On Wednesday, markets were positive due to some optmisim about the China / USA trade talks.
The S&P 500 was up 0.9% and Toronto was up 0.5%.
Costco was up 1.7%. Then, after the close it reported September same-store sales up a strong 5.6%. That is strong growth. They do not disclose how much of that is due to price inflation as opposed to volume.
Couche-Tard was up 2.1%. Dollarama was up 2.5%. Linamar was up 2.1%. WSP was up 2.0%.
Boston Pizza Royalties announced its latest distribution – unchanged at 11.5 cents per unit per month. I worry that they may need to cut that to 11 cents or 10.5 if they can’t show some increase in same-store sales. I’d like to see more advertisements from them. The parent company collects advertising fees from the restaurants and does spend it. But wherever they spend it, I don’t see the ads. I worry that they don’t have any compelling message to bring people in. Searching for news, I see that they have a new partnership with Hockey Night in Canada as way to bring people in to watch the games.
The latest railcar loading reports were out today. The weak trend in the U.S. continues with carloads below 2018 and 2017 and about equal to the same week in 2016. Canadian car had weakened somewhat in the few weeks and were noticeably weak in the latest week. Petroleum car loads show a sharp decline versus recent weeks. All in all, the carload report is more evidence of a softening economy and especially softer trade volumes.