This week’s new 52-week highs and lows… (Jan 9-15)

This is such a great business. They keep acquiring more gas stations and building out their network. It is using its huge balance sheet to make accretive acquisitions. With more people taking road trips this summer, it could do very well.

Pays a 1.5% yield. 13% YOY sales growth and a large 12.8% free cash flow yield. Cash flow grew YOY 236%. Earnings to grow 7% this year and 5% in 2021 with a PE of 14.3x. (Analysts’ price target is $37.67)

Are grocers safe? Yes, during this stay at home phase. Loblaw trades at 16x forward PE with a 7% growth rate. It's low beta at half the volatility of the TSX. Q2 will probably be good in terms of revenues. But he's concerned with their private label segment has required a lot of investment. Also,…

Resistance at $28. He predicts a general market pullback in January of 5-10%. This will return to $27. Wait. But if it breaks below $23, it will head lower.

You want defensive stocks right now. Big thing is Jean Coutu, and integration will create earnings and cash flow growth. More difficult issue is how to expand that brand beyond Quebec, and this is already priced into the stock. A defensive name, and you can do quite well. Yield is 1.7%.

(A Top Pick Aug 01/19, Down 40%) BAD is associated with shale oil, which of course hasn't done well. But BAD has a mobile fleet that can perform other work. There are better stocks elsewhere, including gold.

(A Top Pick July 3/15. Down 43.04%.) Sold his holdings at around $5.50, and lost money. Their business continues to grow, and this is one that he continues to watch. There is lots of promise here.

The operate gold and copper mines in Bulgaria and Namibia. Earnings up 80% YOY, and boast a 9.2% free cash flow yield. Cash flow to grow 74% in 2020 and 17% in 2021. Price-to-cash flow is 5.9x. ROE expected this year is 21%. (Analysts’ price target is $9.23)

Political risk? There's less than people think. Papua New Guinea is a frontier market with corruption, but the government has treated mining fairly well--without mining, PNG would have real problems. THE KNT deposit is a fine discovery. But KNT is fully priced as a result.

Has no current plans to own this. Has a high regard for management, but his suspicion is that their cost of capital is too low. He sees them having a very difficult time thriving in the next 18 months. There are much better names out there.

They had a sound model on where the gold was and now they found more. The management team are great. They are in Northern Mexico. He thinks the permit will not be an issue. It is at a very high multiple due to their silver assets.

It stopped being a silver play a year ago. As they've made acquisitions, they've shifted from South American silver to North American gold. If gold pops, this stock could generate a lot of free cash flow.

They make frack sand; not a commonly covered stock. Trades at 15x earnings. The 2021 outlook is much better, supported by strong demand. A good opportunity.

He likes the warehouse sector globally. Retailers had just-in-time inventory and may now have to increase inventories. Now is the time to buy assets and GRT.UN-T just issued equity and attractive bonds. The balance sheet is in great shape. (Analysts’ price target is $75.68)

(A Top Pick Feb 12/19, Up 32%) Scotiabank just announced a $13.75 target. Managers own about 10% of shares. There's good industrial rent growth in Toronto and Montreal. Vacancy rates are rock-bottom low.

It has been a very difficult stock to own. It just cut its distribution in half. Management hopes they are being over cautious. Mall tenants are only paying about 25% of the rents. They have quite a bit of exposure to oil and gas tenants. Your upside is much better than your downside. Their apartment…

A portfolio of US properties. It also has some interesting properties around the DVP area in Toronto. The CEO is one of the few people that not only knows how to buy, but also how to sell. Thinks that at some point, he will sell the entire company if he can, or bit by bit.

It is safe in terms of distribution. They have exposure to Walmart, so in terms of cash flow it is safe, however they have zero growth. They have quite a bit of leasing to do. They have a good management team and some exciting developments. (Analysts’ price target is $20.75)

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.

Basically it's an ETF version of a mutual fund. All fixed-income and pays a yield over 3%. You can park money here until you figure what to invest in next.

(A Top Pick Jul 31/19, Up 0.4%) This is a way to lower volatility. A return of 2.15% per year, paid monthly. Hold it during volatility, sell it, and use the return to pick up your cyclicals during periods of seasonal strength.

1-5 year Laddered ETF. This will have a pretty short duration so will probably give you in the 2.5% range. It will suffer too much from rising interest rates. Not a bad place to park for a while.

