On Wednesday, the S&P 500 was up 0.5% and Toronto was up 0.2%.
CN Rail was up 3.3% after releasing a strong earnings report.
lululemon was up 1.7%
Aecon was up 1.5% possibly benefiting from SNC getting out of the fixed price business which Aecon seems to do well on.
Canadian Western Bank was up 1.7%.
Couche-Tard was up 1.0% after announcing it will acquire 10% of a cannabis retailer for a $26 million investment. The transaction is relatively small for Couche-Tard and is somewhat complicated. It is reminiscent of some of Buffett’s acquisitions in that it is in the form of convertible debentures and options such that Couche-Tard will initially earn 8% on its investment and Couche-Tard could end up owning 50.1% of the company if all options are ultimately exercised. We may see more reaction in the stock tomorrow as analysts digest the move.
Constellation Software was up 2.8%.
Going the other way, BHP was down 4.1%
I will be adding Restaurant Brands to our list very soon. However, I am not sure it merits a buy rating. It trades at a high price earnings multiple and is highly debt leveraged. On the other hand it has stable income streams and is growing. Since so may Canadians are Tim Hortons customers and since it is so obviously busy, its owner, Restaurant Brands, seems like a reasonable company to take a look at it. Actually I first had Tim Hortons on this site back in 2004 and into 2006 by having Wendy’s which then owned it and it was a good stock to own. After that we had Tim Hortons on the site when it traded stand alone. Tim Hortons was ultimately up over the period it was on this site but it was volatile.