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Markets. There is still a lot of uncertainty. He has been a little bit more proactive on equities in the last few months. With the ECB announcement in July, he thought it was going to be a big positive and things were going to move along and is just waiting now for everything to fall in a row. There are a lot of buying opportunities. Central banks globally are coming in with some coordinated actions and putting a lot of liquidity into the market. US$ is declining giving some opportunity for growth in the US. He is fully invested at the moment.

Looking at the overall oil sands activity, it is expected to double over the next 15 years and some of the beneficiaries of this are the pipelines. This company just did a new deal where they are getting more oil sands exposure, which is actually reducing the risk of the stock. Great 4.9% dividend. Relatively safe and growing.

REITs have done well because the yield (versus the 10 year bond yield) is extremely attractive. Still a very attractive play. Overvalued relative to their historical valuation so he is watching very carefully.

Likes that this company can make very disciplined acquisitions and grow their convenience stores. Recently acquired Stad stores in Scandinavia which has brought an element of uncertainty to the company. This is the reason for the bit of selloff here. Prices they’re charging for tobacco are also hurting their same-store sales growth. Would look attractive in the mid to low $40’s.

There is a big price war so margins keep coming down. In the last week or so, inventories have come down a little bit so there has been a slight pause. He finds value elsewhere.

Execution has been the real problem with this company. They keep pushing the BlackBerry 10 off but they are missing the key holiday season.

Really good production growth coming but at this point you are playing gold for the overall sector. US$ is being devalued, central banks are pumping money into the system and this bodes well for commodities. Silver and gold have done extremely well in the short term. He recommends the senior producers such as Goldcorp (G-T) or Barrick (ABX-T). This company is not far behind. It is harder for the smaller companies to raise money right now.

Oil sands have to push out further and further, which means they need people to have a place to stay while they are there. This company is expected to double over the next 2-3 years as far as the amount of beds that they need. Manufacture their own beds as compared to some of their competitors and they also rent them out. Trading at 10X next year’s earnings. ROE of close to 30%. Has a decent yield.

Went from having about 40% of the revenues coming from specialty services, packaging and couriering to being over 60%. They are higher margin businesses and deserve a higher multiple but that multiple has not come through yet. Good execution by management over the last few quarters. Increased margins and paying down debt. $19-$20 in 12 months easily. 3% dividend.

Trading at 7-8 times next year’s earnings because of the overhang that Canadian real estate is going to collapse, which he doesn’t see happening. (Sees a slow decline.) Banks are turning away good loans, which are going to this company. Increased their loans by 39% this last quarter.

Markets. The last quarter has been characterized by slowing growth or global contraction and yet the market has been climbing higher and higher and commodity prices have been much firmer than previous so we were due for a bit of a correction here. Right now it is important to have cash in order to take advantage of opportunities to buy some good companies. Over the longer-term he is expecting good returns both in materials and energy.

Asset diversification. His general view is that he wouldn’t want to have much more than 30, maybe 35 equity positions at any one point in time. He likes to have enough that it is going to make an impact shouldn’t work out well but if it doesn’t, it won’t be that detrimental with diversification across industries and companies. When a representation is greater than 10% in any one company that is usually a sign to trim back a little bit.

For many years they were able to live off the model of their laboratory business and contracts with the governments but Ministries of Health are getting tighter and tighter. Also, had some problems with their US exposure in radiology that didn’t work out. New management. For the time being, they tend to maintain their dividend but they would really like to lever the higher margin lab business.

Selling well below book value. Have recently been hints that container board prices are going up. Also, container board inventories are relatively low. Has some interesting attributes.

Had a pretty good quarter last quarter but a lot of that came from a US investment firm they have. Operating EPS is down a bit. Currently fairly valued. 4.8% dividend.