| DON'T BUY | | BCE Inc. | BCE-T | 25.980 | Not very inspiring. In a serial restructuring. Company is really levered to wall telephone services. That business is shrinking. Prefers Telus (T-T) were you have over half the company levered towards wireless. As a pure income play, it's not bad, but no growth. | 2006-07-26 | |
| BUY | | Telus Corp | T-T | 48.750 | Prefers Telus (T-T) and Rogers (RCI.B-T) over BCE (BCE-T). Over half of the company is levered towards wireless. | 2006-07-26 | |
| BUY | | Rogers Communcations (B) | RCI.B-T | 48.050 | Prefers Telus (T-T) and Rogers (RCI.B-T) over BCE (BCE-T). Lots of growth and is really turning around. | 2006-07-26 | |
| DON'T BUY | | Nortel | NT-T | 2.330 | Still very difficult to see with clarity where the growth is going to come from. The whole sector is still in a basic restructuring mode. | 2006-07-26 | |
| BUY | | Canadian Pacific Rail | CP-T | 53.900 | Positive on both Canadian Pacific (CP-T) and Canadian National (CNR-T) railways. This one is not quite the same quality in terms of their route network. Has higher costs than CN but they are bringing them down. Cheaper. Good management. | 2006-07-26 | |
| BUY | | Canadian National R.R. | CNR-T | 45.240 | Positive on both Canadian Pacific (CP-T) and Canadian National (CNR-T) railways. Lowest cost of any North American Railway. Their 2nd quarter was right on track. Prices probably dropped because of concerns of economics in the US. Price is getting very attractive. | 2006-07-26 | |
| BUY | | Northbridge Financial | NB-T | 29.370 | The whole financial sector fits into a value mode. Strong, long-term growth potential. A good area is the property/casualty area. Just pre-announced some weak results as a re-evaluation of their losses from the hurricanes last year. | 2006-07-26 | |
| DON'T BUY | | West Fraser Timber | WFT-T | 38.370 | Longer term, excellent management, great assets. Made an acquisition that gave them a lot of synergies. Unfortunately, they are still dependent on the price of lumber. Housing starts are rolling over because of concerns of interest on the housing market. | 2006-07-26 | |
| DON'T BUY | | Teck Cominco Ltd. (B) | TCK.B-T | 72.070 | In the metals/minerals area, your views should be based on what you think is going on in the economy and what is going to happen to metal prices. If you are a long-term bull on India and China’s shortage of metal he would continue holding, but he is wary on the whole commodity sector. | 2006-07-26 | |
| HOLD | | Berens Energy Ltd. | BEN-T | 1.750 | A heavily gas weighted junior producer. At this stage of the game, gas has been all beaten up and we are starting to see positive results. | 2006-07-26 | |
| HOLD | | Loblaws | L-T | 49.210 | Stock has not acted well at all. Believes the company is doing the right thing. Trying to reinvest in their business and position themselves so they can compete. Have had problems executing on their structure strategy, but fundamentally they're not broke and sales continue to go up. | 2006-07-26 | |
| BUY | | Power Financial Corp | PWF-T | 33.070 | Holding company. Continue to raise the dividend is all the time. Great West life (GWO-T) has been punished because of the large amount of business in the US. Lower profits because of currency. IGM Financial (IGM-T) continues to perform very well. | 2006-07-26 | |
| HOLD | | Inco | N-T | 83.050 | If you own, holding on is probably the smart thing to do. | 2006-07-26 | |
| PAST TOP PICK | | Finning Int | FTT-T | 39.970 | (A Top Pick Mar 3/05. Up 15.5%.) Still likes. Could still be bought. The long-term play is as Caterpillar (CAT-N) gets its equipment into the field, this company benefits from the higher margin repairs/maintenance. | 2006-07-26 | |
| PAST TOP PICK | | Gildan Activewear Inc. | GIL-T | 49.300 | (A Top Pick Mar 3/05. Down 1.5%.) Continues to execute on its strategy. They are now going directly to consumers. Competition is getting a little tougher. | 2006-07-26 | |
| PAST TOP PICK | | Kingsway Financial Services | KFS-T | 20.650 | (A Top Pick Mar 3/05. Up 3.3%.) Extremely cheap. Extremely cheap at 7 X earnings. Lots of upside over the long-term. | 2006-07-26 | |
| TOP PICK | | Nexen Inc | NXY-T | 64.700 | A little cautious in the energy sector, but still sees some opportunity. Likes their global diversification. Very cheap, probably due to their production out of Yemen. Have never had any interruption. North Sea project should give 80,000 barrels a day and Long Lake should give them 30,000. | 2006-07-26 | |
| TOP PICK | | Shoppers Drug Mart Corp | SC-T | 45.000 | Same store sales growth is attractive. Continues to add square footage. No hint of competition coming from the US. Great locations. | 2006-07-26 | |
