On Wednesday the S&P 500 was down 0.5% while Toronto was up 0.2%.
Aecon was up 8.4% after announcing better earnings and announcing it is selling a business in Ontario. I still think their profits are far too low but I need to go through the latest results.
After the close AutoCanada reported what look like weak results for Q4.
TD Waterhouse was out with a 5 year convertible debenture paying 7.0%. On its face that sounds pretty good but I don’t know anything about its financial strength.
RioCan is offering a bond paying 5.6% for 4.5 years. This one is almost certainly safe. This one did not show up in TD Waterhouse for whatever reason. TD probably did not join in this offering.
If I was sitting with a LOT of cash I might be interested but right now I don’t want to tie up cash. In buying these you have to be prepared to hold until maturity in my view. Not the best option if you might need the cash in say two years. But if you are looking to lock in a rate for about 5 years these are worth considering.
There has been a lot of corporate takeovers in the financial news the past couple of weeks or more. Clearly some big buyers are optimistic.
I had occasion to email a question to the Toll Brothers executive VP yesterday. He got back to me promptly this morning. Then I asked another question tonight and he responded at just about midnight in his time zone. Toll Brothers had always been extremely responsive when I have questions. It adds to my confidence that they are a very well managed company.