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Energy. It feels like we are pretty close to a time of maximum despair in energy stocks. They’re under owned and people just don’t want to touch them. There have been many false starts this year, but this week is the first time in a very long time where things are starting to feel better. Not only do we have the combination of a few different agencies asserting their bullish thesis on oil that the market is tightening, but OECD surplus inventories have fallen by about 44%. We’ve had cuts in US growth rates and evidence of plateauing in US production in the past 5 months. This is an area that is massively undervalued, stocks are trading at half of their historical multiples and good fundamentals that are now improving, and there are now people starting to recognize that.

COMMENT

He really likes this company. More of a manufacturing company than an oil/gas company. They should be generating gobs of free cash flow. The challenge in Canada is that there are ongoing issues around pipeline availability and egress take away solutions, and we have seen that manifest itself in the past quarter.

COMMENT

The most financially leveraged fracing company. The whipping boy if you are bearish on oil, fuel activity and sand. This is the one you would Short. The Short interest is back up to about 32% of the float. As you are seeing money come back into the market, we should step back. The backdrop is, we’ve had a good week this week. He is waiting to see if Long money comes into the market. He is bullish for frac sand, but this is not his favourite, because of the financial leverage.

COMMENT

Pricing is going up and demand is nearing a record high. They are at 100% utilization of all the equipment that they can man. They have demand for 3 more spreads, and can’t find people to actually work on it. This shows how tight this market is at a fairly crappy commodity price, where you have weak gas prices. Thinks this stock next year, can EBITDA $300 million. Trading at 4X EV to EBITDA on 2018, where it usually trades at 7 or 7.5 times, so still sees it as a $6-$7 stock. He likes this company very, very much.

COMMENT

A merger between Precision Drilling (PD-T) and Trinidad (TDG-T)? Thinks you can make the thesis to own either one with a preference to pressure pumping, without necessarily making the bet that you are going to see M&A. The biggest argument is personalities.

COMMENT

A merger between Precision Drilling (PD-T) and Trinidad (TDG-T)? Thinks you can make the thesis to own either one with a preference to pressure pumping, without necessarily making the bet that you are going to see M&A. The biggest argument is personalities.

RISKY

If looking to clip a dividend coupon, the estimate is that it is sustainable down to about $45 oil. The dividend yield is high, because the stock’s been slaughtered on an overhang. The overhang was because RBC determined there was enough demand to do a fairly significant bought deal at $5.50, for them to buy an asset off of Husky. RBC had overestimated the market’s demand for Canadian small caps. It is back to a level now where it is extraordinarily cheap. He struggles trying to figure out where the big guys want to come in and bid it up. They’ve had too many stumbling blocks in order for you to get super excited. Dividend yield of 9.74%.

PAST TOP PICK

(A Top Pick Aug 30/16. Down 33%.) Did a great job of acquiring an asset out of Encana last year. Because of infrastructure, they were able to go in and steal the asset. The CEO doesn’t get as much credit as he should.

PAST TOP PICK

(A Top Pick Aug 30/16. Down 9%.) Hotels that railway employees used to use. They’ve been expanding in the past couple of years into branded hotels, which have been doing fairly well up until the last quarter, where they have been renovating a larger than normal number of rooms. This has a 9% yield.

PAST TOP PICK

(A Top Pick Aug 30/16. Down 39%.) An example of a management team that does a big acquisition with very lofty goals of revenue and margin growth. Execution became a little more difficult than they thought and they disappointed the street, so the stock got hammered. They’ve had 3 quarters of not meeting expectations. At this point, it is a “show me” story.

BUY ON WEAKNESS

Typically, a higher beta US name. In the US, if you want beta without going to crazy, you typically buy this one. Tends to be higher volatility than others. They’re spinning out some of their midstream assets to pay down some of the debt. Using more sand and getting very strong incremental economics on their wells. It should be a benefactor of some money coming out of some of the Permian. If the stock traded off, he would consider owning some.

DON'T BUY

The list of investables in Canada is not a super long one. Their use of financial leverage taints the name for very, very long time. If you are bullish on gas, he could list off 5 names that you would want to buy ahead of this. Not a name he would own.

COMMENT

They did a share consolidation, and when they do that, the stock goes up. This has been pummelled in recent months because of 1) fund liquidation and 2) the exodus out of Canada. They should have pretty good growth this year with about a 20% growth and 14% per share growth next year. They have high economic wells, but he just doesn’t know if the market is there for Canadian companies. Prefers other names.

DON'T BUY

There are other names he would want to own ahead of this. If looking for yield, he would be comfortable buying Torc (TOG-T). If looking for production growth in Canada, he would favour Spartan (SPE-T).

DON'T BUY

There’s too much history amongst retail and institutional investors to want to embrace this name for the foreseeable future. Some people may have an issue with overall executive compensation relative to shareholder performance over the past 5 years.