2013

Well, today seemed to be another case of another day, another few dollars gained.
S&P 500 at a record high. Most of our stocks were up...
Case Shiller home price index shows U.S. house prices rising.
Melcor had some strange trading today. About 2...

It seems that the Market works in mysterious ways. We see lots of stories warning about slow growth and slowing earnings and too much debt. And yet the DOW rises over 100 points today. And the S&P 500 hits a new high.
Most of our stock picks were...

Toll Brothers rose 2.4% on Friday which was nice to see after my recent comments about it and purchases of the stock. This builds on the bigger gain of Tuesday.
I have updated my article that compares the long-term performance of stocks, bonds, cash ...

Today was another decent day in the markets. There were no big gainers among our stocks but a little bit here and a little bit there and overall a good day.
In the short term our stocks rise because other investors bid up their prices. That always fe...

Toronto had a good day, up 1.5%, while the DOW was down 0.3%. It seemed a decent day for our stock picks with Bank of America up 2.0%. Toll Brothers gave a back 1.35% after its big gain yesterday. It seems I sold my Microsoft too early as it was up 3...

It was certainly a pleasant surprise to see Toll Brothers up over 9% today to $34.13. Yesterday morning it had been under $30 briefly. It seems for a day at least the market shared my enthusiasm for the company. Apparently this move was due to an "up...

On Friday, Melcor's new Melcor Real Estate Investment Trust posted its final prospectus. The REIT will yield 6.75%. It appears that this  Initial Public Offer has successfully closed (has raised the money it was targeting). This created some transact...

Bombardier Inc. is updated and rated Speculative (lower) Buy at CAN $3.89. This is an interesting company that certainly makes fun stuff - It makes Lear jets, other business jets, smaller commercial jets, high-speed trains and subway cars. But the pr...

Our stocks had a good day on Friday. Overall our average Buy or higher rated stocks is up 7.4% this year to date. This beats the TSX by over 10% but trails the U.S. markets by a few percentage points.
Bank of America is updated and rated Speculative ...

Most of our stocks were down today but Canadian Tire was up 0.8%. The company has reached a new 10 year agreement with its dealers. The dealers operate each store as business owners in a manner that is similar to owning a franchise. I thought about t...

Today's market decline seems more sensible than yesterday's gain...
It is perhaps an encouraging sign that Toll Brothers managed a small gain today (0.5%) given the market was down. Canadian Tire was also up (0.6%) despite the TSX being down 1.4%.
Fe...

Well, I don't think too many people were expecting this big rebound (or any rebound for that matter) today. It goes to show markets are very unpredictable, particularly in the short term.
One of the bigger gainers were Berkshire Hathaway up 2.5%. Thi...

It was a nasty day in the markets. The TSX was down 2.7%, the Dow was down 1.8% and the S&P 500 was down 2.3%.
In particular Toll Brothers was down 7.7%. Apparently this was mostly due to a report that home builder sentiment was down.
Higher cost...

Wells Fargo is updated and rated (lower) Strong Buy at $37.21. Although I have a large exposure to this, I may add to my position. There are many companies where it would be difficult to guess if they can continue to grow earnings over the years. But...

MicroSoft was down 4.4% today on news that PC sales have fallen. It has risen about that much in the past few days. I decided to sell my shares and move on. I had been wanting to raise cash anyhow. MicroSoft is a complicated company and basically I d...

So far this year it has certainly been a good time to be in the U.S. market. Despite various worries and warnings the DOW and S&P 500 are up a lot this year and the DOW was up 0.9% today and the S&P 500 was up 1.2%.
Prudence would suggest tri...

After scaring people last week, the markets have surprised with a strong start to this week. A new record for the DOW today. 
Microsoft was up 3.6%. 
I was reading Canadian Tire's annual report which arrived in the mail a few days ago. Management doe...

Monday ended up being a decent day in the markets for our stock picks. Most notably Toll Brothers was up 2.9% and Bank of America was up 2.0%.
Canadian Western Bank was down slightly and closed at $27.63. I am tempted to add to my position at or belo...

