On Wednesday stocks rose. In part, this was due to the republican gains in the U.S. elections.
The S&P 500 was up 0.6% and Toronto was up 1.1%.
Some notable gainers included:
VISA Inc. up 2.7% at $250. This is a company that touched under $200 less than three weeks ago on October 15. A 12.5% gain in three weeks would not be out of the ordinary for a small company. But this is a HUGE company. The market cap is $157 billion. On October 15 the market cap was about $126 billion, or $31 billion less than today. It’s interesting to ask where did this extra $31 billion which we might say is “invested in Visa” and “invested in the market” come from? The answer is from thin air. The extra $31 billion is a result of investors simply deciding to bid up the price of the shares. In theory this is because investors have decided that the risk-adjusted or present value of all the probable future earnings of VISA is now about $157 billion, $31 billion more than the perception of the of the value as of October 15. It’s not likely that both of these perceived valued were “correct”.
The financial press likes to describe a price rise as money flowing into a stock. As popular as that description is, it is in fact totally wrong. It is certainly not the case that anything close to $31 billion “flowed into” VISA stock in these three weeks. In fact basically not a cent flowed into or out of VISA. It did not pay a dividend though it may have gone ex-dividend which should have decreased its price by 40 cents, which is immaterial. And a small amount of options may have been exercised but that would be immaterial and also would have added to the share count and should have decreased the share price if anything. And there may have been some share buy backs which would be money flowing OUT of VISA as opposed to in. What happened was investors traded shares of VISA among themselves and bid up the price by $50 and so bid up the market cap by $31 billion but those trades were between investors and did not involve any cash flowing to or from VISA. I am not sure of the total dollar volume traded but it basically has no relation to the $31 billion in any case. (VISA can trade $500 million a day and the stock can go up or down, there is no relation here).
I had rated VISA as only a (lower) Buy on October 12 at $212. It certainly looks expensive now. I had the trailing P/E at 25 at $212, so now it would seem to be about 29, which is high. But the recent share price illustrates that it is hard to keep a good (largely unregulated and near) monopoly down. It seems I recently sold too early at $241 and so I may be a bit biased for that reasons, but I would not buy it now and since I sold at $141 it can assumed that I would certainly be a seller at $250. I would not however short the stock which is a FAR different game. Also the I note that the P/E based on analyst projected 2016 earnings is 20 which is high but not outrageously high. On that basis holding could still be a reasonable strategy. If I held it I would want to be in a position to add to the position if it fell back to $220 or $210 or so.
Okay, other gainers:
Canadian Western Bank up 2.4%, Canadian Tire up 2.2%, The oil sands ETF CLO on Toronto up 3.1% (This one appears on our list of Canadian Exchange traded Funds and is in my own portfolio though not on the list above.)
As far as decliners, Constellation Software was down 3.5% but this is after recent sharp rises.
Melcor was out with strong earnings after the close. This stock looks like excellent value, But there is the risk of a decline in the Alberta economy with lower oil prices. The company has not seen any slowdown and continues to say it is cautiously optimistic. This is my biggest holding which is a risk, but overall I feel very good about owning it. I await to see if there is any price reaction tomorrow.