On Wednesday, the S&P 500 was up 0.1% and Toronto was up 0.4%.
lululemon rebounded 3.3% recovering a recent decline.
WSP Global was up 1.5%. Earlier in the day it had been down in reaction to its earnings release but presumably the conference call resulted in the mood turning positive.
Canadian Western bank was up 3.3% to $34.74. It was around $29 in August.
Couche-Tard was up 2.9%.
Linamar was down 2.35%. But it then released earnings after the close which I believe beat expectations modestly. As expected, earnings were down versus last year. It’s Transportation (auto parts) segment was actually had 15% higher operating earnings and slightly higher revenues. Its Industrial segment was quite weak. I don’t know how the market will react. That may depend largely on what the company says about the outlook. Linamar continues to be heavily affected by the trade wars.
Stantec reported after the close and beat expectations somewhat. This stock has been “in the penalty box” for quite some time due to past mistakes. This latest report may be taken as evidence that it is finally back on the right road. I would think that the stock should react positively to this report.
Melcor Developments reported after the close. Their adjusted measure is funds flow from operations which were down 17% to 32 cents per share. But that still well exceeds the 12 cent dividend. Residential lot sales were low as expected at 115 lots in Alberta versus 335 last year. 94 out of the 115 lots were sold in the Edmonton region and just 6 in Calgary. Lot prices were higher on average than in the prior year. Melcor also sold 24 lots in the U.S. at an average price of $121,000 Canadian. Melcor bought additional raw land in Q3 which is a sign of confidence in the future. Book value per share increased slightly to $32.20. Meanwhile the stock closed today at $12.06. It seems likely that Q4 will be quite a bit weaker than Q4 last year. But Melcor appears to be confident inits future. The balance sheet remains strong.
It’s Wednesday, which means that the latest rail car loading reports are out. The latest week was another weak one in the U.S. with car loadings below that of the previous three years for the same week. In Canada it was also a weak week with loadings below 2018 and 2017 but remaining nicely above 2016. The last three weeks have been the weakest all year in the U.S. relative to prior years. That cannot bode well for GDP growth in Q4 for the U.S. Car loads are running about 10% below 2018. That’s not at all catastrophic but is surely a sign of weakness. But coal was the weakest area and that may simply refect a switch from coal to natural gas and wind/solar in electric generation. Intermodal which is consumer goods are running well below 2018.