Canadian Tire Corporation Ltd. (A) (CTC.A.TO)

Loves the company. It is a great company. It has done very well, but he would like to see it pull back 5%-10%. The balance sheet is in excellent shape. It has been suggested that they might be looking for acquisitions.

A well run company, but now is not the time that you want to be owning it. Sales are weak in Western Canada. Also, the majority of products they sell are imported. With the weak Cdn$ they have to either raise prices or reduce margins or a combination of the 2. Not a good place to be.

(Market Call Minute.) Would prefer to own Home Depot (HD-N), but he would be okay with this.

Does the dual class share structure hold back the growth and is this a good value? Not a fan of dual class share structures, but doesn’t feel it holds back the stock at all. One of this company’s problems is that most of its merchandise is imported, and most of it is imported in US$. Its okay, but he wouldn’t jump up and down owning it.

A good company. There was a little bit of softness this year, but it is still positive. Chart is showing a little bit of an uptick. Also, has a defensive characteristic as well. If it dropped below its low of August 24, that would be when you become a little bit concerned.

DOL-T vs. CTC.A-T Both have been very good retailing stories for the last number of years. CTC.A-T has had a real estate portion to their story. They trade cheaper and are the slightly better story. He does not buy stocks at the PE of DOL-T.

Retail is such a difficult area right now. The online companies, like Amazon (AMZN-Q), threaten companies like this. There are a lot of items that you can buy at the store that you can also buy online. However, this company is cheaper today than it has been for a year or so. A well-managed iconic Canadian company.

Had a pretty good run and the yield got down to about 1%. At that level, he is not attracted. Have pretty solid, stable businesses, but in the market, as funds flowed out of energy, it looked to find other places, and consumer stocks was definitely one of them. Views this as having a lot of competition. If it yielded 3%-4% he would be a lot more interested.

One of the biggest retailers in Canada. Share price has been dropping. It’s a good company. The dividend could increase. They also have the financial services component, which could provide an avenue for growth. For retailers, he prefers the US with larger names.

This one goes up and down, but the long-term prospects are quite good. It pretty well covers the waterfront in Canada. Have great locations. A more recent problem they could be facing is that some of those empty Target stores could end up in the hands of Rona (RON-T) or Lowes (LOW-N) who overlap with certain of their products. That has people a little worried. Thinks they will do fine. Not a bad Buy right here.

They had a great run and then pulled back. There is a real effort to run the business even better. There is the card business and the receivable business. They buy things in US dollars and sell in Canadian dollars and that is weighing on them. It is supposed to be a warmer winter and that is weighing on them also. It has the potential to be a pretty good story over the next couple of years.

A good, well managed company with a dividend. The market is down and CTC.A-T trended down with it. They monetized part of their credit card business and spun out their real estate side before that to push the price up.

(Market Call Minute.) This is a nice, long term hold.

A very stable stock. Valuation momentum is in the top 25%. He would prefer Alimentation Couche-Tard (ATD.B-T) or Dollarama (DOL-T). Reasonably valued at 15X earnings. If you are looking for stable retailer, this would be one that you would want to own. Dividend yield of about 1.7%.

Canadian Tire (CTC.A-T) or Dollarama (DOL-T)? Both companies have some headwinds. If he had to pick, it would be this one. Longer-term they have shown tremendous adaptability. The headwind from a weak Cdn$ makes imported products for the stores more expensive. Thinks it will affect Dollarama more.