Today, Barry Schwartz commented about whether CHTR-Q, COST-Q, ATD-T, PKI-T, NVDA-Q, CSU-T, OTEX-T, QSR-T, TRI-T, DIS-N, JNJ-N, V-N, CSGP-Q, MSCI-N, FSV-T, SYK-N, AMZN-Q, HLT-N, MAR-Q, ABNB-Q, BKNG-Q, CCL-N, GRT.UN-T, STN-T, WSP-T, KO-N, CNQ-T, CCL.B-T, GE-N, ADBE-Q are stocks to buy or sell.
Absolutely. Today we had pretty good jobs numbers out of the US and Canada. People want those rate cuts to happen sooner rather than later, but ultimately good news should be good news. If we're creating jobs, if the economy's doing OK, that should filter into stronger earnings for companies. We've had no rate cuts in the US and the US markets are up double digits. We had our first rate cut, as expected, in Canada. Probably more to come.
At the end of the day what really determines strong stock prices, if you're a long-term investor, is earnings -- earnings per share, earnings that grow over the long term. Valuations are at high levels, very high levels for many companies, but this is what happens in a bull market. You can't always have your cake and eat it too, and in a lousy market you can get cheap valuations in an economy that's not doing well. You have to reconcile that in your mind.
Are you going to pay up for good quality companies? Do you believe in the next 5 years they'll be bigger and better? Even if you pay too much, if you pick the right companies, there's still an opportunity to do very, very well.
Canadian market has a different dynamic than the US, missing a lot of those hot sectors -- nothing to do with AI, and commodity prices are starting to come off again. Canada has better valuations but the businesses, quite frankly, are just not as good. We don't have the same type of quality companies that we can buy in the US.
One rate cut doesn't make them that much more attractive, but if the economists are right and we see 3 rate cuts this year, and 4 next year, and GICs will offer only 3-3.5%, that will definitely make the ENBs and TRPs of the world that much more attractive. He imagines that many people sitting on cash or in GICs or high-interest savings will look to add some of those names to their portfolios.
The only problem is that some of those businesses have gotten worse in the past 5 years. Balance sheets are in worse shape, perhaps there's more competition as in the telecom industry. Banking industry has a few great quality winners like RY and NA, but others are struggling and some with serious issues.