. I would have expected at lest some decline after the big gains late last week.
I have added a new edition of the free newsletter. However, I was unable to email it out due to a system prob...

My personal portfolio composition is updated
After Thursday's market surge, my own portfolio is up a surprising and rather satisfying 16.4% in 2012.
Here is a summary of how all our stock picks have done since the start of 2012.

InvestorsFriend In...

Update 11:30 am eastern. I decided to also sell 20% of my Toll Brothers. Toll should do well certainly as a company, but I worry about its high P/E ratio and I have had a nice gain already. I always find that once I get in selling mode it's a bit har...

Well it was certainly a banner day on the markets today to end the second quarter.
The DOW was up 2.2%, Toronto was up 1.5%. Oil was up 9% (although one figure showed a staggering 18% late Friday).
The Canadian dollar was up a remarkable 1.6%.
Walmar...

Our stock picks managed to do okay today. U.S. investments were helped in terms of their Canadian dollar value by the drop in The Canadian dollar today. Toll Brothers and Canadian Tire did well today.
Shaw Communications came out with an earnings rep...

Pleasantly enough (and a bit surprisingly) the market has given back the losses of Monday over the past two days. Well at least that is the case for my own account, and the American market DOW has recovered quite a bit, although not completely. But T...

Note that I plan to update many of the reports during July and early August. And some new companies will be added.
Today the market gave back some of yesterday's losses. A notable winner was Toll Brothers up 5.3%. The latest Case Shiller report shows...

As most will have noticed, Monday was a down day on the markets.
Walmart was up 1.3% and was one of very few winners today.
While stocks are generally falling in price, one positive indicator is seen in corporate transactions. Microsoft is buying a w...

Dollarama is updated and rated Sell at $61.81
I highly respect this as a business but simply find the share price to be too high for all the reasons indicated in the report. As a business it is an amazing success story. And it may continue to do well...

The Dow ended the day down 250 points or 2.0%. Toronto was down 351 points or 3.0%.
The market had reacted positively this week to news of the Greek election outcome and to the Fed's operation twist. But the positive reaction has been short-lived. To...

I was just reading the Canadian Business magazine article about SNC Lavelin and it's Libyan scandal. I know very little to nothing about this company. But based on the magazine article its international operations are complex. It seems clear that som...

Market were surprising strong today (Tuesday) with the Dow up 0.75% and Toronto up 1.6%.
Almost all of our stock picks rose. Notably Bank of America up 4.5%.
This market rise was partly on expectations that the Fed will "ease" monetary conditions on ...

The tiny blip of excitement over the Greek election that drove the DOW futures up 66 points on Sunday fizzled out by morning. We ended up down 25 on the Dow but up 76 on Toronto.
The best performer was Stantec up 4.2%.
 
...

Stock markets were up of Friday despite fears over the outcome of the Greek election.
It appears the outcome of the election is favorable. The Dow futures were up 66 points as of mid-night Sunday night / Monday morning. Not huge but at least it is po...

Stocks ended up doing well today on rumors / news that certain central banks would take some kind of coordinated efforts to deal with matters in Europe. For our stocks the best performer was Toll Brothers up 3.3%. Friday should be yet another interes...

A glance at the graph of today's trading shows the Dow started out down but was modestly in positive territory much of the day before falling to a 0.6% loss at the close. The TSX started out in negative territory and then traded higher much of the da...

As expected my order to sell 20% of my Walmart shares went through this morning. I had placed a limit order to sell at no lower than $67. The stock opened at $67.68 according to Yahoo finance. My shares sold at $67.70 (I am not sure why it would not ...

Update: earlier tonight I posted some thoughts about selling some shares to raise cash. I have now entered an order to sell about 20% of my Wal-Mart shares at a minimum price of $67. And another 20% if we happen to get to $72. I also entered orders t...

With my very heavy exposure to equities (104% since I am using a bit of margin) it may be wise for me to think about raising some cash by taking some profits. Therefore I will consider selling some Walmart, of my five largest positions, four are rate...

