One, two, three months and counting...

Canadian investors seem to embrace each new month with renewed enthusiasm and optimism.  Evidence the run up in the TSX during the first week of January.  After 6 trading days my portfolio value was up 3.1%.  Nice start to the new year.  Regrettably, by month end it was all gone and I was down 3% for the year.

Again, February began on a positive note.  Up 2.6% after just 2 days!  Day 3 was a slight tick down and things fell off the cliff on day 4.  By month end, things recovered to the point where my portfolio was up a fraction of a point for the year.

Here we go again.  Except for a tiny downward tick on Thursday, last week was fantastic!  The TSX closed at 11,975, a new high for the year...up 2.9% for the week.  With an increase of 2.5% I didn't fair quite as well partially because my little grease collector stock, Organic Resource Management (ORI.V), dropped on Friday.  Organic Resource reported second quarter results Monday morning and the stock jumped to a new 52 week high, albeit on very low volume.

As is so often the case, after a great week, the TSX gave up 11 points on Monday and another 45 yesterday.  Yesterday's great results from Scotia Bank (BNS) failed to keep the TSX in the black.  I believe that this was partially because the analysts spent the whole predicting a build in US oil inventories.  Of course, an inventory build has a negative effect on the price.  Inventory up - price down.

US oil inventory figures come out every Wednesday at 9:30 AM 'Peg time.  Why the heck the analysts have to make their crazy guesses and predictions the day before (each and every week) makes me wonder who they're trying to trick.  Remember, these are guys that have never owned a barrel or oil or even pumped their own gas.  I guess it's just too much to ask them to just SHUT UP on Tuesday and let the truth on Wednesday set the direction. 

They good news is that they were wrong...again.  The inventory build was much smaller than they predicted and gasoline inventories are down.  The price of oil is up over a buck!  Accordingly, the TSX is up 60+ points!  Will we have our first 12,000 plus close today?  Here's hoping.

Canadian Banks - Buy 'em and Hold 'em

This is going into the Note To Self file.

I bought RBC (RY), at at a bit of high point, at $50.25 in February, 2008.  For the next few months the share price wandered in the $45.00 - $50.00 range, seldom reaching my purchase price.  After late October, 2008 RBC shares joined everything else on the slippery slope, all the way to $27.07 on February 17, 2009.

Again, like everything else, they clawed their way back after the February/March lows.  By July they were back in the $50.00 range.  I'd been holding for nearly a year and and half and was becoming bored. I placed a sell order the last week of July believing that I could pick something better if I could free up the RBC funds.  The price finally caught up to my sell order and I was taken out on the way up at $50.49.  RBC closed that day at $51.00.  That was my first clue.  Within hours I'd missed a further 1% upside.

After selling my RBC shares the price rose steadily, all the way to $56.00 by the end of August.  Yup, because of my boredom and impatience, I'd missed a full 10% gain in four weeks!

While holding RBC shares I did do a bit better than my purchase and sell prices would indicate because of very nice quarterly dividends which steadily flowed into my account.

RBC closed yesterday at $58.24...up nearly $1.00 ahead of today's earnings release.  The numbers are out this morning.  Missed estimates by a penny a share but did turn a profit of 1.5 Billion for the quarter...a 35% increase!  Not too shabby for 90 days.

Thankfully, I held TD (TD) shares throughout the same time line...mainly because TD never got back up there as quickly as RBC.  TD earnings out tomorrow.  Should be interesting.

Yup, my new rule for Canadian bank shares is buy 'em and hold 'em!