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TSE:CNR
This has been one of the great investments in Canadian history. It is a great name to own. The railroad industry is a monopoly, because we are not going to build new railroads anywhere in North America. The number of investable rails has shrunk. You can pick any one. He finds them a little pricey in the current market. Their multiples are typically less than the markets, and are trading at kind of a market multiple today.
The stock is very extended. The rails have had a great run. The problem is that it started at book value and is now at about 5.5 times book and it is not going to do that again. He is not knocking the company and the management, but the problem is that it is ‘in the market’ already. It is VERY expensive.
He would avoid rails in general. The idea of import taxes, trade wars, etc. it is not really conducive to goods crossing borders. This one particularly, does a lot of business taking foreign freight along the West Coast, and into the US. He would worry about that freight suddenly going directly to the US, as opposed to through Canada.
The trend is still firmly higher. It has been trading in a rising trend channel for the past 6 months, and there is no indication it is going to stop here. The major moving averages are all pointing higher. Transportation tends to do well from about the end of January all the way through to May, and that is attributed to the pickup in industrial production in the more cyclical areas of the economy. It looks ideal to pick up on any pullback or weakness down to its 20 or 50 day moving averages. He has the 20 day at about $92, which would be a more opportune time to pick it up.
18 times earnings. You have a growing US economy and the Canadian economy is turning around. There are large barriers to entry. There are fewer competitors and those competitors are more rational. He thinks you will see some increases in pricing. It is a great place to be right now. It trades at a discount to US peers.
One of the big questions having to do with this rail is NAFTA. A lot of what it does depends on commodity movement and commodity prices. It is a profitable company and is doing quite well. He wouldn’t buy it at this price.