Our average stock in the Buy and Strong Buy range is up 5.9% in 2012 which is better than the TSX which is down 3.9% and it is similar to the S&P 500 which is up 5.4%. My own portfolio is currently  69% concentrated in just five stocks and has ma...

The big market gains on Wednesday were apparently due to rumors of further "easing" by the Fed and  perhaps some bank rescues in Europe. Today (Thursday) the Fed chairman more or less poured cold water on the idea of immediate Fed easing. But China d...

Well, who'd a thunk the DOW would rise 287 points today, 2.4%? or the TSX 126 points or 1.1%
Apparently the market rose on hopes of government intervention (interference?) into the economy including bank bailouts in Spain and additional monetary easi...

Markets were a bit more cooperative today with most of our stocks rising. This despite continued negative news out of Europe.
...

With Toll Brothers down another 5% today I added to my holdings. Over the years I have found that by trying to select good companies and generally holding though the down times and buying at lower prices I have been able to beat the market averages. ...

As of 9 pm eastern on Sunday evening, the Dow futures were down 100 points... I imagine markets will continue to lurch around and that sometimes they will lurch upwards and sometimes downward.
Yesterday I mentioned Toll Brothers which got fairly clob...

Friday's market was certainly a reminder that the road to stock market wealth does not proceed in a smooth fashion.
The Dow was down 2.2% and is now down 0.8% in 2012 or about even after considering dividends. The S&P 500 index was down 2.5% on F...

Our stocks picks did fairly well today. Walmart at $65.82 could soon reach a new all-time high surpassing its old record close which was just under $70. If so it has been a long time coming since its record high was in late 1999. But as I have often ...

On Tuesday the market gaveth and on Wednesday it tooketh that away and more. Such is the nature of markets.
Canadian Tire announced it will close a almost 100 of its  sports stores (former Forzani Group Ltd. stores). This is 20% of the FGL stores. Bu...

I have updated the composition of my own portfolio.
Perhaps surprisingly, amid  the gloom, stocks did well today.
With Stantec down somewhat yesterday, Monday, I added to my position in that stock.
Walmart is updated and rated Buy at $65.31. While Wa...

Stantec Inc. is updated and rated (lower) Strong Buy at CAN $31.25 or U.S. $30.15
Stantec has been growing its earnings per share relatively steadily for many many years and appears set to continue to do so, although probably at a somewhat lower rate...

Our stock picks made modest progress today.
The lower Canadian dollar has helped out for Canadians holding U.S. stocks. At 97.3 cents I don't have any particular idea of where the Canadian dollar will head. I did conclude that buying U.S. stocks when...

Toll brothers reported earnings early this morning. The earnings and sales figures were good. However, Toll Brothers is already pricing in a lot of good news and will need to continue to improve to justify its current stock price of $27.75. I bought ...

Melcor (real estate) Developments is updated and rated (higher) Buy at $15.55. If you wish to own a real estate investment, Melcor seems like a good choice. It does not have a high dividend but instead invests most of the earnings for growth (and has...

Canadian Tire is updated and rates (lower) Strong Buy at $65.82. The valuation here looks excellent with the shares trading at only 1.2 times book value despite the 11% ROE. And the company owns substantial amounts of real estate that is carried at l...

Today's winner was Walmart, up 4.2% after reporting strong earnings. Honorable mention to RIM, up 4.0%. And consolation prize to Liquor Stores N.A. up 1.9% perhaps on the theory that recent market declines will drive us to drink. Just about all the r...

Among the very few bright spots for our Stock Picks in today's trading was Constellation Software which was up 3.1% to $90.74. Canadian Tire was down another 0.9%. Showing the courage of my convictions I bought another 200 shares.
While in an ideal w...

It was another weak day in the markets.  A few of our stock picks did manage gains. Toll Brothers the U.S. house builder was up 1.8% and is up a total of 33% this year to date. It does look quite expensive because earnings have certainly not recovere...

As you will no-doubt be aware, Monday was a poor day in the markets. And our stock picks certainly got hit. Most notably Canadian Tire was down 3.1%. I don't see the justification for that. I have read their Q1 report from last week and they appear b...

