06 Sep 2019

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Christian Godin

Portfolio Manager’s September comment For August Results

Christian Godin 06 Sep 2019

The Canadian market has been the best performer in August due in part to a strong rally in previous metals (such as gold and silver) and a vigorous GDP of 3.6 versus 3.0 expected. On the other hand, the US GDP was weaker than expected at 2.0 versus 2.3. Global markets were also down as a result from fears of an economic slowdown: Brexit, Hong Kong unrests, inverted interest curve and tariff issues.

The S&P/TSX Total Return Index rose by 0.2% in August, the S&P 500 decreased by -1.8% and the MSCI World by -2.1%. At August end, the YTD S&P/TSX Total Return Index was up 17.1% which was higher than the S&P500 (16.7%) and higher than the MSCI World of 13.5%.

The best TSX sector in August was Information Technology up 7.7%, mainly due to the performance of Shopify, followed by Materials up 5.7%, with gold up 16.7% and silver up 15.4%. On the contrary, the worst performing sector was Health Care (-13%) principally due to the performance of the Cannabis sector.

Looking more specifically at INOC, the best performers in August were Metro Inc. (+9.43%), a Canadian food retailer in Quebec and Ontario, followed by Brookfield Infrastructure Partners (+8.21%), a publicly traded limited partnership involved in the acquisition and management of infrastructure assets globally. Both stocks rallied based on their defensive attributes and as of a result of the inversion of the yield curve.

On the contrary, the weakest contributor to INOC was Parex (PXT), which was down 9.62%, on weak energy prices. The other negative contributors were Linamar (LNR) and CCL Industries (CCL.B) due to disappointing results.