..Nice pop yesterday on Canadian stocks. The banks have almost crested the October 2008 drops. My income trusts are in the green and paying green too!

...it is a steady growth engine. It's Trending Topics was the fastest delivery system for Michael Jackson's death news last week, and rumors of Jeff Goldblum too.

...steadily growing...

It's called www.stock2own.com and has historicals including:
-Big 5
-Sticker Price
-MOS (Margin Of Safety) price
-Technical Indicators: Stochastics, MACD

It's free and the only thing to watch out for:

- Management assessment but that's subjective
- Equity growth rates - I am perplexed because dividends should be added back but never considered. This may lead to understated Sticker and MOS prices.

Still it's a great resource

ACTION: I need to still vet it against my own spreadsheets.

Sold wte.un on Wednesday start of day after a 3-signal confirmation to sell. I am glad I did, as the stock and the market in Canada sold off heavily last week. I will watch for a signal to get back in, because in the main it is a good company with a near monopoly. Just appreciate the signals.

..asked about one of my picks and the guest was a fund manager specializing in dividend funds. He said it was an excellent company with a monopoly and he is a buyer at these levels.

Nice to be affirmed by someone who has done this longer than I have!

..since trading in stocks is not available with ING direct. Although ING has the highest savings interest rate going at 3%, I want to do better.

Imagine saving $5,000 per year - the maximum allowable in a TFSA - at the start of each year, for 20 years.

The total investment $100,000, compounding at varying interest rates, would be worth the following at the end of 20 years:

3% = $134,351.87
5% = $165,329.77
8% = $228,809.82
10% = $286,375.00
12% = $360,262.21
15% = $512,217.91
20% = $933,440.00
25% = $1,714,723.48

Wow, it seems right to pursue higher returns!!

..this time it's Pizza Pizza income trust. Symbol: PZA.UN on the Toronto exchange.

The current dividend yield is 14% and they have always paid their dividend monthly and never lowered it.

I think Pizza is recession resistant and the Pizza Pizza brand is a strong one locally.

The trust's revenues are based on a royalty fee over the restaurants revenues, regardless of profitability.

Getting paid over 1% per month is way better than 1% per year in cash accounts!

..I'm going to link to some of my favorite books I read and recommend, available on Amazon.

Not only will my students of blackjack get the right education, I will help Amazon and help myself simultaneously.

It's a win win win!

The goals are:

1. Get out of low-performing Index Funds and Bond Funds inside RRSP
2. Get out of low interest bearing TFSA
3. Get into investing in great companies at great prices

I believe the mutual funds that I have invested in over the decades have been poor performers. I want to do better by selecting investments in companies with great returns on invested capital, great earnings per share growth, great sales growth, great free cash flow growth, great equity growth.

Taking the steps I did yesterday I am moving closer to this objective.

The goal is to grind this down over the next several weeks.

After researching this company zar.un here are the salient points:

Good ROIC: 20%+
Good EPS growth: 18%+
Good Sales growth: 12%+
Good Free Cash Flow growth: 20%+
Good Equity growth: 11%+

Also, it pays a good dividend, yielding 13%, paid monthly.

It's an Oil and Gas company, and I think it's undervalued.

PE of around 4x earnings!?

Sticker price of 65.94
MOS price 32.97
Purchase price 16.28

This one's a no brainer!!

After a tough May and June, I have climbed out from a valley to reach my new all time high for 2009.

This has been graphed here:

This line of credit has been on me for months. Yesterday I walked in and paid off the last piece plus accrued interest.

As I walked out of the bank, I grinned.

..two out of three stores will be taken over, beginning early August.

The final retail store is still pending a decision.

These are the benefits:

-Immediate relief of rent
-Immediate relief of payroll
-Immediate relief of inventory requirements

The transition leaves me with the following action items:

1. Make the existing rented office cashflow neutral
2. Source the retail store rent cash