Statistics Canada reports that new vehicle sales in Alberta in February were down 9% in units and 4% in dollars compared to February of the prior year. For the country as a whole new vehicles sales were up 9% in units. The Alberta figures are not bad considering the recession and overall these figures might suggest that AutoCanada‘s sales while lower will not be at disastrous levels. I would not read too much into this, but the numbers in Alberta are better than I would have expected.
Wells Fargo is out with earnings that are lower but which are somewhat higher than analysts expected. The stock is about unchanged. Despite headlines about their energy-related loan losses it seems very likely that Wells Fargo is not facing any losses that it can’t handle comfortably.
Bank of America also had a decline in earnings but its stock is up 2.4% on the news which included deeper cost cuts..