On Wednesday, the S&P 500 was down 0.3% and Toronto was down 0.15%.
Toll Brothers was up 2.1%. AutoCanada was up 2.5%, possibly on optimism that the new management will turn things around.
Visa was down 3.5%. Its had strong increases in the past six months and so this is just giving back a little of those gains.
Kinder Morgan Canada was down 2.0% to $16.79 after announcing it will issue a very large special dividend ($11.40) to send to investors the money it got from selling Trans Mountain. This is roughly what was expected. Kinder Morgan Canada is not on our list but I mentioned a few times that I owned some shares. I had actually coincidentally sold my shares on Tuesday before the announcement. I sold after reviewing and updating my portfolio. I figures with the pipeline sold, my reason to hold the stock was gone. With the announcement of the dividend on Tuesday after the close, I feared my timing had been very bad. But so far it looks like selling on Tuesday was a good move. Kinder Morgan Canada will I believe continue as a much smaller company. It’s not one I know anything about. I had bought Kinder Morgan Canada with the idea that the pipeline would go though and the stock would rise. That of course did not happen. In the end I made a few dollars because I had bought it cheap.
Speaking of Trans Mountain, it certainly appears that Justin Trudeau is not going to do anything to get the construction started. It looks like everything is on hold for maybe a year as they go through the motions (charade?) of consultations and reviews while at the same time assuring that the line will go through. If that’s the case why not at least continue to build the non-controversial parts of the line? If the line is going to go through then why not have a hearing on how to mitigate tanker traffic impact as opposed to any charade hearing on whether tankers will be allowed? I must admit, I don’t know the concerns of the indigenous people. Route? Compensation?, economic benefits for them? Unless the indigenous people want the route changed then why is construction halted?Could construction not continue while they debate / consult on other concerns? In any case this delay is certainly bad news for Alberta.
After the close, Alimentation Couche-Tard released a strong earnings report. Apparently it somewhat exceeded expectations. But the analysts can always find something negative to focus on if they are minded to. So we shall see where the stock opens on Thursday morning.
Meanwhile Trump appears to be under heavy attack by his own staff in the Whitehouse. But so far, the markets have certainly not seen his Presidency as negative for stocks. It does seem his policies have been good for the economy. I wonder what price America is willing to pay for that and just how much they will put up with.