| TOP PICK | | Research In Motion | RIM-T | 74.480 | Technology stock, so there is a lot of share price volatility. The underlying business is quite stable. People buying the devices are becoming locked-in subscribers. Now in a transition mode where high-growth investors are getting out of the story and value investors are getting in because they are reporting consistent profitability, growing their revenues and they have piles of cash on the balance sheet. | 2006-07-26 | |
| DON'T BUY | | Ainsworth Lumberf Co. Ltd. | ANS-T | 18.050 | Classic situation of a very cyclical company where raw statistics are backwards looking. Produces oriented strained board and prices have been very high but are now close to cash/cost of operation. There will be a huge decline in their earnings. Have a lot of debt. | 2006-07-26 | |
| BUY | | Encana Corp | ECA-T | 60.300 | Great management. Excellent depth of natural gas assets. If natural gas prices rise, this company will do very well. | 2006-07-26 | |
| BUY | | Canadian Tire Corporation Ltd. (A) | CTC.A-T | 63.840 | Tremendous management and great track record. The only concern would be if there is a turnover of economic activity, consumers could pull back a little bit. Would nibble at this one rather than buying a full position. | 2006-07-26 | |
| BUY | | Niko Resources | NKO-T | 64.390 | A bet on their continuation of continuing to discover very large natural gas formations in India and Bangladesh. Management historically has done a great job. Could be a takeout. | 2006-07-26 | |
| BUY | | Manulife Financial | MFC-T | 36.610 | Prefers over Sun Life (SLF-T) as they have an edge on management and global diversification. | 2006-07-26 | |
| BUY | | Sunlife Financial | SLF-T | 44.960 | A good company, but Manulife (MFC-T) is the better operation. | 2006-07-26 | |
| SELL | | Methanex Corp | MX-T | 21.330 | Methanol is an extremely cyclical commodity so this company’s earnings move up and down along with its stock price. Management/assets are great. He uses it as a trade selling when the stock gets high and buys when it gets beaten up. | 2006-07-26 | |
| BUY | | Alimentation Couche-Tard (A) | ATD.A-T | 23.950 | Will continue to have sales even if the economy rolls over. A more growth oriented name. Management is excellent at making acquisitions. | 2006-07-26 | |
| BUY | | Saputo Inc. | SAP-T | 34.740 | Good company and will grow if they make acquisitions. Management is slow in making acquisitions as they do not like to overpay. | 2006-07-26 | |
| HOLD | | Falconbridge Ltd | FAL-T | 62.390 | The chance of them not getting taken over is almost zero. If you own, you might consider taking some profit now and holding on to some and see what might come out of the woodwork. | 2006-07-26 | |
| BUY | | Russel Metals | RUS-T | 25.150 | A distributor of steel products. Excellent management. Long-term track record shows they are always profitable. Have been able to make accretive acquisitions. Yield is approximately 6%. | 2006-07-26 | |
| BUY | | Bank of Nova Scotia | BNS-T | 44.660 | Stock got a little ahead of itself and has pulled back a bit. The long term story is intact. Reasonable value at this price. | 2005-11-30 | |
| BUY on WEAKNESS | | Petro-Can | PCA-T | 44.550 | Issues with the oils is two fold. First the longer term outlook is quite positive. Has some growth initiatives underway that will see oil/gas production increase substantially. In the short term, oil prices have come off their peaks and it's very difficult to see the equities make strong upmoves against the weaker commodity. | 2005-11-30 | |
| TOP PICK | | Nexen Inc | NXY-T | 51.240 | Wouldn't rush out to buy right now, but would wait for weakness from time to time. This company has 3 large projects in 2006. The Buzzard oil field in the North Sea an one at Long Lake. Over the next 12 to 18 months, they will have substantial increase in their production both on a total basis and on a per share basis. Good management. | 2005-11-30 | |
| BUY on WEAKNESS | | ING Canada Inc. | IIC-T | 45.800 | Property and casualty business in Canada is highly fragmented and this is the largest player. There is some opportunity for consolidation. This company has done extremely well since its IPO. Would buy this piece by piece when there is weakness. | 2005-11-30 | |
| WAIT | | Transglobe Energy | TGL-T | 6.190 | Calgary based with a focus in Yemen. Has done a great job of building production. Last couple of months, they've had some disappointments with some exploratory wells. The past growth is likely to slow down. Not particularily expensive, but will probably have to wait for some good news on their exploration. | 2005-11-30 | |
| TOP PICK | | Alliance Atlantis Communications Inc. (B) | AAC.B-T | 34.800 | An evolving story. Company was going off in different directions. Management stripped off all the non-core activities and cut back to 3 main assets, specialty broadcasting, a 50% ownership in a film distribution company and they own 50% CSI investigation franchise which is the #1 watched show in the US. Low risk.