FirstService is updated and rated Weak Sell at U.S. $33.50 or CAN $ 34.01. I like it as a company and would be interested to buy on a speculative basis at $30 or less. It announced this week that it would eliminate its preferred shares. This could ca...

Ouch, markets took a drubbing today. Dow down 0.8%, S&P 500 down 1.1% and Toronto down a painful 2.1%.
Our stocks did not escape and almost all were down. Boston Pizza was one of the rare exceptions as it rose a bit more.
My recent purchases of T...

It was another day of the U.S. stock market doing better than the Cnadian market.
A notable winner was Wells Fargo, up 2.0%.
The stocks that I have the most interest in buying at this time are Toll Brothers, Melcor and Canadian Western Bank. If I sol...

As mentioned yesterday I wanted to raise some cash today. sitting at home after my trip I took the opportunity to so some selling this morning. I sold half my Walmart. I then sold my Shaw Communications which has risen about 18% since my last rating ...

I spent some of my travel time carefully re-reading a book called Buffett the Making of an American Capitalist. Buffett's feats of wealth creation are truly extraordinary. And his methods are well chronicled and can be copied. Few bother to try.
A pl...

A  moderately weak day in the markets. Most of our stocks were down. Melcor, Boston Pizza and Walmart were among the winners.
Day 7 in Manhattan
Walked up to see the Touraine a luxury condo building owned by Toll Brothers (units range from $3 million...

Day 6 in Manhattan:
NBC studios tour, SOHO, Chinatown and a show (The Book of Mormon).
One disappointment the green hop-on-hop-off bus service had very poor service. Buy the red hop-on-hop-off by Gray Line or just take taxies and subway.
Another mino...

The stock markets were closed today, but Manhattan was certainly open.
Day 4 in Manhattan:
Short bus tour of downtown... water taxi tour of Statue of Liberty (view only) and several stops of interest. Excellent tour guides. Did some shopping. Grimald...

S&P 500 reached an all time closing high today. And will reach many more in the years to come.
Canadian Tire was up 2.0% and that is on top of recent gains. This seems to be fairly random. Why investors would ignore it for a while and now bid it ...

Markets were a little negative today. My American Banks and Berkshire were down. No big losses overall though.
Day Two in Manhattan... Rockefeller tour, skating rink, buildings, history and art work. Observation deck is better than Empire State but o...

A strong day for the markets. Right now I am just holding and enjoying gains.
As far as my trip to New York I have the following notes.
United Airlines rep in Edmonton was exceptionally good. United Airlines flights were smooth and even arrived erarl...

I leave tonight for a family vacation in New York City. I hope to visit the New York stock Exchange among many other attractions. It's my first trip to New York City unless I count visiting Coney Island and the Bronx Zoo in 1972 when I was twelve yea...

My article on the valuation of the S&P 500 is updated and now suggests that as a point estimate the S&P 500 is about 12% over-valued. Basically the as reported earnings on the S&P 500 have remained stable over the past six months (since t...

Friday was another strong day on the markets with the DOW up 0.6%. Most of our stock picks were up.
Overall, my own account is up 8.5% since January 1. Our average stock that was rated in the Buy or Strong Buy range (everything above Weak Buy) has ri...

Melcor Developments reported today that it has filed a preliminary prospectus for the proposed partial spin-off of its rental properties into a REIT. This will not likely lead to an accounting gain for Melcor since the real estate is already marked t...

Toll Brothers was up an impressive 5.8% today. I added a bit to my Melcor position today based on an order that I had placed a week or so ago. 
...

Our stock picks did okay today. Canadian Tire was up 1.1%. I did not sell any of my Shaw at least not yet and it rose 1.3%.
The whole business with Cyprus is not something that would cause me to sell any stocks but it was a very stupid situation.
Cyp...

As expected, markets were weak today due to the Cyprus bail-out situation. But overall the reaction was modest and not as bad as many feared. I have not seen any good analysis of exactly what was being proposed there or why the banks were involved. W...

