Canadian Dollars Blog

Petro Canada is now yielding above 3.5% dividend and trades a little over book value. I've added this one to my value screen. It's currently at 25.98. will look to add more on weakness

A private equity firm recently (a little over a month ago) decided to make an offer to purchase all outstanding shares of Connor Bros (CBF.UN.T) at the price of 8.50. As of the writing of this blog post, Connor Bros is trading at 7.99 which is effectively 8% below the closing price (expected sometime in November) I've been adding aggressively to my position in Connor Bros last month particularly when there was a lot of talk of the deal possibly collapsing. At one point it was irrationally selling below 7.00. Anyway, for those that are looking to make a quick buck (8%) with minimal risk, this one may be worth looking at. In addition to the 8% yield, the expected November distribution will be paid within 3 days of the closing of the deal. The big risk in all this is the fact that the deal could still fall through. Worst case if the deal doesn't go through the stock will likely tank below 7 but the distributions would continue. The silver lining in the clouds is that if the ...

A strong case can be made for ING which is one of the cream of the crop value stocks out there right now. Trading at a measley 1.8x P/E and trading below book value, this one looks like a potential long term winner. While they have recently cut their dividends for the upcoming year (this is prudent) and have asked for cash before as opposed to after any sort of blow up happens. Not that I'm expecting a blow up like other financial instutitions. The difference is that ING is very conservatively run and has no exposure to the subprime debt that has plagued other banks. As always do your due diligence. The trading price of ING makes it a very compelling long term hold. While there may be a bit of volatility in the short term, I believe they will weather out the storm and emerge stronger than ever in the coming years. Disclosure: I have a full position in ING. Initiated a purchase at $10.10

For what was intended to be a safe and defensive play last summer I purchased some General Electric (GE) stock. It's been a huge underperforming dog the last year. Fortunately I am still optimistic and intend to keep this stock in my core portfolio. I believe that if I maintain a long term horizon, this stock should recover. The question is how long will it take before it returns to > $40 a share. Patiently waiting.

Bought some Telus a few weeks ago at 39.99 a share. It hasn't gone anywhere recently but I intend to hold this until it hits my target. In the short term, even if the stock doesn't go anywhere I will still sleep well knowing that there is a nice dividend being paid. This is part of my core portfolio.

First off I want to say that I've changed my strategy for this website. Because of some new commitments and the fact that there are a wealth of excellent Canadian Financial Blogs out there, I will focus mostly on the trading aspect. Keep in mind that my strategy for long term financial success has not changed. I am still a firm believer of the Core and Satellite philosophy. In my core is a basket of solid high dividend blue chips and index ETFs. In my satellite holdings will be my trades which I intend to post here as they happen. Recent trades I've made include: HOD Hori. Beta. NYMEX Cr. Oil Br. Pl (ETF) I bought last week at 10.97 and sold this week for 12.65 for a nice 15% profit. I'm still bearish on crude oil and will look for re-entry points next week. Hurricane Ike and the unknown damages it will cause may create a temporary problem for oil shorts so that is why I decided to book the profits and sold. After all 15% in one week is not bad right? On Friday I dec...

Well, February was again a very volatile month. So how did we do in February? RRSP: $42200 CASH: $15366 STOCKS: $33400 (outside RRSP) ------------------------------------------- TOTAL: $90966 (-2%) month over month For the month of February my networth decreased by about 2% due to more volatility in the market and a few unforeseen costs that I ran into. Namely, my car was in for repairs that costed me way more than I had originally expected. Also, I liquidated some old poor performing mutual funds that I had purchased about 10 years ago with advice from an advisor. I had neglected those funds for a long time and it wasn't until recently that I discovered that the MERs for those funds were ridiculous that I decided to sell them and purchase some index funds. Overall, I am still keeping a long term focus even though this past month was not as prosperous as I would have liked. Let's hope things improve in March! Thanks again for reading the Canadian Dollars Blog.