| 2005-11-30 | |
| HOLD | | Royal Bank | RY-T | 89.020 | Very conservative. The dividend is going to continue going up. | 2005-11-30 | |
| BUY on WEAKNESS | | Canadian Oil Sands Trust | COS.UN-T | 126.000 | Probably pretty fully valued. Accumulate on dips on really bad days when oil prices are down or when the TSX oil sector is really getting killed. | 2005-11-30 | |
| DON'T BUY | | Four Seasons Hotel | FSH-T | 57.920 | Trading on its brand name and reputation had a pretty bad quarter in the last one which caused it to sell off. Still thinks it's expensive. | 2005-11-30 | |
| TOP PICK | | Manulife Financial | MFC-T | 67.150 | Likes the John Hancock acquisition and thinks that as that is integrated over the next couple of years, you'll see above average earnings growth. Good international exposure. Will have higher earnings and dividend growth rates than the banks. | 2005-11-30 | |
| BUY | | Trican Well Service Ltd. | TCW-T | 48.500 | Unlike the oil sector which is going to be impacted in the short term by energy prices, the service sector is operating flat out. These companies are all going to report record results. Doesn't know that he would build a big position right now and paying a record price. | 2005-11-30 | |
| BUY | | Loblaws | L-T | 61.180 | Thinks that the problems are transitory as the company is organizing its supply chain. This is a great opportunity to buy a very well managed business at a very reasonable price. Could be 2, 3 or 4 quarteres before seing any improvement. | 2005-11-30 | |
| DON'T BUY | | Niko Resources | NKO-T | 67.850 | Excellent job in exploration. Price of oil dominating. | 2005-03-03 | |
| SELL | | Western Oil Sands Inc. | WTO-T | 62.400 | Excellent project. Over time will develop as planned. Short term profit. | 2005-03-03 | |
| DON'T BUY | | AbitibiBowater Inc. | ABH-T | 6.180 | Not a growth company, a restructering story. | 2005-03-03 | |
| SELL | | IPSCO Inc | IPS-T | 68.850 | Benefits from a tight profits, easy money already made, perfrorming at peak. | 2005-03-03 | |
| SELL | | Falconbridge Ltd | FAL-T | 35.680 | Well due to increasing prices. Diverserfied. If good markets in China persists may have another good year. | 2005-03-03 | |
| BUY | | Black Rock | BVI-T | 11.950 | Capital intensive. A discovery however may be years before they discover profits from discovery. | 2005-03-03 | |
| BUY | | ING Canada Inc. | IIC-T | 34.000 | Well run. Unlikely to see another pop in price in next 6 months. Solid long term investment. | 2005-03-03 | |
| BUY | | Nexen Inc | NXY-T | 68.070 | Lagger, however over long term has potential for growth. | 2005-03-03 | |
| SELL | | Westshore Terminals Inc. | WTE.UN-T | 14.000 | Take profits. Could be top of the coal cycle. | 2005-03-03 | |
| DON'T BUY | | Bombardier Inc (B) | BBD.B-T | 2.920 | Many unanswered questions. Can they compete with competition. More a speculation that an investment. | 2005-03-03 | |
| VAGUE | | Bank of Nova Scotia | BNS-T | 40.900 | Can see this fund migrating back to domestic content. | 2005-03-03 | |
| BUY | | Talisman Energy | TLM-T | 43.000 | Very well diversified. Look for opportunities outside of Canada. Profitable. Great long term investment. Stock sensitive to oil prices. | 2005-03-03 | |
| DON'T BUY | | Canadian Tire Corporation Ltd | CTC-T | 80.200 | Good growth of earnings. How much more can they grow? Dependent on consumer spending. | 2005-03-03 | |
| VAGUE | | A Comment -- General Comments From an Expert | A Commentary | 22.760 | Appears that any deal with Chinese is dead. May get split up. Good current management. | 2005-03-03 | |
| BUY | | Alimentation Couche-Tard (B) | ATD.B-T | 39.750 | Bullish. Good job at making aquisitions. Good integration. | 2005-03-03 | |
| BUY | | Rothmans Inc | ROC-T | 22.400 | Not impacted by economy.Stable income, limited growth. | 2005-03-03 | |
| SELL | | Enbridge | ENB-T | 63.950 | Long term growth with tarsands. Good growth recently. | 2005-03-03 | |
