Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX)

August 6, 2015 - Today we look in on Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX) which we last featured in our morning report on April 1st. On the day, the stock closed at $249.15. Since then, it has advanced 39% to close at $346.32 (and setting a new 52-week high of $347.62) on August 5th.

Valeant Pharmaceuticals has caught our interest again because their new CFO has been spotted buying recently. Mr. Robert Rosiello was appointed as CFO this summer on July 1st. Although the terms of his compensation are not yet disclosed, we suspect that he like other executives at the firm is required to hold shares in the company. Mr. Rosiello does not appear to be wasting any time putting in buy orders. 

July 27, 2015 - The Canadian consumer put in a strong showing in May as retail sales jumped 1% over the previous month. That strength could be in jeopardy, however, as policies targeting a lower loonie may put a dent in the prosperity of most Canadians. In particular, if BMO Chief Economist Doug Porter and his colleagues are right, a weakening loonie could soon clobber the real spending growth of Canadians. According to their July 24 report, as the loonie rose from 2002 to 2008, real consumer spending growth in Canada averaged an annualized growth rate of 3.8% which compared favourably to the weak loonie period from 1992-2002 when real consumer spending rose only 2.4% per year. The bottom line, according to the BMO team, is that a weak loonie for the Canadian consumer "is bad news, period."

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.