Boston Pizza Royalties Income Fund is updated and rated Buy at $17.87. Basically it pays a cash distribution of 6.6% and the distribution should grow with inflation but not much beyond inflation.  We were pleasantly surprised to see the units rise 26...

Canadian Tire reported strong results this morning and was up 4.2% to $70.23. This is my second largest holding. It has done reasonably well. I feel very comfortable that the earnings and particularly the assets support the share price with a reasona...

I added to my Boston Pizza units this morning. The company has reported earnings. It lost money under GAAP rules. However distributable cash flow was okay and same store sales were up 7.5%. I have not analyzed it in detail but it appears the loss is ...

The market down-draft that was supposed to happen Monday came a day late.
In Canada we had news that housing starts are running at 245,000 per year. Meanwhile the U.S. is running at about 680,000. If you consider the usual rule of thumb that the U.S....

As of Sunday and even as of Monday morning it looked like markets would be down noticeable on Monday. Instead they ended up fairly flat on the day.
Banks including Wells Fargo and Bank America were up (1.4% and 2.8%, respectively). Berkshire Hathaway...

Election outcomes in France and Greece this weekend are considered negative for markets. Dow futures were down 131 points as of 11 pm eastern time. Perhaps Buffett will get his chance to buy back some Berkshire shares tomorrow. This is going to creat...

Berkshire Hathaway is updated and rated (higher) Buy at $80.94. The Q1 earnings just come out today and were quite good. In particular, the book value per share soared about 6.5% in the quarter due to gains on various investments. Berkshire will buy ...

The TSX was down another 1.8% today. The Dow was down 0.5% and the S&P 500 was down 0.8%.
Constellation Software was down 6.9% today, presumable because its earnings while pretty good were not high enough for the lofty expectations of this stock....

The Canadian market was down 0.8% today at 12,230. This market has not done well at all after reaching levels over 14,000 in early 2011. The trailing TSX P/E ratio is 15.7 which suggests that the index is perhaps fairly valued at this time.
The U.S. ...

It was a strong day in the markets. Looking at our stock picks we had Bank of America up 2.5%, Toll brothers up 2.1%, Wells Fargo up 2.0%.
I am taking a look at Genworth Financial which is a private mortgage insurer and a competitor to CMHC.
On the s...

The TMX Group appears to be moving closer to an acquisition by the Maple Acquisition Group.
They had a press release on Friday afternoon at 1:43 pm which although a bit cryptic seemed to indicate takeover was progressing and that the Competition bure...

A nice day on the markets... Toll Brothers was a notable winner up 3.9%, also a partial recovery on Walmart.
Natural Gas
Natural gas prices have fallen to a ten year low. (And now recovered a little bit) Now I don't know anything at all about the eco...

We continue to see mixed signals in the markets. North America and earnings doing well, some of Europe seemingly circling the drain...
Couche-Tard has continued to do well now at $41.50. It may well have been a mistake for me to have sold at around $...

Walmart dropped a further 3.0% today to $57.77.
Walmart, today, during trading hours, released a statement on this matter. To me the statement is very weak in that it was not delivered by the CEO or Chairman. It points to the excuse that these matter...

I sent out a newsletter yesterday with a link to a new article on how much money has to be saved and for how long, to amass one million dollars in stocks.
It feels a bit elitist to talk about getting one million in stocks. But then again we live in a...

Comment on Bank of America.
Bank of America released earnings last week. This is a complex company. After reading its earnings press release and looking at the financials in the supplemental release and looking at its Q1 presentation, I conclude the ...

It was a moderately negative day int eh markets. Couche-Tard went down a bit to $38.75. I threw in an order to buy back half of what I sold at $37.60 if it happens to dip down. (I sold all my shares on the big jump yesterday).
I notice eBay took a bi...

The big news today was that Alimentation Couche-Tard was making a huge acquisition of Statoil Fuel and Retail fuel / convenience stores in Scandanavia / Eastern Europe. Couche-Tard closed up $15.4% on this news. And this was on top of being up severa...

Our stock picks did well today, notably Walmart up 2.0%, Toll Brothers up 2.0%,  Walgreen up 5.3%, Fedex up 2.6%.
After the close of regular trading (but during the period of that oxymoronic activity "after hours" trading) Warren Buffett announced th...

