engineeringeddie

U.S. vs. Canada: Banking Edition

The Canadian real estate asset bubble has not popped appreciably, but the banks here aren't too terribly exposed. The federal government's mortgage insurance agency (CMHC) carries the underwriting risk on residential real estate to the tune of $680-plus billion with an insanely high leverage ratio on actual assets. I also believe that Canadian banks had much lower mark-to-market pressures which allowed them to largely side step the credit/financial crisis.

Tata Motors Makes Deal with Boeing

Already realized, I've been in TTM for two quarters now. Haven't been disappointed.

UBS Analyst: Look for Opportunity in Canadian Consumer Stocks

Yes, but the Canadian housing bubble deflation is lagging that in the U.S. by no more than a year. Still a better near-term consumer outlook than in the U.S., but these stocks are still expensive.
I like Timmy Ho's since coffee and doughnuts are recession-proof and high-volume, high-value treats should steal a lot of slack from overextended Starbucks junkies (all it would take is for Tim's to introduce a couple "premium" coffee options during a recession to finish off the more marginal of the SBUX franchises).
Shopper's is (in my opinion) overextended on its massive expansion of stores (there are three large Shoppers stores ON THE SAME STREET OVER AN EIGHT-BLOCK STRETCH in my small city). The Canadian category-killer drugstore market is supersaturated and Shoppers has set itself up to eat its own young by expanding so quickly.
Rogers ... maybe ... but TELUS will come hard with a competing GSM product very soon. Luckily, cable is still set up in secure local fiefdoms, so ... maybe.
All things being equal, I prefer to invest in Asian consumers at this point. Asians are still saving some of their money and their markets are nowhere near saturated. That points to producers of consumer goods with strong Asian markets, not providers of consumer services to North American markets of debt-drunk paupers.

SunPower Reports Solid Earnings

SPWR trades at a big multiple and its margins are vulnerable to raw material strictures. SunTech Power (STP), has been my vehicle for solar investment. The margins are protected by access to cost-effective manufacture, long-term supply contracts and trades at a much more reasonable P/E and PEG ratio. All this with a product portfolio that is competitve (but perhaps not quite as good) as SPWR's. All told, good luck to all solar power investors -- it's a growth market that is bound to produce a handful of big winners in the end.