It holds all investment-grade bonds, cheap cost at 15 basis points, and lasts only for a two-year duration.

(A Top Pick Dec 04/18, Up 2%) Safety play. A place to park cash. Never touches a GIC, because they're not liquid.

Nothing wrong with this ETF at all. 5 to 6 year durations because they are mid-cap corps.

This will improve, because bonds mature at par, then you re-load at higher interest rates. The ETF is down, but don't sell. This will correct and you will benefit from higher interest rates. Be patiebt.

BCE-T vs. RCI.B-T. They both have this perpetual cap-x spend in front of them and have a challenge in growth looking forward. But the telco space is not as expensive as some of the other defensive stocks. You would do well by owning any one of these. They score quite similarly. You can hold these…

(A Top Pick Dec 28/18, Up 17%) A core holding and he still likes it. Performs well.

They're now spending a lot to grow their wireless business and fighting off Telus. The telecoms are good investments now; they're defensive names.More people are at home using bandwidth, though gaining new phone users may be limited. You're paid a 5% dividend. You can but now. It's a duopoly out west, so little competition. He…

He is always very suspicious of a company with all of its assets in the US that lists on a Canadian exchange. Medical facilities in the US are a different market from the Canadian one. We've seen similar companies in the US where it didn't end well.

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.

It has been on fire this year (up 30%). Hydro Quebec is buying 10% of the stock. He would stay on the sidelines since it has rallied just based on a strategic alliance with Hydro Quebec.

They generate electivity and sell it. As we move in this direction this company will have a foothold and niche. It is a capital intensive business and interest rates rising will be a problem.

Line 5 issues? They have been in the news a lot lately. An anchor became dislodged on their Eastern portion, but a judge forced an injunction to shut down the western section as well. On Canada Day, the western portion was allowed to reopen. Line 5 is only 2.5% of the companies EBITDA, so it…

The business allows a USB device to reach into a database. Many of the clients were US military and security agencies. A recent acquisition gives them good forward prospects.

Prefers Melcor Developments (MRD-T). When there have been housing difficulty like there has been, it’s extremely difficult for stocks like these.

A re-capitalization of the older company. It has started to come back. They signed a contract to get pellet supply, that seems favourable. They have some valuable land holdings in Hamilton. A nice risk-reward for some people on a small scale. He does not see enough safety around the dividend to recommend to his clients.

He covers the stock and owns it. The business is doing well. They are a leader in their space. There was a big investor out of China that fell on hard times and has had to sell shares. It may be poised for a turnaround.

(A Top Pick May 15/18, Down 73%) A miner and processor of phosphate -- a precursor to potash. They took over a bankrupt project in Brazil, which they liked from a speculative perspective. They have had technical difficulty with the project and it did not work. If you are patient, it should eventually pay off,…

Listed in Canada but operations are in the far east. Is cautious because of high debt and accounting is weird. If you are betting gold will go a lot higher it is a pretty decent bet but if not it can decline a lot.

In Western Africa, this miner is looking for funding. It is not the exciting part of the cycle as they are in the de-risking mode. Investors are looking for projects that double resources. Institutional investors are not yet stepping in the space.

They have a project in Alaska. The grade looks nice, but isn't completely sold.

Has an old mine outside of Los Angeles that was run in the 1930s. Closed down during the Second World War and they are doing open pit mining in the area. Has some issues, but at these gold prices, it will probably start to work again. Under followed. Highly speculative.

Been a nice success story. His opinion is that the commodity cycle has really played out here.

Its BC nickel play. Doesn't like GGI. Last year this was a darling stock, but their drill holes haven't impressed him.

A tricky one. Have a very small mine in Ireland that they are trying to put into production as well as a small jewellery division. There is no clear indication of what they are trying to be. Gold deposit is very small.

Cameras on satellites. Feels they’ve made a lot of progress in the right direction. Management is working hard and there is now more clarity. We may see some positive free cash flow one day. At this point, it is starting to become interesting, although clearly there are still a lot of unclear questions.

They haven't won many contracts lately. They had signed a deal with Rogers to make them look like Apple TV and more user-friendly, but lost that contract, then signed a few new contracts, but those revenues haven't come to fruition. He still holds it thought it's been going down. There's lot of cash on the…

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.

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.