This week’s new 52-week lows… (Dec 12-18)

This has done an incredible job of production and getting their costs down. We have a real use of natural gas for electricity air conditioning generation across North America, so gas prices are up. This is not the day that you want to buy gas stocks.

(A Top Pick December 18, 2017. Down 33%). He was early in his recommendation of this company, but it is doing the right things. It is extending the maturity of its debt. The company was over $3 a year ago. Production in Q2 was up compared to Q1. It will drop for Q3 because of…

(A Top Pick April 6/15. Down 32.4%.) Natural gas producer in the Montney. Very well-run. Likes the story longer-term. This could be a $3-$4 stock again, but the problem is low natural gas prices. They are managing themselves frugally for these tough times. A name that you want to buy on weakness. If they got…

They are pursuing MEG energy but they are not that receptive. HSE-T stock has retreated. He thinks they will win this. They have refining capacity.

Trucking and well completion services. Pre-eminent logistics player on oil sands. Expected them to make acquisitions by this time. Long-term, great company to own. 3.4% yield.

Great driller and a low-cost producer of natural gas. However, the problem is the price of natural gas and how to get it out of Alberta and into a market that will pay more for it. That is a problem with a lot of natural gas stocks these days. Dividend yield of 8.96%, a warning…

This was heavily weighted towards natural gas. Management has been doing a great job of divesting non-core assets. Thinks there debt to cash flow is still around 6 or 7 times making them more sensitive to a decrease in the price of natural gas. Thinks there will be a wave of selling in some of…

2nd horizontal well results were disappointing with a 750 MCF a day versus the 1st well of 5 million. Somewhat cautious on the economic viability of this play. Could be quite a bit more headwinds.

He likes the company and its yield and its international diversification. There has been speculation on whether their capex requirements are really as low as they say they are. This could jeopardize their dividend. The balance sheet is strong, if you trust what they are saying. The company has never cut the dividend and would…

In the drilling business with one of the better management teams and a pretty new drill fleet. If you are going to own any drillers in the Canadian space, this is one of the top 3 that you want to own. However, with the drop in oil and gas prices, it is difficult for them…

They have tripled production. Egypt and Morocco. Production has gone up more than the stock. (Analysts’ target: $1.36).

It is getting kicked out of the MSCI world index tomorrow and going into the small cap index. It got beaten up and so he is recommending it for an energy stock. (Analysts’ price target is $13.23)

He's simply not buying Athabasca (or CPG-T) [to answer a client whose question involves an inside joke].

A provider of temporary workplace accommodation, primarily in Western Canada, in the oil sands. Likes the name and likes the space. Thinks this space is going to be growing 18% over the next 5 years because of the projects they are involved in. (See Top Picks.)

(A Top Pick December 18, 2017. Up 24%). This will be a significant beneficiary of LNG Canada for 2023, along with Painted Pony, Bonavista Energy and Tourmaline. He sees this rising to $9 in 12 months and $15 in the next 3 to 5 years. Production is 80% natural gas. They will raise their liquids…

This is a Canadian energy company. They made an acquisition in the US unfortunately at the top of the cycle. He does not own highly levered oil and gas companies. There are others that are much more attractive. He prefers clean balance sheets.

There are 3 pressure pumpers in Canada and are involved in the hydraulic fracturing of reservoirs as part of the completion process after the well has been drilled. This company has struggled with the debt and has been selling their US business. At this point in the cycle, he wouldn’t be too constructive on this…

This company has struggled to gain investor interest and he believes it will continue to do so despite the high yield. It is about 50% light oil so its exposure to wide differentials is limited. He thinks the dividend is sustainable. Yield 9.2%.

Hoping to be acquired. Feels the assets are worth a lot more than where the stock is trading. Can't see who would want all of the company's assets. If it was sold in 2 or 3 different pieces, they could probably get more value.

Gas weighted. Recently sold one of their non-Montney assets, which really cleared the balance sheet and put them into a position to become a focused Montney gas player, with a balance sheet that could finance activity, for at least the next 12-18 months. Getting over the hump where you are self financing is very important.…

The debt is simply too high for him to invest in. They also have some issues with First Nations peoples. This has too much hair on it for him.

Has come back to support levels. At this stage, he'd be a buyer. If you already hold it, you'd be careful, as you wouldn't want it breaking support.

