Market. It has been a frustrating year for Canadian small caps this year.  Canada Goose and Shopify has helped to create some new interest.  Cannabis stocks are something they have invested in, but they see the valuations as stretched.  TRST-T is their largest holding in the space.  The Saudi issues with Canada are not expected to be that big of a concern.  The market was weak on Tuesday and he thinks that was selling by the Saudi’s before the announcement went public.  The success of the US market indices has emboldened President Trump to continue to press his international trade and tariff policy.    

Dollarama vs Canadian Tire. He used to own Dollarama (DOL-T) and believes the growth will flatten out.  He owns Canadian Tire (CTC.A-T) and the recent earnings surprise is not too worrisome to him.  He thinks the CTC.A-T model to roll out directly to in-home sales will take time and does not believe the stock will go down much lower from here.  Overall, he thinks it is a better valuation than DOL-T.  

He has been following this one closely since the IPO at $6.  They have evolved the company into a landed home building community, building master community centres, particularly in the sunbelt of the US.  They are operating about 17,000 family homes.  Recent earnings were positive.  The market has not yet really appreciated the true value of this stock and it trades at a 15% discount to its NAV.  It has struggled getting through $12, so will be watching to see if it can get to $14 soon.  

They exited their position when they announced an acquisition in the US a couple of months ago – and they were relieved they did so. The company reported management changes last night and took a write down on the Chicago dealership asset of $45 million – a third of the asset value. Same store sales were down again. It is a good business, but the value is not worth investing in at this point. He thinks the earnings per share will continue to decline.

This has been a bit of a disappointment for them as it has taken longer than expected to ramp up the activity in the US.  He would continue to hold it.  This will trade on contract announcements and they recently announced a winner in Georgia.  

It has done very well, going into the consumer lending space.  They put up another good quarter of earnings and margins continue to grow.  This stock could continue towards $60 this year.  

He owns TD-T instead as it has lots of US exposure.  He prefers the liquidity and exposure into alternative markets of the major banks.  

He likes this stock as it runs specialty hedge funds and pays special dividends.  The stock trades relatively cheaply.  He expects to see continued consolidation in the sector and believes this may become a target in the future.  (Analysts’ price target is $18.68)