Wednesday’s markets were strong as the S&P 500 was up 1.05% and Toronto was up 1.1%.
Shopify was up 3.3%.
Toll Brothers surged 5.0% and has been making frequent announcements about new communities opening up for sale. Despite high interest rates they appear to be confident.
The FED held interest rates steady as expected. And also pretty much as expected they indicated that the rates might or might not rise in December or in 2024 depending on the data and how inflation is going. But the market seemed to take comfort from it and bond yields declined a little on the news.
After the close, Costco reported October same-store sales which were not very strong. Up just 2.2% in the U.S. and 3.4% overall. These figures are adjusted for gasoline/fuel sales price changes and for foreign exchange impacts. That’s not terrible but their same-store sales growth has cooled considerably this year compared to about the past three years. I suspect that this is indicative of low inflation year over year. It’s not likely that their sales volumes are down.
In Canada, Costco same-store sales were up a huge 9.5% in Canadian dollars. That’s probably some combination of continued inflation, our growing population and market share gains. It’s impressive!
I would think that the market should be disappointed with the U.S. and overall same-store sales but the shares are about unchanged in after-hours trading and so perhaps the lower figures were expected.
I’m looking further at TransAlta. As far as Capital Power it has a far better dividend and I think a better track record. I don’t know enough about either one yet to have any real opinion.