On Tuesday, the S&P 500 rose 0.25% while Toronto was up 0.1%.
CRH Medical rose 13.5% in Toronto to $4.04 and 10.7% to $3.10 in U.S. trading. This was because it released Q1 earnings. It also announced another modest acquisition, acquiring 51% if a small anesthesia practice in Ohio. The earnings report appears to be positive. The company does not focus on or even disclose bottom line earnings to the common shareholders in its press release and so it is possible that investors will further react after analysts digest the full earnings report. The good news is that the detailed report indicates that earnings per share were down only very slightly year over year despite the government-mandated fee decreases that torpedoed this stock last year. Volume growth both organic and by acquisition has almost entirely offset the fee reduction. My initial reaction is to continue to hold these shares.
Toll Brothers rose 1.8% and Constellation Software was up 2.8%.
I did buy a few shares in FedEx to today and placed an order double that if it happens to fall by 10%. TD Direct allows an order to stay in place for up to 90 days. That can be very useful as it can put a buy or sell order on autopilot for three full months. RBC Direct allows only 30 days. Those are the only two brokers that I use.
Statistics Canada reported GDP figures for February and the growth was reasonably good for the month. I don’t think however that one month of data means very much. Still, this is definitely a positive report.