This week’s new 52-week highs and lows … (Jan 30-Feb 5)

(A Top Pick Oct 10/24, Up 27%)Stockchase Research Editor: Michael O'Reilly Our PAST TOP PICK with AC has achieved its target at $22.  To remain disciplined, we recommend covering half the position at this time and trailing up the stop (from $15) to $17.

One of the stronger companies and brands in Canada. Successful transition to a digital company, offering subscriptions to data. Low capex, recurring revenue. Profitability was challenged, but now improving nicely. Very expensive at 43x PE. Small yield of 1.3%.Stay away for now on valuation, but watch, consider buying if shares correct.

The space has been a fantastic investment. There aren't a lot of options for getting rid of garbage. Once you're on their books, they can gradually increase prices. The issue is that valuations are quite high, and always have been. High barriers to entry. When stocks come off, the expensive ones come off the fastest.

Customized, prefabricated environmental office interior solutions. High net cash position. Significant upside because of their flexible business model. Surge in office reconfiguration taking place across North America. Top management. No dividend. (Analysts’ price target is $3.46)

Rather bad couple of days. Was down substantially, outside of a range. Consolidated. It broke down and is more likely to go down. $1.50 on the downside.

Good place to be. Lots of tailwinds in the sector, especially after Covid. 

(A Top Pick Oct 06/23, Down 9%) Today's disappointments are tomorrow's opportunities. He's looking at water utilities, a business that won't go away. He's waiting for a plan from the new management team. Once we get it, the stock will re-rate back to an acceptable range, with double digits over 5 years very possible.

They have exposure to a data centre in Alberta, possibly a new hug for data centre energy. It's re-rated due to lower interest rates. These stocks are recovering and still are. Still room to run.

Had owned this a long time. He still likes their assets, offshore in Europe and Taiwan, but the market dislikes the latter. Is an attractive take-out candidate. They can divest assets in Europe or Colombia. Bad managers before, but now good, but their assets matter more and they are good. Collect the over 5% dividend…

Likes it long term, but is enduring issues now. 

(A Top Pick Oct 06/23, Up 20%) Is tied to interest rates. Long rates have rebounded lately. A very well-managed company with 51 straight years of raising their dividend. It will remain a core position.

(A Top Pick Dec 19/23, Down 5%) He bought it for the dividend, which grows 10% annually. All the telcos are down because they've had to borrow to upgrade to 5G, and rates have been high. Especially if rates decline, a lot of their debt will fall in the next 2 years and this oligopoly…

Very strong business - founder led & owned. Exception creator of wealth the past ~20 years. Has owned shares since 2014. Very good consolidator of convenience stores. High quality capital allocation skills. Recent 7-Eleven M&A is interesting, but depends on the final price that is settled on. Would recommend holding and/or buying. 

The black sheep of Canada's big three grocers, but recent results were pretty good and that's raised the stock. Are improving costs and being more efficient. Same-store sales growth is flat, though. They lack a discount brand like Metro and Loblaw, and lack presence in pharmacies. That's why their PE is lower than their peers.…

(A Top Pick Apr 28/21, Down 67.4%) Are building online grocery sales now. When he recommended it, he expected another leg up--and shares rose last summer on good numbers. But he sold this around $10 because he was concerned the company was no longer focusing on meal kits and was spending a lot to enter…

For consumer staples, he likes to stay close to home. Very few competitors. Stock's done very well for him.

It's had a decent run up and has pulled back a little. But the mild winter weather may play havok with later production levels.

Golden crosses and death crosses sound good, but he doesn't use them; they're lagging indicators. Next target close to $100, so 20-25% upside. Has price momentum behind it. Recommending to clients.

Excellent asset base - very had to replicate. Consistent dividend increases. Cheap valuation given cash flow abilities. Company will perform well regardless of economy. Has a long history of quality dividends. Portfolio of growth projects for the next 5 years. 

Trevor Rose’s Insights - Trevor’s most-liked answers from 5i Research EPS of 60c did miss estimates of 75c; revenue of $1.84B also missed estimates ($2.11B). EBITDA of $1.01B missed estimates by 4%. Pembina's 4Q Ebitda may expand by high-single digits, assuming it reaches the midpoint of narrowed guidance of C4.23-$4.33 billion. Contributions from increased stakes…

(A Top Pick Nov 07/23, Up 5.7%)Stockchase Research Editor: Michael O'Reilly Our PAST TOP PICK with CHP.UN has triggered its stop at $13.75.  To remain disciplined, we recommend covering the position at this time.  

Trevor Rose’s Insights - Trevor’s most-liked answers from 5i Research EPS of 5c beat estimates of 4.3c; revenue of $66M beat estimates of $61M. New originations were $625.7M vs $571M last year. Guidance was afffirmed for 2024 but boosted for 2025 (19c to 25c vs 18c estimated). The company has streamlined its cost structure and…

Diversified industrial globally. High quality properties. 10-12% discount to NAV. Focused on larger part of the market (over 300k square feet), where there's more vacancy. It needs to work through that. Likes the sector, stock's interesting at this level, keep owning it if you do.

