On Wednesday, the S&P 500 was down 1.8% and Toronto was down 0.8%.
Accordingly, most of the stocks on our list were down. The bigger decliners were Apple down 2.5%, BHP Billiton – down 2.9%, Visa – down 2.6%, American Express -down 3.3%, and AutoCanada down 2.9%.
September auto sales for Canada were reported today. August results ahd been up slightly and had been the first increased month in about a year or more. But September was another decline, down 3.7%. Overall, I would not expect a great Q3 report from AutoCananda even though they were growing better than the industry average as as of Q2.
After the close Linamar released some industry sales conditions figures and it seems very clear that they will report a decline, perhaps a large decline, in profits in Q3. It’s hard to say to what extent that is already priced into the stock but certainly the stock seems likely to decline on this news. They are being hit by a softer economy and the trade wars in all aspects of their business. But they did say they are picking up business as some competitors go out of business.
In terms of bargain hunting, I intend to deploy cash only quite slowly. I added a little to my TFO International position today.
The latest rail car loading reports were out today. The smae trend is continuing. That is, the U.S. is recently running lower than any of the past three years. Canada is running below 2018 and close to the 2017 levels but well above the 2016 levels.