2025

Checking for press releases I saw where the Melcor REIT made a sort of non-cash distribution that amounts to absolutely nothing in substance.
For their own corporate income tax purposes they sort of pretended to pay out 36 cents per unit in the form ...

Markets are strong again to day with the S&P 500 up 1.2% and Toronto up 0.9%.
The S&P 500 is back above 6000.
Perhaps this is driven by excitement about Trump's inauguration on Monday.
AutoCanada is up 3.2% (for what that's worth on this vola...

The S&P 500 is about unchanged while Toronto is up 0.3%.
TransAlta and Capital Power are both up 3.5%. They had both risen a lot last Fall and then slipped back. I think their gains on optimism about data centers in Alberta may have been too opti...

Markets are strong today with the S&P 500 up 1.7% and Toronto up 0.8%.
This is in reaction to strong earnings reports from J.P. Morgan and Wells Fargo and perhaps more so to a U.S. inflation report which at 2.9% is not low but came in as expected...

Markets are modestly higher on Tuesday afternoon with the S&P 500 up 0.35% and Toronto up 0.2%.
Toll Brothers is up 3.4%. New Home builders had been benefiting from a shortage of existing homes for sale as people held onto to their low rate mortg...

Further to my earlier comment today:
lululemon reported that it now expects its Q4 (which ends at the end of January) to be somewhat better than earlier expected. Not a blow-out quarter but another quarter of growth. The stocks was up a modest 0.9% o...

Markets are moderately negative today with the S&P 500 down 0.2% and Toronto down 0.8%.
Shopify is down 3.8%. I had lighted up on that and it kept going up. But now it looks like lightening up was a good idea. Shopify is powerful and will gain in...

Markets are always uncertain - even when they seem predictable.
This next few weeks seem particularly uncertain as Trump's inauguration approaches.
What will he do in the first week in office? Will markets focus on the good (lower corporate income ta...

Markets are down somewhat today with the S&P 500 down 1.4% and Toronto down 1.0%.
Long-term bond yields continue to rise.
It seems likely that markets will continue to be nervous as Trump's inauguration approaches and we see what he does in the f...

U.S. markets are closed today for a day of mourning for Jimmy Carter.
Toronto is up 0.2%.
Yesterday, after the close, Costco reported very strong same-store sales growth for December. The 9.8% gain in U.S. same-store sales was the highest in about a ...

Markets are about unchanged for the day at the moment.
With Linamar down 3.4% I decided to add modestly to my position just now. I see also that CEO Linda Hasenfratz bought 3 million dollars worth of shares in December despite her already massive hol...

With about 40 minutes to go in the trading day markets are fairly quiet. They were higher earlier today.
Congress has peacefully certified Trump's election, What a difference from four years ago! I never would have guessed that the U.S. having a peac...

Greetings from Hawaii (Big Island) - will be here all month.
On Friday, the S&P 500 was up 1.3% and Toronto was down 0.7%.
Basically, all is pretty calm in the markets. The preferred shares continue to do well.
Oil prices have risen which is good...

On this first day of trading in 2025 the S&P 500 was down 0.2% while Toronto was up 0.7%.
lululemon was down 2.6%.
Cameco was up 1.6% despite announcing that production was unexpectedly suspended at it Kazakhstan venture mine (not managed by Came...

2024 is now wrapped up and here are some high lights (these exclude dividends):
The S&P 500 index was up 23.3%
The Toronto stock index was up 18.0%
The NASDAQ index was up 28.6%
A traditional 60/40 balanced and geographically diversified portfoli...