Canadian Banks. What a difference a year makes. Terrific return so far on the backs with no loan losses so far. As interest rates started to go higher, everyone got excited but now that story is put to bed. Canadian banks could not raise dividends or buy back stock due to COVID. It will be interesting to see what regulators will do with them now. They will trade sideways for now. His favourites are TD-T, RY-T and NA-T. They are very well run banks. NA-T is his favourite of the three as it has the greatest total return.
Too much speculation and not enough stablity in the face of Covid uncertainty, which explains today's meltdown. This was the end of euphoria. The spec stocks, which attracted young investors, were hardest hit. Those specs include SPACs (638 this far so far, which is insane), IPOs and the Reddit/meme stocks, such as Corsair. Throw in the cryptos, though he likes and own Bitcoin, but likes it more at lower levels. Crude oil was also speculative.
The week in review This week we saw cyclicals pull back. Powell's testimony reflects a disconnect between his view of inflation and the data we saw. Today's consumer data reflects uncertainty; maybe there's more risk out there. This week was relatively ugly although Apple had a 3.5% move 5 days. No question growth and GDP in the next few quarters will be above 7%, driven by pent-up demand. At some point, though, we'll need to pay the piper. Have we priced in perfection? He sees plenty of good news in the retail story to come; child support cheques are in the mail. Overall, the economy is in a strong place from now till the end of the year. Future data will keep the Fed wanting to see full employment; there's only so much the Fed can do.