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This has been diversifying into things like vitamins, etc. The new CEO is the 1st non-Swiss insider to run the company since about 1905. He is looking to improve the working capital management of the company, which is releasing capital. It’s a gradual, slow growth dividend story, which he likes. Earnings are attractive. The downside is that it is so large that no one can buy it, so there is no long-term upside from that. Feels it has upside from here.
A dividend aristocrat, gradually increasing the dividend every year. They are in medical devices. Any increase in surgery, hospital time and heart disease would be an upside for this story. It’s been a relative laggard for the group, but has been a very good performer longer-term, and has rewarded shareholders very well. Sees this as a mutual fund of device companies.
If you bought this before the sale of Verizon wireless, you received a very large one-time special dividend of shares along with cash. If you did not participate in the dividend, then you are probably significantly underwater. Since then, a number of things have happened. European telcos are now doing fibre to the homes and they not seeing top line growth or revenue growth. Longer-term, there is some good upside. It’s also down a little on the noise of BREXIT risk. If looking for a global company with a decent dividend with some upside, it’s reasonable value at these levels.
Semiconductor equipment guys, who provide equipment for semiconductor companies to make chips. Something that is sort of interrupting the equipment market is that China is building out a semiconductor industry and are making gobs of money. The stock hit new highs and continues moving higher. Feels it is a very elevated stock. China moving into the market will cause semiconductor prices to come down longer-term, so he would stay away.
FANG stocks have very expensive valuations, and in many cases, it is indicative of the light stage in the market where the economy is flowing through the higher growth names. They are also the natural fund flows for a lot of ETF's. If we get a correction, the very expensive stocks tend to come under pressure significantly. He recognizes this is a great company, but would tend not to buy it here. As an alternative, consider Infosys Technologies (INFY-N).
A lot of money is flowing into ETF's, and they are buying the indexes. However, the things moving the indexes, for example the emerging-market market, are things like TENCENT (TCEHY-5) and Ali Baba (BABA-N). Those portions are being heavily bought, because you don't just have Vanguard buying their stocks, you have all companies that are needing global exposure, buying the same stocks. As they keep getting more and more capital, they keep buying more of the same stocks. If we get a correction stocks are going to sell en masse. He would rather pick individual stocks.
(A Top Pick Jan 27/17. Up 61.37%.) Diabetes unfortunately is a structural growth story. The company has continued to work out well. They raised their dividend. Have about a $4 billion annual share buyback. It generally has more cash than debt. It may be a little ahead of itself, so perhaps wait to Buy in the summer.
One of the interesting things to think about is that you have a commodity producer (Potash) together with a retail business (Agrium), and the combined entities are around $50 billion, a sizable player from a commodity company point of view. We are in a relatively low pricing cycle for potash, but looking forward, global demands are going to push the stock higher further on. There is some merit in looking at the story.
This would effectively be Canada, US, Asia and the Far East. In this you are probably going to have 300 shares in the underlying ownership, and you will have the top performing companies in those markets. He is concerned that it is very weighted towards technology and you are not getting any exposure to the parts of the market that have not performed. You are not going to have any exposure to commodities and very little exposure to energy, which are the segments that have done very poorly in the last couple of years.
He would stratify the semiconductor market into 2 categories, digital and analog. In many cases, this company is the old analog style company, and in many cases, have a lot of chips that are very, very primitive in the economy, using them in lighting, baseboard heating, radios, TV, etc. Digital chips are used to power the Internet, and are obviously much more expensive chips. There has been increased penetration of semiconductor content in emerging markets, and it is going to be a continuing play moving forward. Any exposure to that category is good. Unfortunately, all technology stocks have run very hard in the last few years. He would like to see a bit of a roll over in the semiconductor market, which is when he would be looking to adding more money.
Up until about 2015, this was driven by acquisitions. Since that time, there are not many assets left to buy that would be large enough to move the needle. Because of that, this company has become a cost cutting story. At this point in the cycle, there are other places he would prefer.
Market. The start of the year tends to be strong for markets everywhere, but in Canada people are putting money into registered funds at this time of year, which tends to lift the market. Usually selling in the 1st or 4th quarter tends to make sense, and buying in the summer tends to be good, because everyone is out of the market and not thinking about putting more money in. Seasonality can be a very big factor. Post April 1 tends to be when you see better prices, and you might want to think about timing your entry.