| DON'T BUY | | Manitoba Telecom Services | MBT-T | 49.170 | Not very robust growth due to wireless telecomm. Unlikely to increase dividends. | 2005-03-03 | |
| DON'T BUY | | Compton Petroleum | CMT-T | 13.240 | Possible conversion to income trust. Stock price at highest of cycle for short term. | 2005-03-03 | |
| BUY | | Canadian National R.R. | CNR-T | 77.370 | Good management. Not overvalued. Still looking for improvements in profitability. | 2005-03-03 | |
| BUY | | Finning Int | FTT-T | 33.990 | Back door way to participate in commodity boom. | 2005-03-03 | |
| TOP PICK | | Kingsway Financial Services | KFS-T | 19.930 | Will be a good growth potential this year. Costs have gotten under control. | 2005-03-03 | |
| BUY | | Niko Resources | NKO-T | 41.350 | The death of their president should not have a long term impact on the company. Have huge projects on the books. Outlook is very promising. | 2004-11-24 | |
| DON'T BUY | | Manitoba Telecom Services | MBT-T | 46.360 | Telecom sector outlook is one of extremely slow growth or even declines. Have smaller exposure to wireless than their peers. Company is in good financial condition, so the dividend appears to be safe. | 2004-11-24 | |
| TOP PICK | | Alimentation Couche-Tard (B) | ATD.B-T | 32.250 | Great management team. Now the 4th largest convenient store operator in North America. Had a great quarter. | 2004-11-24 | |
| HOLD | | Aur Resources | AUR-T | 6.230 | An established management team. Not a lot of new mines in the pipeline. Copper prices are very good. | 2004-11-24 | |
| BUY | | Loblaws | L-T | 69.030 | Tremendous management. Great long term track record. Probably looking at 10/15% per annum share growth over the long term. Low risk. | 2004-11-24 | |
| SELL | | BCE Inc. | BCE-T | 28.990 | Telecom sector outlook is one of extremely slow growth or even declines. Dividend is safe. After the dividend is declared in December, would look for something with more growth. | 2004-11-24 | |
| TOP PICK | | Axcan Pharmaceuticals | AXP-T | 20.980 | A very focused (gastro intestinal) pharmaceutical company and as a result, it is very profitable. You pretty well get a free call option on a potentially block-buster drug called Itax. Huge market in North America. | 2004-11-24 | |
| BUY on WEAKNESS | | Manulife Financial | MFC-T | 54.350 | Has been caught in a bit of a downdraft because of the bank reports. Asian operations are starting to fire. Wait until the banking reporting season is over and buy on dips. | 2004-11-24 | |
| SELL | | Nortel | NT-T | 3.970 | Sell for tax loss against any other gains you may have. | 2004-11-24 | |
| TOP PICK | | Kingsway Financial Services | KFS-T | 18.530 | Management has been able to stabilize the situation. The basic insurance business is operating profitably plus they have got their investment business on top of that. Cheap. Good growth. | 2004-11-24 | |
| BUY | | Bank of Nova Scotia | BNS-T | 36.690 | There is a general slowdown in the growth of the banks. Great management. Good dividend income and growth. | 2004-11-24 | |
| WEAK BUY | | Onex Corp | OCX-T | 18.950 | The question is can Gerry Schwartz find accretive acquisitions. Not much downside risk, but it's event driven and you will have to be patient. | 2004-11-24 | |
| HOLD | | Manitoba Telecom Services | MBT-T | 42.250 | Hold. Great dividend, but some risk. | 2004-08-31 | |
| BUY | | Talisman Energy | TLM-T | 30.380 | Very well managed. Good management team. Very attractively valued. None of the stocks are expensive. | 2004-08-31 | |
| DON'T BUY | | AGF Management (B) | AGF.B-T | 17.460 | Struggling over several years. Have very attractive asset base. But do not see any asset growth. | 2004-08-31 | |
| DON'T BUY | | Nortel | NT-T | 4.970 | No real fundamental information on this company. Wait until the company has some financial information. The stock is still over valued. | 2004-08-31 | |
| HOLD | | National Bank of Canada | NA-T | 43.050 | Biggest risk is this is regional. Some risk in asset management. Hold at this stage. Doing ok but do not rush to buy. | 2004-08-31 | |
