Thomson Reuters Corp (TRI.TO)

Generating a lot of free cash flow, buying back stock and increasing the dividend. The revenue growth is somewhat limited at the moment in various segments. Have done an extremely good job on cost savings, and the margins have been expanding for 2 quarters in a row.

He followed it for 20 years. The company got it right. They saw themselves as not a newspaper company, but as an information company. It has been in a trading range for 15 months, then had a move up. It has a ways to go. It will probably end up breaking out to the upside, but he is unlikely to buy it.

(A Top Pick March 14/17. Down 6%.) *Short* The company has reported twice since this was picked. Reported a very bad 4^th quarter and a reasonably good 1^st quarter. This revolves around the shift to passive investing, and the lack of a market for them to sell their financial products. A very competitive space. Any EPS growth they have is a result of share buybacks.

This is a powerhouse. A well-run company with significant management ownership via Woodbridge. He has a lot of respect for the team. Not a cheap stock. Free cash flow this tear will be a bit lower, primarily due to one-time items. He looks 2-3 years out and the amount of free cash flow they can generate. The free cash flow yield is fair, not great. It gets out to about 6.5%-7% a little farther out. This gives you a healthy dividend and modest share repurchases. They are very good at allocating capital. He would own more at a lower price. A lower risk/high quality business.

*Short* In today’s world this is in the financial data space. They sell terminals that sit on brokers desks. He would consider this as a 2^nd tier product in a space that is under heavy attack. FinTech is something that is proliferating all through the West Coast. The result is that competition is really getting quite intense with new products, better than what this company does. Dividend yield of 3.1%. (Analysts’ price target is $45.)

This has had a reasonable period since the selloff in the global financial crisis. Its clients are effectively all the banks, so looking forward to an environment where the banks are going to start stocking up, because they are going to have higher interest rates, this should be very positive for this company. Great story, but a very slow moving animal.

A terrific company that for the longest time didn’t reward shareholders at all. A few years ago the stock took a 60% uptick, and his fear is that we are going to have another long period of time where it is going to kind of stuck there. Kind of a boring company. Too expensive now. 3.4% dividend yield.

(Market Call Minute.) He would love to call this a Buy but it is a Hold.

A well-managed company. Diversified into electronic delivery of financial and legal information. They have started to get back on a growth path now. With the dividend yield this is worth while holding.

New management has greatly simplified the business and cut a lot of costs. It hasn’t been focused on doing large deals, but focused on improving their very attractive portfolio of companies. In addition, they have also divested businesses that they don’t feel have the same promise over the long-term.

A great dividend payer and a wonderful company over the years. They believe dividends will go up over the years. It will not be a home run stock, however.

Chart shows a long upward trend from 2013 of higher highs and higher lows. It looks like the moving average was broken early this year. The stock is rounding over, but has some support that has been in place since 2015. You don’t want to see that support broken. The danger right now is that there are a series of lower highs and lower lows.

Sold his holdings at just over $50, at a good profit. Profitability was beginning to improve as he had hoped, but the market was paying so much more for that and he wondered what the scope of growth in earnings was going to be, going forward. Today you are paying over 20X next year’s earnings, and about the same the following year. On a Price to Book basis it is 2.8X right now. He would buy this again, but it would have to be a lot cheaper than it is today.

He has liked the way they have always been able to re-imagine its business for the last 20 years. It is coming out of a huge multiyear base. Has a solid dividend of about 3.5%. This is worth looking at going forward.

Sell and move into something else? This has been a long-term steady Eddie, but if you want to move, perhaps a Canadian bank stock. They seem to be pretty steady. If you want something more international, he likes DH Corporation (DH-T) as an income source.