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 report that after adjusting for unusual items was a bit weak. Research in Motion came out with terrible results after the close. I plan to update both of these by Sunday.
As of 11:30 pm Thursday evening it appears that the Dow futures are up about 100 points probably on some hopeful news out of the European meetings. Recently the positive reacting to such news has melted away pretty quickly.
The take-over of Provident Energy at some 77% premium to the last stock price is another indication that buyers of entire companies are finding the stock market to be cheap. As Buffett has preached, when you can buy small pieces of companies at prices well below the price s that would be paid for the entire business, you are likely to do well.
On the other hand there is certainly no shortage of negative news around and it is going to take mental toughness to stay in the markets to (most likely) reap long term gains.