Wednesday’s session saw the S&P 500 and Toronto each about unchanged.
Toll Brothers ended the day down 2.5%. It’s interesting that after its earnings release yesterday, the stock rose in after-hours trading and the one headline I saw said that the earnings beat expectations. Today, the headline I saw said orders came in low. After hours trading, when a company issues news, seems to be “hot money” that has to make a decision without a chance to digest the news. The direction is often different after some overnight reflection. Also, most earnings reports have both positive and negative aspects. It can seemingly depend on the mood of the market as to which it focuses on. Toll Brothers is selling at not much over book value. But its orders for new homes are running lower than last year. It’s a profitable company and will likely trend hither over the years. But right now, there may be little reason to expect it to move quickly in either direction.
After the close today, TFI International released earnings. Basically, they appear to be blow-out results with Q4 adjusted earnings per share up 63%. Some of that increase was expected but not all of it. Presumably, the stock will trade higher tomorrow. TFI is exceptionally well managed and they seem to be able to continually wring higher profits out of their operations. I regret that I don’t own more shares. For whatever, reason there is a trading halt on TFI. That seems quite unnecessary given that the news came out after the close of markets. The trading halt will likely be lifted before the open tomorrow. Possibly someone at TFI requested the halt out an abundance of caution or a misunderstanding of the rules. To my knowledge, Canada has no “after-hours” trading system. Nor should it.
Statistics Canada reported the January Consumer Price Index today. Overall, prices are up 1.4% versus one year ago. But excluding a drop in energy prices the increase was 2.1%. Food prices were up 2.8% and shelter costs up 2.4% and those are two areas where people always notice increases.