Stocks declined on Tuesday. The S&P 500 was down 1.7% and Toronto was down 1.4%. Of such a day, it is often said “investors sold off stocks”. But of course, as always, for every sale there was also a buyer. I would describe today’s action as “investors bid down the value of stocks”. For most stocks today, those who wished to buy were not willing to pay a price as high as was paid yesterday. And those who wished to sell were willing to accept lower prices than prevailed yesterday.
Some of the notable decliners today included: Canadian Western Bank down 3.6%, Couche-Tard down 3.3%, FedEx down 2.9 and Berkshire down 2.9%.
One of the few gainers today was Liquor Stores N.A. up 2.5%. This company released “okay” earnings last week but did have a very good same store sales increase. In my view, its earnings are still sub-par and well below the dividend level. I plan to update the report shortly.