Markets are set to open higher this morning on good earnings and other economic data. We are in the middle of Q2 earnings season now and markets are reacting to the daily reports.
...

Markets were down noticeably on Friday. My level of concern about this is approximately zero. Yes, markets could fall further, that is always the case. But at the end of the day it is a distraction to the larger picture which is that I am confident o...

Most everything was up today, the Dow was up 1.4%, Toronto up 1.6%.
Canadian Tire was up 1.6% and sits at a 52 week high. Earnings season continues tomorrow with J P Morgan and Wells Fargo which I suspect will report good numbers. More important will...

North American markets were up about 0.7% today after ALco reported better-than-expected earnings.
Of note, Canadian Tire was up 3.0%, Toll Brothers 4.0% and Bank of America 3.7%. Melcor was down 2.7% to $14.37 which I think is a buying opportunity.
...

Liquor Stores N.A. Ltd (formerly Liquor Stores Income Fund) is added to the list above as a Buy at $17.01. Perhaps this can help quench the thirst for dividends with its 6.3% yield. I would not necessarily count on much growth here although we could ...

Markets were down 1% on the Dow Jones and 0.7% Toronto.
I see where BMO Capital Markets is expected a flat quarter from Shaw Communications. We will see on Friday morning... I was hoping for better than that.
 
...

Markets as of Sunday night are predicted to open on Monday morning about 125 points down on the Dow. Personally, I don't see that as cause for alarm at all. Of course markets could take a big drop, that is always the case. But over time as the econom...

Two important analysis articles are updated for 2011 year-end data.
The first shows what happened to portfolios  for all the possible 30-year savings periods from 1926 to 1955 all the way to 1982 through 2011 invested in either 1. 100% U.S. stocks (S...

The latest edition of our free newsletter was sent out today.
Stocks were down on Thursday. And today, Friday the jobs report in the U.S. was disappointing and could send stocks down on Monday.  Nevertheless, I feel good about holding stocks at this ...

Markets were down again today... Everyday the market turns its attention to something new. Tomorrow, I believe tit will be the latest jobs reports. Next week of the week after the focus will be on Q1 earnings. It seems to me that the economy is still...

The Dow was down 0.5% today and the Toronto index was down 1.5%. Our stocks picks were mostly down as well.
I have mentioned the secondary share offering of Constellation Software. This was a sale of shares by a major shareholder (OMERs private equit...

It was another good day in the markets. One of our favorites,  Canadian Tire was up 2.3%. Melcor has slipped a bit lately and is definitely worth considering at around $15.
Constellation Software's secondary offering of shares (it was OMERs private e...

In about two weeks Shaw Communications will release its Q2 earnings. No doubt they will report some loss of basic cable customers to Telus. On the other hand they will likely gain customers in total when phone and internet is considered. I would be s...

Today is the last trading day of Q1. It has been a very good quarter for out stock picks. U.S. markets are up 8% in the quarter. The Toronto market is up 3.6% but has been volatile.
With our stocks performing sell there is perhaps a danger of feeling...

Sino-Forest filed for bankruptcy protection today. I suspect shareholders will never see a dime out of this. They say they will sue Muddy Waters for defamatory statements that they were a fraud. Well, if they were a legitimate busienss why can't they...

Toll Brothers is up 3% this morning and was up a similar amount yesterday. This is the highest the stock has been since the financial crisis. It's interesting to see the stock rise these two days as the news out of the U.S. housing market this week s...

Visa Inc. is added back to the list rated Buy at $119.35. I had removed it from the list in late December because the rating had gotten well out of date.
A search of the comments below will confirm that over the last couple of years I referred to VIS...

It was a strong day in the markets and for our Stock Picks.
Possibly I should be reducing risk by harvesting some gains. But overall I feel good about the markets and am content to let my investments ride (accepting that there is always a risk that p...

I ran some numbers on Amazon today. I have been wanting to add some more well known companies like this to the list above. In part this is because I would enjoy learning more about the business fundamentals of additional companies. Also I could hopef...