Office has suffered since the pandemic, supply/demand are out of balance everywhere. Occupancy has slipped to lowest level in 2 years. Leverage is quite high, while net operating income is down this quarter. An execution story. Some wonder if distribution can be sustained.

One of his largest holdings. One of the highest-quality grocery-anchored shopping-centre portfolios globally. Trades at upwards of 25% discount to private market value. Management seeking to increase value by selling non-core properties and reducing debt. Yield is 4.8%. (Analysts’ price target is $20.30)

Great properties, but diversification means it doesn't get a great valuation from the market. Sunbelt properties are over-supplied. Owns office properties and retail. Transforming to multi-family and industrial. Trade action starting to pick up. Secure yield of about 6.7%. Growth will be a while, depends on your time horizon. Better names in the meantime.

Compelling level. Pursues a value-added strategy, whereby you can get above-rent-control rents by improving properties. Great track record on this. Exposure to student population, with lower rents. Immigration question has unduly punished residential REITS. Over 20% discount to NAV, attractive.

Concerns over exposure to condo market. Great portfolio, quite defensive. He's bullish on outdoor shopping centre landscape across Canada, with low supply and increasing demand from population growth. Great management. You're well served by holding on.

(A Top Pick Sep 28/22, Up 45%) Got taken out. Traded at a 25% discount in a sector that was in high demand.

With 10-year bond yields popping up, some of the REITs are a bit challenged. This is a Canadian REIT, even though WMT is its anchor tenant. He prefers storage REITs in the US. He worries about the Canadian economy. Yield looks strong at over 7%, seems safe.

It's hoping to win more contracts as well as benefit from AI. Every single company is trying to implement AI into their products. Slow-growing business, more acquisition-based. Hasn't knocked it out of the park. A quite reasonable valuation. Actively looking at, would love to buy on a material pullback.

Has been a wild ride in past years, but they are now on the right path under current managers. Metrics like margin expansion look fine. Is now trading at a huge discount to intrinsic value and can re-rate further as performance continues.

Trevor Rose’s Insights - Trevor’s most-liked answers from 5i Research. The stock drifted along under $12 through 2022 to August when it moved up to about $16 which held to the start of November when it fell to its month-end close of $13.24. ABST is a leading provider of self-healing endpoint and secure access solutions.…

(A Top Pick Feb 25/21, Up 15.3%)Stockchase Research Editor: Michael O’Reilly With the recent completed acquisition by AEM now official, we now consider this position closed. When combined with the previous recommendation to cover half the position, this results in a net investment gain of 22%.

They have a huge operation in eastern Canada. They have a royalty structure, like a toll road on iron production. With a slowdown in China, how much demand will there be for metals? He's not sure. Be careful. LIF is volatile, but long-term this is good and pays a gooD dividend. You can buy a…

Owns shares in company. Would recommend holding. Free cash flow is expanding. Debt a small concern, but not worth noting. 

One of the most senior producers of silver. Silver is better than gold, as the bulk of silver production comes from copper mines. Silver just crossed $24, and there's lots of upside. SSRM has a $28 price target. He wants something that will benefit once inflation is realized.

Company prospects for land, stakes it and then gets other companies to do the major work at their expense. Because they have so many properties, long-term they should get a discovery.

$2.25 price target. Growing pains starting up a mine. He'd be averaging down. Issues always signal a really good entry point at cheap valuations. Have to be patient. This wouldn't be his only holding; he'd own it amongst at least 5-10 companies.

The 3rd largest holding in his portfolio. They have seen the mines in Turkey and were impressed. The area is a danger zone with recent fighting and the stock has taken a hit. The mine is far enough away from the fighting so he thinks it will not be impacted. He paid just over $2…

Dundee is nowhere as large as Barrick, Franco Nevada or Agnico Eagle, which comprise a third of the Canadian materials sector, but it has outperformed it so far in 2024. Dundee shares have rallied 8.5% in this time period while Barrick is down over 16%. Also, Dundee holds more potential upside. Consensus sales estimates are…

Owns shares in company. Would recommend holding. Free cash flow is expanding. Debt a small concern, but not worth noting. 

De-risking 40% of a portfolio at age 59. Likes the idea of PSA. TLT, he believes, is a leveraged play on the bond market and wouldn't do that. BNS high interest savings, for example, pays 4.75% for optionality and no risk. For an ETF filled with 1-year bonds that's very low risk, look at ZST.L. Pays…

Good if interest rates rise. Not when rates are falling. Would not invest lately (Fed likely to cut rates). 

