Premier is global company that is involved in the exploration and production of conventional oil and gas. The takeover of Oilexco assets on extremely favorable terms provided the company an exceptional opportunity to grow in the North Sea. The results from Premier provide insight into what could have been for Oilexco investors.
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The iShares CDN SmallCap Index Fund (XCS) can be considered a newer entry in the iShares suite of exchange traded funds (ETFs). According to the factsheet, XCS is almost 3 years old. That is compared with the iShares CDN LargeCap 60 Index Fund (XIU) that has traded for more than 10 years now (since 1999). Three...
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There was a fair bit of news coverage recently regarding the recent sale of a large block of Biovail shares. Biovail’s largest shareholder, founder and previous CEO Eugene Melnyk took his stake in the company down by 9.6 million shares to only 232,000 shares worth close to 4 million C$. At the peak, Mr. Melnyk held 25%...
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Zarlink semiconductor (Zarlink, ZL on the TSX, ZARLF on the OTC BB in the US) has been getting a lot of positive press lately. Just in the last few weeks fund managers Robert Floyd of R.A.Floyd Capital and Bob McWhirter of Selective Asset Management have offered strong endorsements of ZL. At the heart of these...
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In a previous note, we highlighted the iShares DJ Pharma E.T.F. (IHE) as a possible way to gain exposure the large pharmaceauticals in the US. In this note, we discuss Merck and company (MRK on New York) as one company that investors may target for consideration.
MRK is the third largest holding of the IHE with a weighting of 7.75%. Only...
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There are very few large health care companies in Canada. In the large cap S&P/TSX 60 Index (XIU), there is only .24% in the index corresponding to the weighting in a single company: Biovail. Canadian investors, particularly on the large cap side, have to look towards the US market to get the diversification gained by...
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Loblaw companies (Loblaw, L on the TSX) was one of best performing companies in Canada for close to a decade. From 1996 the shares went from under 11 dollars to close at over 75 dollars by April 2005. The returns were truly sensational and helped make Loblaw a market darling.
The share price decline as of May 2005...
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As the Canadian market corrected during the last few weeks, some sectors continued to shine and perform very well. One of these is the iShares CDN Tech Sector Index Fund (XIT). In fact, since the major market low on March 9th, 2009 the XIT shares are up 77.7% vs. 52.6% for the TSX. The divergence in recent performance...
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Manulife financial (MFC) has underperformed the Canadian market since 2007. The company however, have been receiving positive press from managers such as John Zechner and Paul Gardner. Mr. Zechner argues for the stock potentially reaching the mid 30’s (currently around 21 C$). Mr. Gardner on the other hand argued for the shares seeing some...
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As the market tries to consolidate the latests gains, it is important to recognize the names that show strength in this phase. There were only 32 new 52 week highs yesterday as compared for example to 121 on Monday. A factor of almost 4 to 1. However, some names continue to show strength. One...
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