Optimism #51 - July 8, 2022
Dear clients and friends,There are many good things to report.
Empire (owner of Sobeys and Canada Safeway) raised their dividend 10%.
Jim Pattison is buying more shares of Westshore Terminals. Others are buying at Uni-Select, Equitable (EQ Bank), Whitecap Resources, RioCan REIT, Sprott, Stingray Group, Kelt Exploration, Baytex Energy, Neo Performance Materials, Airboss of America, i-80 Gold and Allied Properties REIT.
Citigroup’s economists reported that pressure on the supply chain ‘shows an appreciable easing’. This should translate to less inflation and shorter wait lines for stuff.
On June 23rd, BMO’s chief economist commented that ‘this too shall pass”.
RBC has a Best Global Stocks List, many of which you own.
Canadian picks include Telus, Altagas, Alimentation Couche Tard, CP Rail, Intact Financial and Canadian Natural Resources.
A word of caution and a story worth sharing from a client shopping for better GIC rates online:
I found the UBS GIC offer on the Internet and approached them online. I completed an application and unfortunately, gave them quite a bit of identification information, in order to open up an account. Several emails were exchanged with somebody posing as an account manager Simon Jones out of Toronto while I was dealing with a British accent a man named Oliver Campbell who is heated who was supposedly in charge of fixed income investments for the bank. Once I received funds in my account, I submitted a deposit request form which was on their website. After they approved the deposit request form they sent me a payment invoice which is the equivalent of wiring instructions. That was this morning. I looked at the payee in the wiring instructions. It was not UBS, but was IFRC holdings Inc. Oliver told me that it was their clearing company for these type of payments. I researched that company online and could not find it, other than a reference to a defunct British Columbia company. Spidey senses were tingling. Unfortunately, the whole Rogers network is down today as you probably know. And unfortunately, all of the UBS branches, including their one 800 numbers are on the Rogers network. I found every branch in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal and was fortunate to have a conversation with a woman out of the Montreal office. After explaining what has transpired with Oliver and Simon, she confirmed that neither of these people were involved with UBS and the procedures followed by these guys did not match with UBS protocol. She also confirmed that my so-called account number was not a UBS account. UBS also had no record of my account or my name. She confirmed that UBS, and probably other banks, are confronted with fraudsters very frequently. I then had to do some damage control with RBC and CIBC which were the subjects of some of my ID information.
Citi strategist Chris Montagu manages a World Radar stock screen methodology combining valuation and momentum in terms of stock price, earnings and cash flow growth.
Canadian bank stocks dominate the list of stocks that have moved into the top decile of MSCI World index members that have jumped into the first decile of attractiveness by Citi’s criteria.
Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto-Dominion Bank benefited from attractive relative valuation, while Bank of Nova Scotia and National Bank of Canada climbed into the top decile thanks primarily to relative stock price momentum.
“MSCI World stocks climbing to top decile in Citi’s World Radar screen” – (table) Twitter
Here is a link to a quite in depth article about inveseting for retirement. I am half way through and quite taken by the sentence that
“risk is best thought of as not having enough capital when you need it”.
And we finish with a wonderful article from last weekend’s Globe and Mail about even when portfolios temporarily decline in value, the income they generate continues to rise.
Have a relaxing weekend.
Let us know if you have any questions related to comprehensive financial planning, investment markets or anything you feel like discussing with us.
Derek Moran