Chart shows this has taken quite a dip in the last while. Changes in management because of production mishaps. Need to look at these from both a production standpoint and a commodity standpoint. Have a constrained balance sheet and not a lot of room to raise CapX for growth. More linked to oil than to…

(A Top Pick June 11/2018, Up 1 %) Canadian company, but about 80% of production is in US, so they get world price for oil. The Canadian listing gives them the dividend tax credit and it’s well managed.

An oilfield services company. Longer-term, he likes this. They are the Western Canadian leader in the coil tubing service business. Long-term, there is a good opportunity in this space. In the short term, he would be a little bit cautious on the entire services space. Profitability is pretty muted.

Chart shows this consolidated at around $1.10 this spring. Support was broken in early June and it dropped down to below $1. Then it rose again to the support level at around $1.10. The story doesn’t look so great. He wouldn’t want to be in the stock.

Cheapest royalty company. Mainly oil royalty. Good presence in Viking, a hot player in western Canada. Great assets. Tons of free cash flow. It's very cheap with a great balance sheet and a growing dividend. (Analysts’ price target is $17.37)

Didn’t raise capital in the process of going public. Very cost focused company. $17-19 range. 15% per share growth predicted. On his watch list.

The 3-year chart shows a low that is under $4. Currently this is above that low so it is probably okay. If there is a bounce, you might want to reduce in the bounce, because he thinks there is more to come. On a relative basis, this is one of the better ones.

This is a smaller company. A Cardium player in Western Canada. They have a good team. It is currently doing 3600 BOE’s a day and will be north of 4000-4200 by the end of the year. His 12-month target is $3.60. BV is $3. How many times do you buy a good growing company with…

(Market Call Minute.)

It hit upon hard times with an extremely highly leveraged balance sheet, but management has kept the company alive. They have significantly de-risked the company but it has shrunk. The balance sheet is very much improved. This is a very high risk/high reward kind of play.

The stock has been hit lately. Their oeprations were doing well over the past few quarters. Then, PD announced they would buy Trinidad (during a market downturn), so their stock collapsed. He's trying to understand their rationale behind that announcement. Their last quarter was weak. Hold onto itnow. The stock could snap back if Ensign…

They executed the plan flawlessly. The declining gas price challenges them. Thinks it is pretty neat. Prefers TOU because it is a bigger company. If you are patient with PNE-X in a low gas market it seems they have a strategy for taking advantage of the low gas price.

Still very early stage. A long lead cycle. They are trying to get over the hump. They are de-risking assets. They are trying to maintain a nice clean balance sheet. They have easy access to capital so the market is willing to finance the project. There are companies further along the process, though.

Coming out of Arc Financial (private equity). Clean balance sheet. Trading at 1.9 times next year EBITDA. Historical average in Canada of a pumper is 7. Liquidity vacuum in the stock market is creating this opportunity. (Analysts’ price target is $18.20)

Aside from Enbridge, he owns no energy, because he can't predict the price of oil due to geopolitics. If he were to buy oil, SU is one of two stocks he'd consider (and CNQ). SU is very good at capital allocation. A great production company. SU is as safe as you can get for an…

(A Top Pick Jan 05/18, Down 69%) He sold out of this when it became apparent oil prices were not going to finish above $70 per barrel by year end. He sold this at $4.25. They announced last week a divestiture making them debt free and it trades below book value. They have bought back…

(Market Call Minute.) Great company with a good management team. Has a sustainable dividend, but the growth rate plus the dividend is too boring to attract the next incremental dollar.

Management are significant shareholders of the company. Debt is only 18%. This summer was the one time you could buy this one under book value. You buy the assets at a 25% discount to what it cost them to build it. They are moving more towards liquids and building facilities for them. (Guest's target: $34.00)

One of the 1st ones to unlock a zone in the Cardium, and now the industry is following them. Their results have been getting better and better and better. Production per share has been very, very strong. This is one that can compete with the US names.

It's been stuck at these levels for a long time, but likes recent volumes. No problem buying this one.

Play on the US housing recovery as well as timber, as they ship to US and Asia. Management bought 3 sawmills in 2006 which have been losing money. Have recapitalized a couple of the mills and are looking for better utilization. With better timber prices, she is expecting it to turn around and will probably…

(Market Call Minute.) Lumber is probably the poster child for seasonality. The time to own is going into the 4th quarter. There has been some improvement in housing which favours lumber producers, and this is one of the best suited. He would look toward September.