XRE vs. IYR Totally different products because of the country, given XRE is Canada and IYR is the US. XRE top 31% investments are in retail. IYR has only 9% retail. For residential, it's 25% XRE and only 15% IYR. Largest holding in IYR is AMT. IYR is more diversified, less exposed to retail which…

XUT is market cap, ZUT is equal weighted. ZUT gives you more exposure to smaller players. HOG gives you more pipeline and energy services business, which acts similarly to utilities. It also hedges you on the downside. Could be a compliment to the other utility ETFs.

He doesn't buy low-vols, because they drag on performance.

As interest rates fall, should I transfer from ZWU to ZUT? You need to anticipate which direction yields will move, because the market has already priced in interest rate cuts. If rates don't fall, an interest-rates sensitive like ZWU will perform at or underperform your expectations; this has already rallied 10% in the past month.…

Stock vs. Stock. FIE-T vs. CMR-T. CMR-T is a money market fund. FIE-T is a multi holding income strategy holding all kinds of assets, so there will be more volatility. When markets are up go into CMR-T and FIE-T when they are down.

It holds ultra-short term investment-grade bonds. MER is 40 basic points. The chart was smooth pre-COVID, then plunged 20% during the sell-off, then recovered. When times are calm, they act like bonds. When risk spikes in a crisis, there's volatility. This falls in line with your equities. He's surprised this had this much of a…

He doesn’t know this, but assumes it is an actively managed bond fund. If so, the question you are going to have is the duration of the bond fund at any given time. You can usually get that information from the people who market this ETF. If you have a duration of 10, then you…

Not a good option if we head into recession. Would not recommend buying. Not a good defensive name. Products are too complex for average investor. 

We've had a decent run in REITs, so he'd be selling and not buying. Yes, lower interest rates will help REITs. He feels the market is expecting too many rate cuts from the central banks. He predicts a hard landing in the economy eventually which won't help REITs.

Add for long-term income? Includes telcos likes BCE, Telus, and Rogers, as well as utilities. Still likes it a lot, has it in his global dividend strategy. He reduced exposure on recent rally, moving to ZPAY for the lower risk. Before adding, wait for it to hit the low $10s.He feels that interest rate pressure…

(A Top Pick Jul 25/24, Up 8.9%)Stockchase Research Editor: Michael O'Reilly Our PAST TOP PICK with QBR.B has triggered its stop at $33.  To remain disciplined, we recommend covering the position at this time.  This will result in a net investment gain of 11%, when combined with our previous guidance.  

He sold with news of recent US acquisition, wouldn't step in today. Company sold MLSE saying proceeds would be used to pay down debt, but then turned around and made an acquisition with a rich purchase price necessitating more debt. More capex now needed. Payout ratio still high.

It comes down to the Rogers deal, which the street thinks will happen, but this is the fourth deadline extension. The deal has been priced into shares, so there isn't much upside. Better to buy Rogers or Telus than Shaw.

Great company. Looking at the chart, big wall of resistance it just couldn't get through. Then it broke out. If you own it, hold. If it pulls back to the neckline, he'd be all over it.

Better names in market.Will face issue of paper sellers with recent sale.Shares not cheap enough.

Involved in the UK North Sea. In the process of drilling a well with the Lundins that is very important. In about 1 month will start working with Husky (HSE-T) in the North West Territories. Between the winters of 2008 and 2009, you will have a good shot if they have any kind of drilling…

He stayed away because they went to the states to make acquisitions. He did not know why the Americans would not already take these assets. He stays away from it.

They have cut back and preserved capital. They do not have a debt issue. They are a gas play. If gas prices stay strong, they should do well. She anticipates their 4th quarter production being lower. She is not buying it today, but the future looks good.

We've reached the tipping point where we're sick of really dirty oil. But don't get greedy with this now. Can't recommend buying it at current levels after such a big run.

He would like to see a couple of good quarters out from them. It is thinly traded. You have to be prepared to watch it quarter by quarter.

Zinc in Utah. This could go into production by itself. We could see this thing scale bigger in terms of tonnage. There is a lot more to be found. It is in an area where there are reduced environmental objection, just south of the Military testing grounds over the Salt Flats.

Intelligently run diamond exploration company. Has yet to see that they have economic pipes. Also into nickel but he has not been following this.

The best of the small cobalt companies in North America. It has an asset that is alive and well. It will be raising money for it while next door a mine is being decommissioned.

Located in Venezuela, which is a problem. If they have a major discovery there is a chance they could be expropriated.

It's leveraged. Don't buy it.

Where you talk about a bear or bull ETF that is levered, they have no future. You are supposed to trade them on a day to day basis or possible a weekly basis. They are guaranteed to lose over the long term because of the way the gains are translated over night. These are a…

Probably overbought here, up 240% in last 12 months. 21-22x forward earnings, 15-16% EPS growth rate. Not really expensive. Likes it.