Our stock picks were mostly up of Friday. Notable winners were Bank of America up 2.6% Canadian Tire up 1.8% and Shaw Communications up 1.0%.
...

Stocks were mostly down today. But I don't think there is any reason to get too worried about where stocks are headed.
...

I have just now updated my reference article on the (inflation adjusted) performance of Stocks, versus Bonds, Versus Gold and Treasury Bills. I consider this article which I first produced in 2001 to be very informative. It seemed particularly import...

Most stocks were down today. Bank of America and to a lesser extent Wells Fargo were up however.
The take over of Viterra at a large premium supports the notion that stocks in general are not over-valued. I continue to expect that 2012 will be a good...

Bank of America fell 2.8% today after initially being up about 2.5%. Apparently the fall was due to rumors it would issue more shares. However, the company has denied this. It's fully diluted share count will however rise in its Q1 report as Buffett'...

The latest edition of the free newsletter has been emailed out. You should have received it.
I am thinking of adding to my position in Berkshire Hathaway on the basis that it is likely having a good quarter. It's book value should gain nicely on its ...

Our article that calculates the fair value of the Tornoto Stock exchange index has been updated. It suggests that the index is about 6% under-valued as a point estimate.
...

It was yet another good day in the markets. Bank of America was up another 4.5%. Melcor was thinly traded and was up 6.8%. It's still quite good value at $15.50.
It would be nice to finish out the week without giving any back, but we shall see...
I r...

Our Stock Picks have been firing on all cylinders.
While Toronto was down 1.3% today our stocks did okay. Most notably, Bank of America was up 4.1%, adding to yesterday's gains and Wells Fargo managed to hang onto yesterday's big gains.
After the clo...

It was a VERY big day in the markets. The Dow was up 1.7%, the S&P 500 was up 1.8% and Toronto was up 0.9%.
For once, the market behaved just as I had talked about in terms of the stress tests on banks. The banks passed the tests and announced di...

The Dow was up 0.3% while Toronto was down 0.6%.
It could be a big week for the U.S. bank stocks. The Fed will release results of stress tests on Thursday after the close. If the results are good then we could see Wells Fargo raise its dividend as ea...

Bank of America is added to our list above as a Speculative Strong Buy at $8.05. For a variety of reasons (including that it is tough to value a company with approximately no earnings) this first report is a very preliminary and superficial analysis....

Friday was a good day in the markets and our stock picks are pretty close to their high for the year. I believe my own portfolio is at its high for the year to date. I think there is a good chance that 2012 will be quite a good year in the markets.
S...

Boston Pizza Royalty Income Trust raised its distribution by 6.5%. The units are now at $16.50 to yield 7.1%. Growth is driven largely by increases in same store sales and so we should not expect growth to be more than 2 or 3% longer term. But even a...

A partial recovery today of yesterday's losses...
After the close Canadian Western Bank came out with earnings. The report looked pretty good to me. Underlying growth was quite good. The actual adjusted earnings per share were only up 4% however and ...

Well, as you will have noticed markets were down today (DOW down 1.6%, Toronto down 1.8%). It's been a number of months since we had those kind of days. Remember last August and September? These kind of days are pretty normal really and I don't see a...

U.S. markets were down modestly today but Toronto fell almost 1%.
I hold out high hopes for Wells Fargo. The FED is going to release results of a stress test analysis sometime this month. I suppose that will show that Wells would be hit hard in anoth...

Strange Real Estate Developments
On Friday we had the news that Sears Canada has agreed to vacate the premises of three of its large stores and return them to the landlord in return for $170 million.
This immediately strikes me as odd. Normally a ten...

My article on the valuation of the Dow Jones Industrial Average is updated and suggests that the DOW is probably about 15% under-valued as a best estimate. Of course, that does not mean it is going to jump up 15% any time soon.
Microsoft is updated a...

I noticed today that TD Waterhouse has an issue of Firm Capital for sale.
What caught my interest is that this is a Mortgage Investment Corporation. That means it has some characteristics similar to income trusts. It does not pay income tax if it dis...

