On Wednesday, the S&P 500 was up 0.3% while Toronto was basically unchanged with a modest decline of 0.05%.
West Fraser Timber was up 7.1% to $93.00 after announcing that it will buy back up $1 billion in shares in a “modified Dutch auction” process where it is offering to pay between $85 and $98. This will reduce the share count by about 10%. This move is likely related to the fact that West Fraser has been very profitable recently due to high lumber prices. I take this as a positive development.
This auction could allow some institutional share owners to sell without pushing the price down. Normally, when an institution attempts to sell a large block of shares in any company they may have to accept a price lower than the recent market price. Such trades are sometimes done as “block trades” outside of the stock exchange.