Firstly, as you likely noticed, I have a new contributor, Zack Trease, to InvestorsFriend who has written some posts that you see below. We actually intended his posts to show up on a separate page. They showed up here on the daily posts page before I made a proper introduction of our new contributor, which I will do shortly. My apologies for not introducing Zack before his posts started showing up.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, the S&P 500 was up 0.2% and Toronto was down 0.25%.
BHP Billiton bounced up 2.7% after it announced its iron ore and copper production had increased. This was always going to be a volatile and unpredictable stock since it is so dependent on commodity prices.
Canadian Western Bank was up 1.4%. The bank has a subsidiary that specializes in franchise financing for hotels and restaurants. That division had a press release today noting it was financing “Ricky’s Group” to acquire the Famoso pizza chain in western Canada and on July 12 had issued a press release about providing a line of credit to expand a small Toronto restaurant chain. In most cases the Bank does not press release loans like this but the franchise division has press released three financings in 2018. Overall, it seems clear that Canadian Western bank continues to grow. As long as it continues to have a low incidence of bad loans, the stock should continue to rise (albeit irregularly) over the years. These recent press releases are likely a form of “advertising” to other potential borrowers rather than an attempt to reach the investor audience.
Berkshire Hathaway was up 5.3% on the announcement of new flexibility in repurchasing shares. (Buffett will be hoping for a stable or lower price so he can repurchase shares at the best price.)
AutoCanada declined 3.7% and was down over 5% at one point today. When I saw it down about 5% I added a bit to my position. Time will tell if that was a wise move. I don’t expect any real news out of the company until it releases earnings on August 9.