Canadian Dollars Blog

There seem to be a host of new companies in Canada that have recently started operations in the 'community to community lending' space. For those not familiar with this type of business, it allows individuals to lend other individuals money at favourable interest rates for both the lender and borrower. The lender is able to earn a higher interest rate than they would in a 1 year GIC and the borrower is able to borrow money at a rate lower than what is given to them on their Mastercard and VISA cards. While on the surface this sounds good and all and the fact that many of these companies do offer credit checks (I would hope) and do proper screening, it makes me wonder. Have we not learned from the credit crunch issues in the states? Here's why I think this is troubling. First of all, Canadians have a record amount of debt. Folks! On average, we're saving less than we're spending. That would indicate why these person to person lenders are seeing a market - a m...

My parents are visiting in town for the week so I probably won't be posting much more in the next couple of days. I'll try to sneak in a few posts when I have some spare time. Anyway, while they were in town we dropped by a very popular mall in the morning. Sounds like a pretty boring post so far right? Well, guess what? The mall wasn't nearly as busy as it was in previous year's Boxing Days. This leads me to believe that there is a serious drop in consumer spending. If you think things are bad in Canada, things are even worse in the USA. I watched NBC news this evening and they talked about how empty the malls are. I can't replay footage of NBC news on here, but picture this. A camera panning left and right in a normally busy mall in suburban USA. The mall is empty. The J Crew on the left and the GAP on the right are virtually empty. It's a ghost town here folks! I know that Americans don't celebrate Boxing Day, but in the past they are known to ...

The overall market on Friday was very cheery because of news of some November data showing that consumer spending was surging . Perhaps I am a skeptic, and sure the malls were pretty busy. But was it just me or did everyone else notice that there were tons of promos and increased marketing efforts to lure consumers to shopping centers? In the past 2 months I've noticed an unusually higher than normal push in marketing efforts. More discounts. More sales. What does this all mean? Well Marketing costs money and these costs cut greatly into margin. Sure people are spending at malls but can they really afford to? The average American and Canadian are already overextending themselves. Call me a skeptic, but I predict a short term mini-correction after this mini surge in the markets due to the positively perceived retail news.

With Christmas right around the corner, procrastinators of the world must now unite and get their presents. I was at the mall today after work and noticed that everywhere was ridiculously busy. Originally I figured that the time between 5-7pm would be less busy as I figured a lot of people would be taking the trains home. Boy was I wrong. My first stop was at Future Shop where I picked up a copy of the new Simpsons movie for a friend. I could not believe my eyes. The line had about 30 people in front of me. Curious, I quickly glanced at what others were buying. A lot of people were buying video games, DVDs, and gift cards. Gift Cards are probably the best present for those that are hard to purchase for as it gives the recipient a lot of options for what they can buy especially at big box chains like Future Shop that have pretty much everything under the sun. After the 30 minutes of waiting in line, I proceeded to visit the Bay to purchase some chocolates. Again I was confronted...

I read an interesting article in the Financial Post this morning in which they examined the eating trends of Americans in the last year. In a survey of 7000 people, they found that in 2007 fewer Americans were eating out at Restaurants with nearly 1/3 of the respondents claiming that the high cost of gasoline would curtail their restaurant patronage. They also went on to say that if they had to eat out, they would choose cheaper alternatives like McDonalds once a month instead of twice a month at Chili's. Let's take a comparison at two stocks: ">McDonald's 2007 Stock : ">http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1197984030000&chddm=1173&q=NYSE:MCD Ruth's Chris Steak House 2007 Stock : http://finance.google.com/finance?chdnp=1&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1197984086000&chddm=1173&q=NASDAQ:RUTH ...

For the tech geek/designer in your life.... "We've just just launched our 2007 Designer Gift Guide, filled with 77 totally awesome gift ideas, each for under $77. It's a crazy, eclectic mix -- everything from "Feather Doll Dusters" to "Forearm Forklift Lifting Straps" -- with lots of beautiful design objects, books, and philanthropies to discover inside." More details of these cool gifts are available here ! Check it out!

Brief Excerpt from the following PDF from BMO Nesbitt Burns ( attached ): Impact Neutral. Results were in line. However, we are confused as to why interchangeability (of generics for branded drugs, driven by changes in the Ontario Drug Benefit plan) in Ontario was not a major factor for margin growth as it was in Q2/07. This issue has an important bearing on how investors should view ongoing normalized earnings growth. Forecasts We have increased our fiscal 2007 EPS assumption to $2.26 to reflect Shoppers’ EPS performance in Q3/07 relative to our forecast. We have not made any changes to our fiscal 2008 EPS estimate of $2.54. We are introducing a 2009 EPS estimate of $2.73, representing earnings growth of 7.5%. Valuation We are rolling our valuation one year forward to 2009, but our target multiple of 11.5x remains the same. Based on 11.5x our new 2009 EBITDA estimate, our target price increases to $59 from $54. Recommendation Shoppers remains a Market Perform-rated stock. Howe...

I was asked recently in a forum my rationale for choosing a 'cyclical stock' like Honda. Here is my thinking behind why I like this Company a lot ! My rationale for choosing Honda is that they are the world leaders in creating small efficient (and powerful) engines. No other company currently has that skill. Also they will likely be the first company in the world to release a hydrogen car for the every day person in 2008 (read this the other day). Last but not least their product mix is very solid. Very well run company that creates some of the most reliable cars on the planet. Plus they are also diversifying into jet making (see: Honda Jet) and they have a strong motorcycle/atv business.

I am laying low for a little bit for a couple reasons. There is plenty of momentum for stocks like (RIMM), (AAPL), (SPWR), but a lot of it doesn't have anything to do with the actual stock or the companies that are driving those stocks and more about market sentiment and overall industry worries like credit, housing slumps, retail slowdowns -- which makes it difficult to read or at least my momentum model doesn't read very well. Anyway, I've got a couple crazy ideas about what the hot 'item' is going to be this Christmas holiday (and no it's not the iPhone, or is it??). I'll blog about it after I've given it more thought and research.

In 2006, there are stats that show that the average Canadian has about 29,000 in non-mortgage debt. Wow that is a lot of debt to have. I'm just happy that aside from my credit card bills (which I pay off monthly anyway) I only have mortgage debt. Astounding.