We are into bank reporting season in Canada. It was interesting to read in today's paper that analysts were having a very tough time interpreting Bank of Montreal's earnings due to some unusual profit items. The report was described in the Financial ...

Markets were a bit weak today with the Dow down 0.4% and the TSX down 0.8%. Nevertheless we had some winners today notably Toll Brothers up 4.6%, Couche-Tard up 2.0%.
...

In accordance with my note yesterday, I did buy some Canadian Western bank today and added to my Shaw Communications.
Some of our stocks did well today, notably Wells Fargo up 2.8%. Meanwhile Canadian Tire was down 1% to $63.27.
I sent an email to Co...

Regarding Melcor. I mentioned under January 31 that I had entered an order to sell what amounted to 18% of my shares if it went to $14.25. By last week I had pretty much forgot taht order was sitting there. Checking my account I notice that sale went...

My popular article on the valuation of the S&P 500 index has been updated. With the surge in stock prices in the past few month that market now looks about fairly valued and no longer looks under-valued.
Today's Financial Post reveals the sad sto...

Markers were moderately positive today. Very soon, I will be updating the report on the valuation of the S&P 500. I expect it will show that the market index still appears to be cheap.
Yesterday I mentioned AIMIA inc. (the former Group Aeroplan, ...

The Canadian market was up 0.6% today but the U.S. markets were down modestly. Some of our key stock picks here and three that I own were whacked down today. Walmart fell for the second day after disappointing earnings. Toll Brothers was down 5%, Can...

U.S. markets finished only moderately higher but the Canadian market did very well today. It's enough to make a person dizzy. But the point is to just buy individual stocks of good companies at good prices and not sweat the volatility too much. It's ...

A Greek debt debt deal was worked of late Monday (early Tuesday in Europe). The next major step is to see if parties actually do show up on March 8 to trade in their former Greek bonds for some 47 cents on the dollar in longer dated Greek bonds. The ...

The week ended nicely for stocks.
I have posted a new version of the free newsletter. However, due to system problems I am unable to email it out. The system problems that have occurred in the past two weeks have been partially but not completely fix...

The Dow and the TSX were both up 123 points today, or 1.0% each. Bank of America was up 4.0%, Microsoft was up 4.1% and Boston Pizza was up another 1.7%. Stantec was up 5.0% today after instituting a dividend for the first time. And FirstService was ...

Today's markets ended to the down-side mostly. No one can say if this is the start of bigger decline. My strategy will be to hold through any decline and probably add to positions. Stocks still look cheap. I may enter some orders to trim positions a ...

GREECE DEFAULT
The financial world is holding its breath waiting for some kind of Greek bond swap deal. The negotiations seem to go on forever.
And what is the point anyhow? It seems like we are trying to avoid an actual default which is considered "...

I mentioned several times recently my doubt that the Greek bond holders could possibly agree to a voluntary reduction in the value of their bonds. I feel there is no way they would ever get the 100% agreement that one would think would be necessary t...

Okay, I am back from my short vacation to Phoenix... Looks like the market took care of itself quite nicely while I was off line.
In particular Canadian Tire came out with good earnings on Thursday and was up quite nicely. I suspect (but certainly ca...

Note that the log in system has been by passed due to a server problem. This should be fixed in a few days. Meanwhile you can log in without a password.
I am off to Phoenix until Sunday and so will resume the comments here late on Sunday.
For the mos...

Not too much happened in the markets today as we await some kind of a deal from Greece. As the week progresses we will get earnings reports to focus on.
...

Stocks are off to a roaring start in in 2012. The Dow is up 5.3%, the Toronto Stock index is up a similar 5.2% and the S&P 500 is up 6.9%. Our six Strong Buys are up an average of 7.4%. My own portfolio is up 4.7%. ( I have been taking some profi...

U.S. markets were down modestly today while Canada was up modestly.
RIM was up 2.9% today to $17.17. This is nice gain from its recent low of $12.80 in December. We rated it Strong Buy at $13.44. But I did not expect it to rise so fast in the absence...

A strong day in the markets... notable winners were Wells Fargo up 2.8% and Toll Brothers up 3.0%.
Tomorrow is Ground Hog day. It's interesting how the human mind gravitates towards patterns and sees patterns where none exist and no plausible relatio...