As of late Sunday, it appears that the markets will open down 1% or so due to events in Cyprus whereby depositors in apparently insolvent banks will have to give up about 7 to 10% of their savings deposits in exchange for shares in the banks. (Which ...

Toll Brothers is updated and is rated Speculative Buy at $34.13. As the report indicates, this luxury home builder is not an obvious bargain. But as it roars back (in terms of sales) from the depths of the U.S. housing crisis it appears set to show m...

Today, Thursday saw another good day in the markets.
Most of our stock picks were up nicely although nothing spectacular. Boston Pizza certainly had a good gain up 1.9%to  $20.99.
It is amusing watching the stock market television channels attempt to...

The Dow and the S&P 500 were both about unchanged today but the Toronto Stock Exchange Index was down 134 points or 1.0%. For many years I have found that my stock picks tend to move more with the broad U.S. market indexes and not Toronto. I pay ...

Our banks stocks lost some ground today as did Toll Brothers and Canadian Tire. The noise to signal ratio from this as far as I am cornered is a great deal of noise and no signal. I take signal from earnings reports not stock price blips.
As far as C...

Of note today was Wells Fargo up 1.7%. I like the prospects for this bank and also for Bank of America.
I added a small amount to my Canadian Western Bank position today after it fell 1.4%.
 
...

Melcor Developments is updated and rated (higher) Buy at $18.61. This is a very well-managed Edmonton-based company that has traded on the stock exchange since 1968 and which traces its roots back 89 years under the ownership of the same founding fam...

Two of our Stock Picks were down noticeably today. Canadian Western Bank was down 4.8% and Constellation Software was down 4.4%. On the other hand, Bank of America was up 2.8%. 
Canadian Western Bank released earnings this morning and the stock fell ...

Well, it was yet another strong day for our stock picks. But we should not get over confident. There will be down days as well and down months and even down years. But right now, all the painful down days (like 2008) seem like a distant memory.
Bank ...

So the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached a new all-time high today. Not a big deal, but it does seem an encouraging sign.
I have a very heavy weighting in equities (around 90%). For that reasons I may look to see what positions I should trim a lit...

It was a decent day at least in the American markets with the DOW up 0.3%.
Walmart was up 2.2%.
Some people figure that stocks are expensive simply because the DOW is near its record high. But that is totally normal. The last high was five years ago....

Berkshire Hathaway is updated and rated (lower) Buy at $102.05. For the reasons given in the report this rating may be conservative. By my reading, Buffett has hinted (but not stated) that the intrinsic value is closer to the $130 range.
Buffett's mu...

Strong gainers today included Canadian National Railway up 3.0%, Couche-Tard up 2.7% and Melcor up 2.4% (but it is thinly traded and tends to jump around a bit). Also RioCan up 2.8% although that is similar to its price at our last update.
Canadian W...

Markets were very strong on Wednesday with the DOW up 1.25% and Toronto up 0.6%.
Berkshire Hathaway was up 2.5%. Toll Brothers was up 2.0%.
At lunch time on Monday I bought additional Berkshire Hathaway shares paying $99.54. It ended Monday at $98.58...

Markets were generally strong today.
Toll Brothers was up 3.3% on strong reports regarding U.S. housing prices and new home sales. It should really be no surprise that U.S. house prices are rebounding given record low interest rates and given that h...

A graph of today's markets shows that they started out strong, but reversed to losses by mid-day and then fell heavily at the end of the day.
Apparently part of the reason was election results in Italy.
As an investor I pay little attention to thing...

Canadian Tire is updated and rated (lower) Strong Buy at $68.65. There are risks with any investment and I would urge subscribers to read the report. Subscribers may wish to place more emphasis on the risk posed by Target and a more competitive retai...

Canadian Tire earnings came out prior to the opening of trade. The fourth quarter was okay, at best, not terrible, certainly not great. The full year was pretty good. They are doing a modest stock buy back and emphasized that. If the share price drop...

I plan to update a couple of the reports this weekend based on earnings reports. I also plan to update the composition of my own portfolio. It has not changed a lot since the last update and I don't recall any new stocks being added, just additions t...

