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 important to update this article to reflect the amazing 28% gain in value in 20-year U.S. government bonds in 2011. I will also soon be updating several other articles for 2011 data. I also added a new graph to the article to show how Gold has done much better than stocks since the year 2000. No, I have turned into a Gold bug, but I thought it was fair to the gold bugs to show the data that way. I tire of hearing that “no one has made money in stocks since the year 2000”. Firstly that would only apply if you put all your money in stocks at the peak in 2000 and failed to buy any stocks at lower prices since then. Secondly, we should not focus so much on the year 2000. It was no more important than any other year.
As for today’s markets… Most stocks were down. But we had a 2.1% gain in Shaw Communications. This stock has been a disappointment. It’s share price has not risen these past few years despite much higher earnings. The market fears competition will lower its earnings. Also it started out with hefty P/E ratio a few years ago. I had thought that the accounting earnings were under-stating its true cash earnings and so I had thought the high P/E ratio was justified. So far, that has not proven to be the case. But I think it is doing well with its Global television stations that it bought from the bankrupt CanWest. Also it has some wireless spectrum that it can hopefully sell for a profit. And hopefully profits on its cable business can continue to grow despite the loss os some customers to Telus. It will release earnings next on about April 13 and I am hopeful to see some positive movement in the stock.
Boston Pizza and Couche-Tard were also up about 2% each today.