On Wednesday, the S&P 500 fell 0.4% while Toronto was about unchanged.
Melcor recovered some of yesterday’s decline and was up 3.0%. I found out today that, to my surprise, Melcor has not bought back any shares under its normal course issuer bid that was announced on March 27. It turns out that they were not allowed to because they are in a blackout period pending release Q1 results. I had taken their press release of March 27 as meaning that they would in fact be buying back shares. It was only going to be a maximum of 3057 per day anyhow but I think they should have been somewhat more clear on the press release. In fact the press release mentioned that up to 1.6 million shares or 5% could be repurchased. In Fact the 3057 per day limit meant that it would only be 0.6 million maximum. And given that they are not allowed to purchase in periods after the end of a quarter until earnings are released, we are looking at a maximum of more like 0.3 million shares. That’s a far cry from the 1.6 million shares indicated in the press release.
U.S. GDP grew at only 0.2% in Q1. GDP is always reported after adjusting for inflation. In nominal dollars GDP was up somewhat more than 0.2%. I would not read too much into this unless it were confirmed by another weak number in Q2.