Wednesday was a down day for the markets with the S&P 500 down 1.1% and Toronto down 1.3%.
Almost all the stocks on our list were down.
Meanwhile Royal Bank became the first Canadian company to report an annual profit over $10 billion. I think it was only about six months ago that Valeant had ever so briefly displaced Royal Bank as the most valuable company on the Toronto Exchange. I guess that never made a lot of sense.
Costco just reported same-store sales for November. They had 3% in the U.S. and 0% overall. But excluding currency and fuel prices they were up 6% which is stellar growth. The same-store growth in Canada in Canadian dollars and excluding fuel price changes was 8%. Apparently, Canadians are still spending apace, at least at Costco.
Canadian Western Bank reports earnings tomorrow morning. I expect the earnings will be reasonably good. But given fears about the Alberta economy, I suppose it is unlikely that the stock will rise even if the earnings are strong.