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Markets. Markets have been treading water since August. Third quarter earnings season is starting. It should be an infection point for the S&P 500. The strong US dollar has been a headwind, as well as energy. Consensus is negative year over year, but she feels we may get positive year over year earnings growth. You can argue for the higher PEs now based on the low interest rates. Interest sensitive sectors have pulled back, but a rise of 25 basis points in the US will be more of a rounding error. There are some nice entry points in these sectors.

WEAK BUY

If you are looking for dividend yield, BCE-T will grow them. It is an attractive place if you are looking for yield, but she does not see a lot of growth. There are probably more attractive companies outside of telecoms, however.

BUY

She owns another US bank (WFC-N). You want to buy US banks because of rising interest rates and an improving economy. You could buy BAC-N here and she thinks it will do relatively well over the next year. We should start seeing improvement in the yield.

COMMENT

Artificial Intelligence Recommendation. She wants to see strong balance sheets and visibility of earnings. She likes well established tech companies. GOOGL-Q is investing in all leading technologies. GIB.A-T in Canada would play into this as well.

BUY

She bought it on the back of the recovery a few years ago. She thinks the false accounts issue is manageable. She still likes the name and thinks the valuation is still attractive. She is not sure about their expansion in Canada involving only commercial banking. They are pretty well a US bank.

HOLD

They are going to pull back the number of new store openings and focus on their online presence expansion. There won’t be earnings growth for the next few years. She prefers HD-N.

BUY

The whole sector has pulled back. Growth is slowing in large cap pharma. It has an attractive yield. She went with a more diversified approach (JNJ-N). This is an attractive entry point for BMY-N.

HOLD

A global coatings company for houses, airplanes, cars and industrial applications. Their earnings numbers were guided down recently as they are divesting. They are also seeing continued weakness in Europe. She is sticking with it at present until earnings are announced. If you are going to buy wait for the earnings announcement.

PAST TOP PICK

(Top Pick Nov 25/16, Up 7.01%) Nice reoccurring revenue stream. Their last acquisition was in 2012 and they have improved the already attractive margins of that one. They are now ready for another acquisition for expansion. They say they just have not seen the right deal yet. They don’t pay a dividend. They would rather buy back their stock or grow their business. They have done well in terms of share price appreciation.

PAST TOP PICK

(Top Pick Nov 25/16, Down 4.82%) Food deflation is the headwind. They are different than traditional food grocers because they have Shoppers Drug Mart. They now have about a 30% share in food retail as well as in drug retail. They still have a lot of room to improve their margins. This is an attractive entry point to buy this one.

PAST TOP PICK

(Top Pick Nov 25/16, Down 5.83%) They are different from regular drug retail. She thinks they will still maintain their 14%+ annual earnings growth. They bought all the Target pharmacies. She likes it here. It is at a historical low.

WEAK BUY

She likes the seniors housing space and owns another name (CSH.UN-T). They are trying to expand their private pay seniors housing. It will take some time for the stock to reposition itself after selling off the US holdings.

WATCH

It is on her watch list. It tends to be a premium priced stock. The same store growth was below expectations so the stock pulled back. There is a lot of potential internationally. Don’t sell if you own it.

DON'T BUY

It is hard to determine a good entry point. They are repositioning to be an organic grower. She does not have a clear sense of their strategy. There is a lot of goodwill and debt on their balance sheet.

HOLD

Airplane demand is driven by GDP growth, but demand is still growing in Asia. They need to transition their backlog into cash flow. She is happy to continue to hold it.