Markets fell today on fears that the FED would stop buying back bonds and interest rates would rise.
Well, maybe that is a legitimate reason for the market to fall but I am not so sure. Interest rates are at record lows and I don't think the P/E rati...

Well, a pleasant start to the markets this week. 'course we're supposed to be thinking longer term but still a gain always feels good. Stantec up 3.3%, Shaw Communications up 2.5%, almost everything was up, but Constellation software was down 3.1%.
A...

As many of you saw, I sent out an email today intended only for former (not current) customers. The email went to everyone on the free and paid lists by mistake. There was a link there to subscribe at a special price. If anyone who was not a current ...

Berkshire Hathaway A shares closed Friday at a record closing price of $150,141.
This exceeds the previous high close of $149,200 on December 10, 2010. It did however reach $151,650 on December 11, 2007.
Regaining a high from five years ago is nothin...

In today's news, Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway is partnering with another outfit to buy Heinz. This is not a huge surprise considering it fits much of the profile Buffett likes. It's sells branded consumable products that are not likely to chan...

Today we had a number of stocks falling in price. But that is nothing unusual.
Boston Pizza was up 2.5% to $20.40. It just released earnings last week which at a quick glance were pretty good. I've toyed with the idea of selling some of what I have (...

Markets were higher today... In particular we had Toll Brothers up 4.4%. It looks expensive at this point but I continue to hold it. Also we had Bank of America up 3.2%.
...

Stocks were generally down a bit today. The Q4 earnings for many Canadian companies should be rolling in shortly.
I note today that the former CEO of SNC-Lavalin has been charged.
http://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/former-snc-head-pierre-duhaime-formal...

Greetings and welcome to a new group of subscribers who joined this weekend after seeing an article in the Edmonton Journal.
For the benefit of the new subscribers I will mention that I usually post some comments here five times per week. Usually it ...

I'm featured in the business section of the Edmonton Journal tomorrow.
http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business/Lamphier+sides+coin+this+stock+picker/7940653/story.html
Our stock picks have ended out the week in decent shape.
As always the signals fro...

A notable winner among our Stock Picks today was Alimentation Couche-Tard, up 4.7% to $52.60.  I did not see the news that prompted this. This company is an incredible (and under-reported) Canadian success story. I am not eager to buy at this price b...

Most of the stocks that declined yesterday recovered today. There does not seem to be much sign of fear in the markets.
For the moment my strategy might be described as "Don't just do something, stand there!"
 
...

Markets were negative today. It's certainly not something that worries me. I think any pull-backs right now might prove to be more of a buying opportunity than anything.
...

So, we got a surprise 150 point, 1.2% jump in the DOW today. Which goes to show that in investing half the battle (actually 100% on average) is just showing up. The market tends to rise over the years. A buy and hold index investor can get the averag...

Markets were generally down on Thursday. This hardly seems surprising after all the recent gains.
There was unfortunate news for employees at Best Buy / Future Shop and Sears Canada with layoffs announced.
Sears Canada was smart in 2012 to have sold ...

Markets were moderately down today. Notably (especially to me, since it is my largest position) Canadian Tire was down 1.8%. But I consider that to be basically just normal volatility on a negative day.
U.S. GDP was down 0.1%. I don't know how that i...

Today was another decent day in the markets with modest gains in most of our stock picks.
Dow up a half percent. Doomers are still waiting for end of financial world and have missed relatively massive gains since the bottom in March of 2009. I think ...

Our stock picks lost a modest amount of ground on Monday. Following up on yesterday's comment I added somewhat to my Wells Fargo holdings today.
Moody's debt rating service downgraded six Canadian banks today. I doubt that this is anything to worry a...

Friday was another decent day in the markets. Toll Brothers was up 2.4% to $37.98. That's a 23% increase since we rated it a Speculative Buy on December 8 at $30.77. With a 23% increase our report has effectively become out of date. I have a position...

