The wise investor | The best and worst of May

Every Sunday, we shine the spotlight on elements of financial and stock market news that may be useful to investors, but which might have gone under the radar.




Bombardier is the big winner for the month of May among Quebec stocks on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

The Montreal business jet manufacturer’s shares rose 46% last month. Boralex (+25%), 5N Plus (+24%), Héroux-Devtek (+23%), Innergex (+22%) and Lion (+20%) also recorded remarkable increases in May.

Among the losers, Taiga (-31%), Bausch Health (-26%) and Deckchair (-16%) had a difficult month.

Two members of the board of directors of Waterfalls have just purchased shares in the Quebec paper company. Alain Lemaire, one of the co-founders, purchased between May 24 and 29 a total of 33,800 shares, transactions totaling more than $315,000. Mélanie Dunn, for her part, purchased 3,000 shares on May 17. She has been a member of the Cascades board of directors for five years.

If Bomber was the stock market star of Quebec in May, TD is hopeful that the surge will continue. Analyst Tim James increased his target price by 20% on Tuesday. He sees the stock at $127 within 12 months, which is now the highest target on Bay Street. Bombardier is in “re-evaluation”, according to him.

“Since the end of 2022, I believed that financial progress and results would move Bombardier from a turnaround situation to a valuation multiple expansion situation. This transition has begun. It is therefore prudent to start reducing the discount used to calculate our target. » He recognizes, however, that the market still tends to attach more importance to Bombardier’s past results and attributes a relatively high risk to the achievement of the objectives set.

An administrator at ECB has just purchased nearly $330,000 worth of shares in the Montreal telecommunications services provider. Jennifer Tory purchased a block of 5,000 shares on May 24 at a unit price of $45.98. She has been a member of the BCE board of directors for three years.

The strategic plan presented Friday afternoon by the CEO of the Laurentian Bank will continue to be scrutinized and analyzed over the coming days. Investors will try to better understand the future potential of the Montreal financial institution. None of the 11 analysts monitoring Laurentian suggested buying the bank’s stock Friday before the plan was presented.

Quebecor received another piece of good news for its finances last week, news that should facilitate its subsidiary Videotron’s access to financial markets and reduce its borrowing costs. The Moody’s agency announced at the end of the day Thursday that it was in turn upgrading Videotron’s credit rating to grant it an investment grade rating (investment grade rating). This decision by Moody’s follows S&P’s May 6 upgrade of Videotron’s credit rating to investment grade.

The new leaders of Gildan wasted no time putting their plan into action. The Montreal clothing manufacturer announced in the middle of the week that it had obtained authorization from the Toronto Stock Exchange to modify its takeover bid in the normal course of its activities. The maximum number of common shares that can be repurchased increases from 5% to 10% of outstanding shares.

To strengthen its communications and exchanges with shareholders and the financial community, the Montreal retailer Reitmans turns to the Montreal firm Maison Brison, specializing in investor relations. Reitmans has come under criticism for two years for a “failure” in transmitting the message. Maison Brison will receive a base amount of $10,000 per month for its initial 12-month mandate beginning in June.

Quebec titles of Savaria, Stella-Jones, 5N Plus, ADF Group, Bomber And Dollarama all hit a 52-week high this week on the Toronto Stock Exchange.

On the other hand, those of Richelieu Hardware, Laurentian Bank, Bausch Health, GDI, MolsonCoors And Yellow Pages reached a 52-week low this week.


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