Posted at 8:00 a.m.
Alimentation Couche-Tard is now almost unanimous on Wall Street and Bay Street.
The Laval convenience store chain obtained two new buy recommendations in the middle of the week after the presentation of its results for the start of the year.
National Bank Financial and Stifel GMP are now suggesting buying the stock. They are now 16 out of 17 to offer to buy.
Both firms point out that Couche-Tard recently stopped repurchasing shares, suggesting that an acquisition may soon materialize.
Analyst Martin Landry, at Stifel, points out that Couche-Tard continues to impress with the uninterrupted growth of its profits despite a limited contribution from acquisitions. He considers the current assessment “reasonable”.
The American investment fund Long Path Partners has just increased its investment in mdf trade. The third-largest shareholder of the Longueuil e-commerce platform operator bought half a million dollars in shares between August 22 and 29.
Bomber was the best performing Quebec stock in August on the Toronto Stock Exchange. The Montreal business jet manufacturer’s stock rose 53% during the month. mdf trade (+41%) and Bausch Health (+34%) also had a very good month. Among the losers of the month, Guru fell 28% in August. Lion (-22%), Tecsys (-17%), good food (-16%) and VAT (-15%) also had a difficult month.
PHOTO CATHERINE LEFEBVRE, ARCHIVES SPECIAL COLLABORATION
Mark Pathy, Chairman of the Board of Stingray
The chairman of the board of directors of Stingray bought $1 million worth of shares in the Montreal-based music service provider this week. Mark Pathy bought a total of 183,700 shares during Tuesday and Wednesday sessions.
The founder and CEO of Lion bought this week for a quarter of a million dollars of shares of the manufacturer of electric vehicles of Saint-Jérôme. Marc Bédard bought a block of 50,000 shares on Tuesday at a unit price of $5.
Analysts expect management to Dollarama raises its forecasts Friday by publishing its quarterly results. If so, it will be necessary to see how high they will be raised.
The Quebec titles ofUni-Select and of Bellus Health will be integrated into the main index of the Toronto Stock Exchange as of Monday, September 19, while the title of the pharmaceutical company of Laval Bausch Health will be ejected from the S&P/TSX 60 index on the same day.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, THE PRESS
Bausch Health headquarters in Laval
Being squeezed out or added to an index can have an effect as it can cause investors to trade and adjust their positions. Large sums are invested via index funds reproducing indices by holding the securities that make them up.
RBC presented an update to its Canadian Focus List for the fall on Thursday and a Quebec title has been added, that of the National Bank. This list of about thirty titles still contains the names of Couche-Tard and of Dollarama. The securities selected for this list are judged to be of “high quality” and considered to have a track record of creating shareholder value.
National Bank, however, is the only stock on this list that does not have a buy recommendation from RBC. The recommendation of the analyst responsible for following the title of RBC is “market performance”, the equivalent of “hold” in the jargon.
The Toronto Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ will remain closed Monday for Labor Day.
The Quebec titles of Cogeco, Nuvei, Laurentian Bank, CAE, Lion, Velan, Market good food, VAT, Heroux-Devtek and Guru all reached a 52-week low on the Toronto Stock Exchange this week.