Belize City
Markets were positive on Tuesday with the S&P 500 up a hefty 1.3% and Toronto up 0.5%.
A report today indicated that American’s confidence in their financial future is the highest in 16 years.
That sounds positive for Toll Brothers which was up 4.2% today.
Canadian Western Bank was up 3.3%. FedEx gained another 2.4% gaining back some of the loss from recent months.
AutoCanada was up 3.8% to $11.40. Of the companies I own, this one worries me because of its own past mistakes and the industry headwinds. It is going to take strong efforts by the new management to turn things around.
In Belize today we had a short tour of the City. It’s certainly not prosperous but people are trying. The cruise ship industry helps a lot. But the ships don’t encourage people to walk about past the secure tourist shops on the pier area. That seems unfair since the locals were friendly. We ventured forth and found the local nearby vendors to be aggressive is selling their souvenirs, beer and food and such. But they are only trying to make a living and so we supported the locals and did not bother with the sanitized approved tourist shops on the pier. In a local grocery store I found the prices expensive, higher than Canada. The local currency is worth 50 cents on the U.S. dollar so you take the posted price and divide by two and that is the price in U.S. dollars. From what I saw the locals must face high prices for groceries. And that’s despite the depressed economic conditions. Hopefully tourism will continue to help them improve the economy. Belize is a former British colony and so the official language in English. Most of the residents are descendants of African slaves. They are trying to overcome their oppressed past and hopefully will continue to succeed at it slowly but surely.
Scotia Bank has a presence in Belize. Fortis Inc. owns some electric generation assets in Belize.
In my own trading I bought a small amount of Andrew Peller and Canadian Tire today. This increases my diversification. (Also provides and excuse to buy more wine.)