Alimentation Couche-Tard (ATD.B)

This week on INK Ultra Money Free we released two video report summaries featuring stocks which take an alternative approach to making money from energy. In Making money in the oil patch darkness INK looks at recent insider buying at Alimentation Couche-Tard (ATD.B).

The bright side of oil's slide

When we highlighted the stock in our February 4th report, it had just pulled back from an all-time high.

What are we looking for?

We are halfway to the next semi-annual rebalancing of the INK Canadian Insider Index, which will be implemented on Nov. 20. Today, we look for the stocks that are leading candidates for inclusion in the 50-stock index used by the Horizons Canadian Insider Index ETF (HII). A stock already in the index before rebalancing date stays so long as it is in the top 30 per cent of all stocks ranked on the basis of the INK Edge V.I.P. criteria (valuations, insider commitment, price momentum). We replace index drop-outs with the top ranked V.I.P. stocks which are not already index members. To identify where insiders see the best opportunities right now, we focus on the top 15 INK Edge ranked TSX stocks.

July 29, 2015 - Today we revisit Alimentation Couche-Tarde (ATD) which we last featured in our morning report on October 16th. On that day it closed at $35.25 and it is up 63.3% since then, closing at $57.56 on July 28th (and setting a new 52-week high of $58.75 on July 20th along the way). There has been some recent insider selling from the CEO and CFO which is something to keep an eye on, but at this point it may be nothing more than clearing the decks for more option grants.

Alimentation Couche-Tarde is ranked tenth on the July edition of our INK Edge Top 40 on the equally weighted basis of valuations, insider commitment and price momentum. This is up thirty spots from its rank in the June edition of the list, and it appears to be the beneficiary of the trend that has seen other grocery type companies like Empire Company (INK Edge Outlook: sunny; EMP) and George Weston (INK Edge Outlook: sunny; WN) added to this month's edition of the list.

July 20, 2015 - If there was any doubt that the current government in Ottawa has thrown in the philosophical towel on free market oriented economics, it was removed last week when its central bank governor cut rates back down to great financial crisis levels. The lack of a crisis did not deter the central bank from pushing overnight rates into emergency status, a situation last seen during 2009 when the global economy was on the brink in wake of the Lehman bankruptcy.

On Wednesday, central bank governor Stephen Poloz even had to admit that the rate cut could negatively impact financial stability "vulnerabilities." This rolling of the dice has brought out the critics, which now even include some Bay Street money-bank economists. 

Bank of Canada rate cuts may well have been the most popular item at global convenience store operator Alimentation Couche-Tard (INK Edge outlook: sunny; ATD.B) Wednesday, if not with their customers certainly with shareholders. The stock was the best performing name (+4.2%) in the INK Canadian Insider (CIN) Index as insider stocks rallied on the back of a quarter point drop in the central bank's overnight rate. However, the Poloz cut did not lift all boats. While both the INK CIN Index (+0.14%) and the S&P/TSX Composite Index (+0.43%) rallied on the rate news, both the S&P/TSX Completion (-0.37%) and Small Cap (-0.44%) indices dropped. Perhaps most surprising was a drop in the Dividend Aristocrats Index which suffered a -0.47% loss.