Markets gained ground on Thursday with the S&P 500 up 0.6% and Toronto up a hefty 1.6%.
Canadian Tire ended the day down only 0.3% after reporting a very weak Q4. The weakness is not shocking and it seems likely to persist for some time. Still, the stock trades at a low valuation and that’s likely why it held up well today. It was down about 7% at the open today and so it may well bounce lower tomorrow. So far it looks like today’s early bird traders basically got to eat a worm.
CMHC reported January housing starts this morning. It’s interesting how there can be different interpretations of the same data. BNN’s headline says annualized housing starts down 10% versus December. That figure is from the CMHC press release. But CMHC also said that the trend was down (just) 2% year-over-year.
Looking at the data, January housing starts in Canada were UP 13% year-over-year overall with single-detached starts down 3%.
Looking at Alberta starts were up 48% overall and 50% for single-detached. Calgary single-detached starts were up 60% and Edmonton up 43%. That should be good news for Melcor Developments.
Overall, it does not look like a bad report to me and it’s amazing how the same data can be interpreted so differently.