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 book value (1.15 times in this case) at a time when it is making good earnings (over 11% in this case). Apparently “the market” expects its earnings to drop quite a bit when Target comes into the market.
In order to beat the market one has to sometimes go against the market. I believe that Canadian Tire which has been thriving for 90 years now is likely to continue to increase its earnings over time and that it is therefore a good investment at 1.15 times book value and currently earning about 11% on book.
If the price stays this low then I believe that it could be become a target for a take-over offer, despite its multiple voting shares. I am starting to wish that Martha Billes would see if Warren Buffett might be interested. How about it Warren? come in and offer $85 or $90 per share and I will sell to you. Problem is it is not clear that Canadian Tire has the top notch management in place that Buffett would insist on.
Toll Brothers was up 1.8%. Markets overall fell about 0.5%
Greece is buying back some bonds at some 30 cents on the dollar. This is exactly what it should do. Whenever any company or country can buy backs its debt at way less than par value, that seems like a good idea. Another good idea for Greece would be to rally its citizens and expatriate citizens to buy the bonds as a matter of national pride. If foreigners are the enemy for charging high interest rates then Greece should fire up its citizens and expatriate citizens to buy the bonds from these bad foreigners. But Greece itself should buy all it can. Who would not want to extinguish debt at 30 cents or 40 cents on the dollar?
In other news Spain was requesting a bail out. I recommend the same strategy for them. Buy back their own bonds at a discount. And encourage their richer citizens to do the same (though the latter does not extinguish the debt but it might push interest rates down).
Anyhow, I don’t pretend to understand much about the European debt crisis. But I doubt it will all much impact on the long term value of Canadian Tire or most other Canadian companies.