Blog

Portfolio Manager’s May Comment for April Results

In April, the S&P/TSX increased by 2.4% and the S&P500 rose by 5.3% while the MSCI ACWI ex USA gained 2.8%. At the end of the 12-month period ending April 30th, the S&P/TSX grew by 33.3%, the S&P500 gained 46% while the MSCI ACWI ex USA posted a return of 43.6%.

NQICAT increased by 2.4% while it climbed 37% on an annual basis.

Quaterly results published in April were in line to better than expected for the majority of companies.

The best TSX sectors for the month of April were Materials up 5.4%, followed by Consumer Discretionnary up 5.1% and Telecommunication Services up 3.4%. The worst performing sectors were Health Care down 9.9%, Industrials down 1.1% and Utilities down 0.6%.

The best monthly performers in NQICAT were Canfor up 17.9%, goeasy up 16.2% and Transforce up 14.6%. At the opposite, the weakest contributors were Canadian National Railway down 9.3%, Winpak down 5.2% and OTEX down 3.4%

3 stocks were sold and bought in the strategy in April. The strategy required an exposure reduction to 3 sectors, namely Consumer Staples, Consumer Discretionary and Energy. Empire Company (EMP.A) had the lowest SP score of our Consumer Staples therefore we sold it. We sold Thomson Reuters (TRI) due to its low SP score. Parkland (PKI) was sold since it was the only Energy stock in the portfolio and futhermore its EPI was below 1.

The model required an increased exposure to 1 Materials and 2 Financials. The names that made it into those sectors were Canfor (CFP), Power Corporation of Canada (POW) and goeasy (GSY).

Share