Not surprisingly, Constellation Software recovered from the little dip it took yesterday, rising 3.7%. Canadian Tire did well, up 2.1%. The lower Canadian dollar has also helped out the value of American stocks when measured in Canadian dollars.
...

Constellation Software was down 3.3% today. This occurred in the last hour of trading and was on relatively small volume. It could well be that someone was just a bit impatient in selling and wanted to sell today and that could have pushed the price ...

Today we had Bank of America up 1.9%, Melcor up 1.6% to $19.75.
CN fell about 1% despite a dividend increase and good earnings released today. I am tempted to buy some CN. It does not look particularly cheap but I am attracted to the quality of its b...

U.S. markets were closed today for the Martin Luther King holiday. The Toronto stock exchange index rose 0.5%.
With Canadian Tire down 1.3% I added a small amount to my position.
Research in Motion was up another 11% to $17.41. Regrettably I had sold...

On Friday we had an okay day in the markets with the Dow and Toronto each up about 50 points. Research in Motion continues as a surprise winner this new year, up another 7% on Friday.
I've been reading a few annual reports and hope to have a new comp...

Toll Brothers was up 3.6% to $36.16.
Bank of America was down 4.3% after a disappointing earnings report. Given the price drop I decided to by back (in a registered account) the 1500 shares I had sold at a slightly higher price when I cleared out my ...

Although the Dow was down we had Bank of America up 2.0%.
We are now entering a period where many U.S. companies are releasing their December 31, 2012 results. Obviously the market will react to those depending if they are better than expected or low...

Today ended up being another good day for our stock picks. Notably, Toll Brothers up 3.8%, Canadian Tire up 1.6%.
I've been thinking about adding to some positions. But overall I am already heavily invested in equities and I am just going along for t...

Shaw Communications announced after the close that it had sold its Mountain Cable franchise in Hamilton to Rogers for $400 million. Also Rogers bought for $50 million an option to buy Shaw's wireless spectrum. Shaw bought the one third of TVtropolis ...

My popular article on the valuation of the Dow Jones Industrial Average is updated. I see the Dow as about fairly valued.
On Friday we had Constellation Software up 3.7%.
I no longer have Research in Motion on the list, but it was up 13%, again indic...

It was another strong day for stocks...
Melcor continues to bounce around.
Yesterday I mentioned that having seen Tuesday's closing price of over $20 most of us would be reluctant now to sell much below that. Of course another option is just to keep ...

Today would have been a mildly negative day for our stock picks except for one stock.
Several alert subscri9bers emailed me this afternoon to report that Melcor shares were up sharply (almost 20%) this afternoon (closed at $20.37) after announcing th...

Melcor gave back 8.2% today closing at $18.70 But it is still up about 19% this brand new year. As I mentioned yesterday the trading is thin and it was not cleat that yesterday's close of $20.37 was where the stock really ought to settle out after th...

Markets gave back a little today after the recent gains. However Melcor was up about 2% on decent volume and Toll Brothers was up 2%. Based on the rating above I would not be an enthusiastic  buyer of Toll at today's $34.35 given it was rated only Sp...

I have updated the table showing the percentage of my portfolio that is is invested in each stock I own and in cash.
...

Friday was another positive day in the markets.
I finished selling out everything in my margin account. 200 shares of Canadian Tire were sold but were replaced with an equal buy in an RRSP account. 3000 shares of Melcor were sold. 500  shares of Shaw...

The TSX finished down 0.6% today. The Dow had been up but finished down 0.2% after the market began near the the end of the day to fear that the FED was going to stop buying bonds. (FED minutes revealed a worry about all this bond buying).
The market...

I don't think too many people expected today's big market rally. After all we already got a big rally on Monday when it looked like this fiscal deal would go through.
Today we had the DOW up 2.3%, Toronto up 0.9%. We had Berkshire up 3.9%, Toll Broth...

Well, the 2012 year is now over. Our Stock Picks this year had an excellent performance. Click to see the detailed performance by company for 2012. The six Strong Buys were up an average of 19.6% each. The 17 Buys were up an average of 14% each. Only...