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.

Operated by the Lundine family. This has been a truly outstanding Canadian success story. It mines and markets some of the highest quality diamonds globally. Earnings on a quarterly basis are lumpy, but over the course of a year they earn and distribute a lot of money. Return on cost employed in this mine is…

Yukon. Million oz discovered. Large potential to expand.

Management is first-class. The stock may be fully priced given where they are in the assets that they acquired. However, if you go back in time with this management, you don’t do poorly investing with them.

Mainly in Alaska and Arizona. Stock is generally not known. Project generation. Relationships and projects with several other companies. It spreads the risk.

(A Top Pick March 6/12. Down 4.52%.) A fantastic company. Management has done a spectacular job. About $180 million in the kitty. Extremely conservative financially.

Picked up a large land package in Ontario and Québec. Conceptually picked up on trend large deposits of Detour (DGC-T) and looking to replicate the same success.

A fantastic story. Have about 5 billion pounds of copper and gold. Cash costs in this environment should be about negative. Sees upside in this one.

They are active in several concessions in Mongolia. Any one of their projects could be a major mine. Should do well over the long term.

A lot of people want to play the housing market in the US and their recovery, which hasn’t really recovered the way people thought it would. Last year there were 900,000 new homes sold, and somewhere between 1 and 1.5 million new homes is a reasonable expectation. This company sells all the stuff that goes…

Compared to Canfor (CFP-T) and West Fraser (WFT-T), this has the least exposure to the softwood lumber issue. Only 15%-20% of their product is shipped across the US border. 60% of their production is already in the US. The housing market in the US is growing, but is still growing quite slowly because of the…

A few days ago they acquired a historic mine and believe that there is more ore in the mine. It transforms the company and gives them a project they can sink their teeth into and gives them a new direction.

They are traying to lower their debt. Some momentum above $1.20. It had a break out from 75 cents. Has a few places of resistance as t works its way up. A stock he is trying to acquire.

Just announced a 70% increase in their mineral reserves. 7.7 million ounces of gold and 3.6 billion of copper. Extended the Prosperity mine life from 20 years to 33 years. It will be the largest gold/copper reserve project in Canada. Expect they will get a partner.

This started as a Western Canadian focused REIT and has expanded into the US. Their payout ratio is a little higher than others, but overtime this is an investment that will pay well and he has faith they will work to lower the leverage on the balance sheet. Yield 8.4%.

Has held in remarkably well given the manufacturing slowdown in Canada. One of his largest holdings in one of his funds. One of the 2 cheapest stocks in the universe that he covers. A really strong ROE at 23%. Trading at 4.5X Price to Free Cash Flow, so is really cheap. Dividend yield of 6.5%.…

He is comfortable with most of the companies in the financial sector right now. He likes BNS, then Royal, then TD and then BMO and CIBC. You could own any one of them or an ETF that has all of them.

They are in a tough industry being in mutual funds and trying to transition out. Saw a big decline from 2015 until 2016 and now we’ve just moved sideways when they should have been moving up. We are in seasonal period and financial companies tends to get strong at this time of the year. From…

(A Top Pick March 20/13. Down 58%.)

Great West Life (GWO-T), Sun Life (SLF-T) or Manulife (MFC-T)? He has quite a bit of exposure to life insurance right now through Manulife and Sun Life, and they both look very attractive. Interest rates are likely going to work their way slowly higher over the next several years.

It is a smaller cap REIT. The payout is high. Most of the earnings are US$ translated back to CAD$, which just appreciated over the last three months. The market is pricing this depreciation in the yield into the stock. He is not expecting a dividend cut, but it is a possibility. AIR B&B’s have…

They are doing a good job. It has broken above its 50 day moving average. The trend is in a non-aggressive down trend. It is near the top of its channel.

They have an emerging robo-advisor business among their other businesses, GWL and Investors Group which are sluggish growers. Unless something macro in the insurance space (interest rate hikes) or an acquisition happens, PWF will simply grind along. Mutual funds are stagnating or declining (Investors Group charges very high fees). Safe dividend, but he doesn't see…

This is secondary (suburban) office. There is going to be a really interesting play in suburban office at some point. You’ll have to watch for GDP numbers for small business growth in Canada. There is quite a large spread in what people are willing to pay, for class A buildings versus suburban office. These guys…

If you can't buy the coin directly this is a very interesting leveraged play. It is one of the biggest bit coin miners out there. Two years from now the net asset value of the company could double. (Analysts’ target: $7.85).

