On Wednesday the S&P 500 was down 0.7% and Toronto was up 0.3%.
Most of the stocks we follow here were down although none precipitously. Some stocks that gained included Canadian Tire, up 1.1% and FirstService up 2.2%
The Bombardier pref share was up 1.3% and has basically done surprisingly well considering the decline in the common shares.
The Canadian dollar dropped over a full cent due to weak wholesale sales data.
For the Canadian market there are still lots of Q4 earnings reports to come in which could move stocks in one direction or the other. I am looking forward to an expected good result from Melcor. Also looking forward to a the report from Liquor Stores N.A.
As investors, most of use spend far too much time looking at fluctuations in share prices. I read an article recently that said that some people and families buy Gold with no intention to sell it ever. It was said that these long-term investors don’t care so much about the price of Gold but merely want to accumulate more and more ounces of it. The same thinking certainly applies to some people who accumulate house or apartments as long term investments. They may tend to measure their progress by the quantity of real estate that they accumulate over time or its earnings power and not by its resale value. This is the way Warren Buffett looks at accumulating companies and stocks. I think he would advise us to track the number of shares in good companies we own and to accumulate more and more with possibly no intention to sell. Or to track the total earnings of the shares we own and pay less attention to the price fluctuations. For Buffett stock price fluctuations are important only to the extent they give us the opportunity to accumulate shares cheaply or to occasionally sell if the price is beyond a sensible estimate of intrinsic value.