On Thursday the S&P 500 was down 0.6% and Toronto was down 0.2%.
Stantec was up 2.1%.
Costco was up 1.9% after announcing the 13% increase to its dividend. The dividend is definitely not what drives the value here but the increase is a sign of confidence. The (previous) dividend amounts to a payout ratio of about 27% of earnings. The yield is under 1%. But that’s because Costco trades at about 10 times book value.
American Express down just 1% after it came out with earnings. Analysts noted that it had increased its provision for bad debt on credit card receivables. But the company said that it is not seeing any big increase in actual credit losses and this is just a return to a more normal level of provisions for bad debt.
We have just two penny stocks on our list, RIWI and Ceapro and I generally have kept away from penny stocks. (Actually RIWI was on the list for a few years but is not currently on the list.) Unfortunately RIWI has been a very poor investment. And today it was down 32% after announcing it will miss the deadline to file its earnings and related material. They said this was related to complexities in accounting for an acquisition it make last Summer. Their CFO left (or was fired) a few months ago and they have a new CFO now in place. Hopefully this is truly just a case of accounting complexities and a former CFO who was in over their head or something. But obviously this is an ugly development. I tend to see it as too late to sell. It seems my last update on RIWI was to call it a Weak Sell/ Hold in August 2021. I will take a look at it again when the financials are finally released.