They issued a lot of shares to get the deal done. It is a great business. The press release today said the loan book is growing. This is incredibly fast. They will have to raise more debt financing soon. You have an overhang from PHM-X with the same management. They just need a few quarters…

This buys small grocery anchored centres. It is so small that it is hard to get some love. If you own it, it is going to move around and will be very volatile. You are going to lose and gain. The main part of your return is going to be your yield, currently over 11%,…

Market Call Minute. There is not a lot of earnings momentum on this, and they have to do a lot internally to get their business model going.

Real estate advisory and have a small survey business in western Canada. Q1 was disappointing. Would be concerned unless they could deliver stronger fundamental results.

They always bad a bad rep among Canadian banks, but it's doing better lately, trading a full point ahead in yield vs. its peers. It has the best valuation among Canadian banks. CM's big exposure to Canadian mortgages and fears of massive defaults? He doesn't worry, because the CMHC protects mortgages here, and many mortgages…

Should one buy Dream, which pays no dividend and has dropped significantly in value or just buy its managed REITs and be happy with the 8% distribution? Really depends on your needs. If you need theincome or happy with the capital gains. This is the asset manager that manages the REITs. It also has a…

Been stuck in a trading range the past five years: Buy or wait? In 2008, FFH made a lot of money shorting the market, and in the past year he's taken off those shorts and sold all his bonds till he's sitting in cash. Not a good strategy. The combined ratios in their insurance business…

Chart shows it has had 2 little bottoms, and is positive that the downtrend has been broken. Financials in general have been pretty weak. Until this one breaks out of the downtrend channel, he would not start a new position. Rising interest rates help financials. Dividend yield of 6.3%.

A name where there was a lot of growth priced in on the IPO. The company is still growing, but not profitably yet. However, it is so oversold and we are starting to see the bounce. That is probably the end of tax loss selling and you could see a nice trade in it here.

He normally has iShares DEX Short-Term Bond (XSB-T), but is looking for something that will give him a little bit of an edge. This is about 60% Canadian Corp., about 25% US, as well as some US high-yield. The distribution yield and their yield to maturity are close, which is unusual. They are also doing…

An equal weight of US banks and includes some regional banks along with some of the big banks. He would prefer to own the larger market cap weighted ETF’s, such as XLF-N.

Has been beaten up and you are getting double gearing to basket of producers. You are not taking single company risks.

A good ETF. You're swapping a lot of income for growth. If you want that, then fine.

HBP S&P 500 Bull (HSU-T) or BMO Equal Weight US Banks Hedged To CDN$ (ZUB-T)? These are 2 completely different things. A lot of people are negative on Bull+ and Bear+ ETFs but he thinks there is a place for these things but he doesn’t think it is here. Thinks it is going to be…

Given that the energy space is volatile, but not overly sold, the covered call strategies have looked pretty attractive over the last couple of years. Generally speaking, he is not an energy fan or investor. However, when his arm gets twisted by a TSX that roars forward, and he is not playing that game, he…

He would not buy this right now. This is good for energy exposure. There is the possibility that we might be looking at stranded assets down the road. We have more oil in prudent reserves then we can actually burn.

MSCI EAFE (CAD-Hedged) ETF. International. Cap weighted. Broadly diversified. It tracks the MSCI EAFE index, so it is a whole wide variety of 1st world economy stocks.

If you are looking for a growth story in Canada, not including energy, you'll have to look at midcaps. Avoids volatility.

(A Top Pick Sept 1/11. Up 15.83%.) Given the choice, you should always tilt towards small cap in value. There aren't a lot of value-based ETF's but there are a lot more in the US. Currency hedged.

(A Top Pick Feb 10/11. Up 2.51%.) Junior Oil Index ETF. Low interest rates and high oil prices makes oils particularly good because of takeovers.

Loves this space (U.S. banks). He owns many of them. He'd add to ZUB here. Some U.S. banks, like JP Morgan, report earnings next week. Another catalyst is their trading revenue is expected to rise in a big way. Interest rates rising are anothe tailwind.