| WEAK BUY | | Royal Bank | RY-T | 59.590 | Running into some problems. They are still extremely profitable. | 2004-08-31 | |
| TOP PICK | | Canadian National R.R. | CNR-T | 59.540 | Great management team. Only north railroad that operates east to west coast and north to south into Mexico. They manage fuel cost extremely well. | 2004-08-31 | |
| BUY | | Cott Corp | BCB-T | 35.750 | Right now is the good entry point. They have some negative comments in the last two quarters. They do private big business. | 2004-08-31 | |
| WAIT | | Cameco Corporation | CCO-T | 88.230 | This stock is little bit overhead. Great management. Wait for the chemical to back off. | 2004-08-31 | |
| BUY | | Dofasco | DFS-T | 40.050 | Great management team. Most profitable steel company in America. They have been raising their dividends slowly. | 2004-08-31 | |
| TOP PICK | | Bank of Nova Scotia | BNS-T | 36.080 | Great management team over years. International diversifications, which are very profitable businness for them. Lowest cost bank. Extremely efficient. | 2004-08-31 | |
| DON'T BUY | | Tembec Inc. | TMB-T | 9.480 | The company has aggresively grown. Not a good balance sheet. Suggest to look at more focused companies. | 2004-08-31 | |
| WEAK BUY | | Open Text | OTC-T | 21.630 | One of the few tech. stocks that actually makes money. | 2004-08-31 | |
| WEAK BUY | | Niko Resources | NKO-T | 35.650 | Exposed to very large oil and gas reserves in India. The problem is you are paying for the big discovery even though it is not in production yet. The price is too high to meet their investment criteria. Good management. | 2004-05-25 | |
| BUY | | Petro-Can | PCA-T | 61.620 | Generally, the oil/gas sector presents a good opportunity. Most investors are discounting presuming the high prices will moderate. A very mature, stable company and low risk. | 2004-05-25 | |
| TOP PICK | | Alimentation Couche-Tard (B) | ATD.B-T | 23.500 | Investors have been spooked because of the most recent quarterly report where earnings came up a bit short. That was a result of a contraction of gasoline margins in the US. Expects better earnings. | 2004-05-25 | |
| BUY | | Kingsway Financial Services | KFS-T | 14.900 | Has expanded rapidly over the last several years which has resulted in a lot of volatility. Started to see some improvement in the last quarter. Very attractively valued. | 2004-05-25 | |
| BUY | | Toronto Dominion | TD-T | 44.910 | Very highly geared to the capital market and there has been a big surge in stock market activity which will be positive. | 2004-05-25 | |
| BUY | | Dorel Industries (A) | DII.A-T | 43.100 | Core businesses doing very well. Furniture and children's products divisions are doing very well. Expects them to continue to report impressive earnings per share gain. Good price. | 2004-05-25 | |
| TOP PICK | | Power Financial Corp | PWF-T | 53.910 | A tremendous long-term growth story. Have increased their dividends at the regular pace. Attractively valued. | 2004-05-25 | |
| WEAK BUY | | Harry Winston Diamond Corp. | HW-T | 44.890 | A very high quality diamond property. These companies tend to trade at very high price multiples. Long reserve life. | 2004-05-25 | |
| BUY | | Transcontinental Inc. (A) | TCL.A-T | 23.750 | Extremely well managed. Excellent long-term track record. Strong business franchise. Long-term outlook is very attractive. | 2004-05-25 | |
| TOP PICK | | Nexen Inc | NXY-T | 49.880 | An underappreciated company. A political risk discount is placed on the stock because of their assets in Yemen, but the Civil War there did not affect revenues. Attractively valued. | 2004-05-25 | |
| BUY | | Trans Canada Corp | TRP-T | 27.330 | A long-term indirect play on energy. Could be some upside potential from the Arctic. Good assets. Has a stable and growing dividend. | 2004-05-25 | |
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