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(A Top Pick Aug 4/15. Down 41.02%.) This was disappointing. What he likes is good growth, good cash flow, high insider ownership and a nice little dividend. This company has it all. Had done very, very well and then hit some hiccups. Their costs went up and they were hit with the US$ currency. He is not giving up on this.

(A Top Pick Aug 4/15. Down 7.64%.) Feels sorry for this company. They actually do a pretty decent job. ROE is 16%. Came in with earnings last week of $0.99 and missed $1.07 estimate. It trades at about 7X PE. Earlier this year they raised their dividend 9% and bought back $150 million worth of stock. Meanwhile they haven’t issued a new share in over 10 years, and yet the stock continues to languish.

(A Top Pick Aug 4/15. Up 31.11%.)

Over the last 24 months, when investors thought interest rates were going higher, dividend stocks got crushed. This company kind of got wrapped up into that. It was a nice income stock that people decided to sell. That has completely changed over the past 8-9 months, and dividends are back in and everybody loves it again. Doesn’t know how much upside there is, but it is a solid dividend paying stock. If you are an income investor, you can use this as an income allocation. If you are a growth investor, he wouldn’t really go here.

Alimentation Couche-tard (ATD.B-T) or Parkland Fuel (PKI-T)? A tough call. This one is in Europe making all sorts of acquisitions and is an acquisition driven story. Parkland is making smaller acquisitions, but their main thesis over the next 5 years is cost reduction in order to improve margins and is largely NA focused. This is a faster growing company and much, much larger, giving a safety element. Has a fabulous long-term track record. He would choose large and safer over smaller Canadian company.

Alimentation Couche-tard (ATD.B-T) or Parkland Fuel (PKI-T)? A tough call. Alimentation is in Europe making all sorts of acquisitions and is an acquisition driven story. This one is making smaller acquisitions, but their main thesis over the next 5 years is cost reduction in order to improve margins and is largely NA focused. He would choose large and safer over a smaller Canadian company, but there is nothing wrong with this company.

He doesn’t like this. A closed-end company that owns uranium. There is an NAV discount sometimes. There is always a fee that trickles away at your NAV. Whenever uranium is hot, which it is not right now, the company comes out and issues more units, so you never get that incremental premium.

Bill Ackman owns a 6.7% stake in the company, worth about $1.9 billion Canadian, and is selling his shares. No one should react to something like this. If you are in the stock because he is, then it is time to get out. Commodity volumes in Canada are not great. This is a decent company and he would not Sell because one guy is in it. You are going to have to wait for the Canadian economy to fully recover to make any money. But it is a very well-run company.

He covers this in his model portfolios, and really, really likes the company. They have great software for many different clients. Good management. Pays a good dividend which has had a very, very good growth rate. Revenues are starting to increase. They are buying back stock. Yet no one really cares, which is quite surprising. Business is starting to pick up. They signed a deal with Microsoft (MSFT-Q), which creates long-term opportunities. He wouldn’t get over excited about it this quarter, but it is a good deal to have for small Canadian company.

He likes this. You need to have a 10-year timeframe on this. Management has done it all before with their prior companies that they sold. Have signed very good deals and have signed licensing partnerships, and have worldwide media partners. Their library is starting to increase in value. But it is a quiet company, and is not that sexy. They produce children’s shows. Has a tiny dividend which they can probably increase a little more. If you own it for 4-5 years, you might get a little bit frustrated.

He dropped coverage on this company, because of the mass of inconsistencies they had in terms of their earnings report. They would come out with a quarter and spend $10 million on litigation fees, and their revenues would drop and earnings would not be what he expected. It went on a big run, until they missed their quarter very, very badly. He would rather have a company that is not inconsistent.

This invests in private royalties for other companies and has a nice portfolio of about 20 companies. 5 of them are accruing and some are not doing that well. The key thing investors are forgetting is that their larger companies are doing very well, so if you are going to have a problem, you want it to be your smallest investments. They missed on earnings and the stock took a hit, and they decided to not take a payable on one of their investments, and just wrote it off. They earn 15%-16% royalties on some of their investments. You do not get that type of return without taking a few hits on the way. Doesn’t think this is as bad as the stock price indicates. Thinks their payout ratio is at about 80%, so he is not really too concerned about the dividend sustainability.

If you want to own the sector, you might as well go for safety and security of the largest company. This is a sector he doesn’t pay a whole lot of attention to right now. You might have to wait 5 years for the cycle to turn.

(Market Call Minute.) The sector is not going to roll over, but Magna (MG-T) is a better company. (See Top Picks.)

(Market Call Minute.) This would be a Buy for the long-term.