Is this a buy over the next 1-2 years? He thinks the buy in by Aurora was interesting. Their existing business is going through transformation and they are working at trying to improve on or sell assets – especially in Alberta. He is on the fringe of wanting to own it.

(A Top Pick Apr 12/18, Down 19%) He is still loyal to them and increased his position not long ago. The market is predicting better days ahead. They are still growing. They are aggressively buying back shares and opening new stores. It is very, very well run company. Debt is bumping up against levels that…

They tend to do well during the summer time. From March to August it gets the bulk of its gain. In the back half of the year it tends to turn lower.

There are all kinds of good things about this company. After NAFTA was agreed upon the stock has gone down. Issues in Europe should have been short term. It is perceived as the smaller of the auto parts companies. But it should be viewed as a metallics manufacture. They make products for oil and gas,…

The industry has been hammered in the last couple of years. It is hard to analyze. The results aren’t that transparent. It is hard to know how it is doing organically. He does not think the company was that well managed in the past. It is a wait and see approach.

Doesn’t own dual class share companies, but this one has been an amazing growth story. Incredibly successful. If he didn’t have an issue with dual class shares, he might actually buy this. It is unbelievable to him that in an industry which is low growth, they have made some great acquisitions and they cover all…

What normally happens with the smaller brewers is that they get taken out. He likes the company, but doesn’t follow it closely. A good story with good earnings growth.

Growth rates have come down. It is a box office name. They have diversified but BO is still 75% of their revenues. in the end they are modeling 11% earnings growth. Trading at 19 times 2019 earnings. Dividend is safe-ish.

They make bikes, baby furniture, baby equipment, car seats, etc. The family that is involved in it owns a significant stake. He sees better days ahead. It is trading at a reasonable valuation. Dividend yield of about 4%.

Music on your cable box. They put up a good quarter recently and raised their dividend. There is insider trading. It is going to become a street darling. It is somewhat illiquid. (Analysts’ target: $10.00).

(A Top Pick Sep 26/17, Up 10%) They just won a huge law suit against AAPL-Q and the stock is up a lot today. He would not count it as money in the bank as AAPL-Q is going to appeal. This company may also win other suits in progress. They have lots of money in…

Provides a service very similar to Alphabet (GOOGL-Q), which is provided for free. When your competitor is providing your services free, it is tough to be competitive.

$300 million in cash and less than 9 times earnings. They just can’t get any love. It had a bit better execution in terms of earnings and they could get recognized. They buy back stocks. Leverage on their operations is quite high and it has not performed yet. (Analysts’ target: $14.87).

He owned it a year ago and got stopped out. It was not going in the correct direction. There has been bad news in the mean time. Unless you are going to trade it then let it form a base

Gas play in Guatemala and Colombia. Have a lot of land blocks near where Petrominerales (PMG-T) hit. Just drilled a well with a fairly large target in Guatemala and found oil at a much higher area than expected. Cased the well and we'll hear more next week. Highly speculative.

Akumin on the TSX will migrate to NASDAQ which will be a big catalyst. It trades in U.S. dollars. They're a medical imaging company, a space ripe for consolidation. AKU is also in artificial intelligence. (Analysts' price target: $6.00)

Has some zip to it. Long term it should do well.

They have been paying out too much in dividends so the book value has been slipping. It looks like the company is rolling over. The fair market value is 13% under where it is trading. He sees more downside than upside.

There should be some news. They have some drug developments coming through the pipeline, and some of their partners are going to have some news. You might get more activity and more interest in the stock over the balance of the year. They’ve done a couple of non-diluted financings and loaded up the balance sheets…

It ranks in the top 10% of his dividend model. It had an earnings surprise earlier this month, and is expected to grow 15% this year with a 13 P/E. He likes it. ROE is 15%.

Q2 they checked all boxes. A story of improved macro tailwinds combined with increased margin efficiencies and cost cutting. They model earnings growth of 28%. Trading at 153 times 2019. (Analysts’ price target is $38.83)

It is one he does not own. He has looked at it in detail. On a PE and multiple basis it trades cheap and always has done. Over the long term you will be able to see them pay a few extra pennies with dividend increases. The multiple looks attractive but don't catch the falling…

Fixed price energy contracts door to door. It has done fairly well. The turn in terms of their clients is so high, though. He does not feel that comfortable with them. 8% yield and do people really believe it?

Well run company. Long term hold.