Okay, I'm back from my cruise. Excellent weather sunny and just over 80 degrees Fahrenheit most of the time (day and night). Lots of air conditioning to keep cool when that is wanted. It's a good way to travel. Others to ALL the work. It's affordable...

There will not be any daily posts or updates here for the next ten days or so. I am off on vacation on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship that goes South from San Juan Puerto Rico. We will be stopping at St. Thomas, St. Kitts, Aruba and Curacao on this se...

I sold the 300 shares of RIM from my wife's RRSP today at $17.42. I had bought these on December 22 at $13.79, so there was a profit of $1089 less $20 in Commissions. I have always ran that account on a somewhat lower risk basis and I figured why not...

Wells Fargo came out with earnings before the open today. I think the earnings were quite good and the company is growing. Still the stock did not rise much. I sold 300 shares at $30.40 based on an order I had placed a week or so ago. But I still hol...

I just made a few minor edits to the Dollarama report as I noticed a couple of cells were left incomplete. It's numbers are rather interesting. It's net profit margins are 9.8% which is I think the highest I have seen in a retail operation. More typ...

Dollarama is added to the list above as a Weak Buy at $43.49. This is a very nice business. It has surprisingly strong margins and excellent growth. However, the share price since its IPO in late 2009 at $17.50 has probably surpassed all expectations...

Shaw Communications is updated and rated (higher) Buy at $19.83. Note the 4.9% yield. I will consider buying more Shaw by selling some of my larger positions but I will not likely do that until after my larger holding report their Q1 results.
...

Markets were a bit weak today, but the week overall was good. The year has started off well for our stock picks. The six stocks that are rated in the Strong Buy category are up an average of 3.4%, led by RIM at 12%. The 17 stocks in the Buy category ...

Shaw Communications reported earnings before the open today. The market was not excited by the earnings and the shares were down 1.4%. To me, the earnings looked pretty good. There was a loss of 23,000 basic cable customers or 1.0%. But I figure that...

Markets overall were down a little today. However, our stock picks did well.
In particular Toll Brothers was up 2%. My Bank of America (talked about in these daily comments previously, but not rated) was up 3.6%. and Couche-Tard was up 2%. I did not ...

I may trim a few positions...
It was a good day in the markets, Toll brothers was up 4.4%. Bank of America which I hold and have discussed but which is not in the list above was up 5.7%. Here in Canada, Boston Pizza which I bought for yield and not g...

It was not a bad day in the markets as U.S. bank stocks rose. We are now into earnings season. Alcoa reported after the close and its results were apparently better than expected.
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I am taking a look at Dollarama right now. Perhaps I am two years too late, I should have looked at it earlier. As always it is going to take a lot of analysis and work before I add it to the site here. If nothing else it will help me in my understan...

Our comprehensive reference article on Canadian Exchange Traded Funds is updated. This article contains current P/E ratios and dividends yields for a broad selection of ETFs. It also includes Gold, Silver, Oil and Natural Gas ETFs. Most of you may pr...

Markets did not do much today. But some of our stock picks did quite well.
Wells Fargo was up 1.6% and Toll Brothers was up 2.1%. A stock that I hold but don't have a rating on, Bank of America was up a hefty 8.6%. My investment in bank of America wa...

Of interest today, Toll Brothers up 2.9%. So hopefully that bodes well for the U.S. home building industry.
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Markets got off to a very strong start for 2012.
Most everything was up.
I sold what amounted to 9% of my Wells Fargo. I had continued to add to Wells Fargo at lower prices this past Fall. So I sold some today at $28.40. I also placed an order to sel...

The composition of my own portfolio has been updated. It includes mainly Strong Buys and (higher) Buys from the list above but also one two that are Buy rated. My portfolio is by almost any standard over concentrated in a few stocks and I may work to...

Walgreen Company inc., the largest U.S. drugstore chain is updated and rated (higher) Buy at $33.06. It's price has dropped to quite an attractive level due to the loss of about 5% of its customers who are covered bor drugs through a drug plan manage...