Monthly Message

The Wutherich & Co. Composite was up 3.2% in March. This compares with the S&P/TSX up 1.3%, the BMO Small Cap Index up 1.1%, S&P 500 (US$) up 0.1%, the DJIA (US$) down 0.6%, while the NASDAQ (US$) was up 1.5%.

The Trump Bump, Trump Slump, Trump   ?  . How many alliterations can we come up with and do they matter? As long as it’s not Trump Dump, I suppose we are okay. Other than being entertained by Trump related news, we pay very little attention to the antics in Washington.

What we are interested in are the fates of interesting companies. To wit, we have re-introduced an old name to the portfolio and let another one go. Goeasy (the erstwhile Easyhome) was introduced to the portfolio in February. The company is transforming itself from a rent-to-own supplier of furniture, electronics and appliances to a consumer loan provider. Using the cash flow from their legacy business, they are rapidly expanding their loan business to achieve overall growth rates of 25% in EPS for the next several years.

In February, we said good-bye to the longest tenured name in our portfolio, Hibbett Sports, which we have owned for more than 15 years. The unrelenting pressure of the likes of Amazon and Hibbett’s slow response to the changing retail landscape had us fold our hand on this one. That being said, it is still an excellent company and we will monitor it closely for some time to come.

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