Markets were down somewhat on Tuesday as the S&P 500 fell 1.1% and the Toronto stock index fell 0.5%.
Canadian Western Bank was down 3.0%. Possibly this was due to bad news on the pipeline front as courts are at least temporarily blocking the construction of Keystone XL in the U.S.
The report on Alimentation Couche-Tard is updated and rated (higher) Buy at $43.34. I have long rated this as an excellent company. I thought it would suffer a lot during the pandemic. Instead, last week it reported that its Q4 (ended April 26) proits per share had soared 82%! That was largely due to extraordinarily high margins on gasoline in the U.S. as crude prices fell but gasoline sellers apparently did not compete to push prices down which (contrary to popular opinion) is usually the case. Gasoline/fuel volumes were down 18% in the U.S. and 24% in Canada. But their in-store sales were only modestly lower during the pandemic. I had thought that the reduced gasoline fillups would push in-store sales way down. It may be that tobacco and alcohol sales (Alcohol in the U.S.) kept the customers coming in. I expect gsaoline margins to return to more normal (lower) levels and so Couche-Tard may report lower profits in the next few quarters. But it remains an excellent company for the long term.