Skip to main content
Stars and Dogs

A humorous look at the companies that caught our eye, for better or worse, this week

Facebook (DOG)

Please read our new user agreement and click "accept." By registering for this website, you agree to: 1) Share duck-face selfies and banal life observations that other users will pretend to "like"; 2) Accept that many of the articles you read are going to be written by Russian trolls, so get over it; 3) Let Cambridge Analytica – a shady company that backed Donald Trump's election campaign – secretly harvest your data, which may spark an investor lawsuit and send Facebook's shares – and Mark Zuckerberg's reputation – down sharply.

FB (Nasdaq), US$159.39, down US$25.70 or 13.9% over week

Dow Jones industrial average (DOG)

Donald Trump: "We're slapping tariffs on your aluminum and steel!"

Xi Jinping: "Oh, yeah? We'll charge higher duties on your apples and pork!"

Donald Trump: "Fine. But if we get into an all-out trade war, Ivanka can still make her handbags and shoes there, right?"

Xi Jinping: "Ah ha ha ha ha ha. Mr. Trump, you have such a good sense of humour!"

DJIA 23,533.20, down-1,413.31 or 5.67% over week.

BRP (STAR)

Now that spring is here, it won't be long until you're reading a book by the lake and listening to the birds, the waves – and the incessant whine of Sea-Doos. Not that BRP investors are complaining: Coming off strong growth in 2017, the maker of Ski-Doos, Sea-Doos and Can-Am off-road vehicles hiked its dividend and said it expects revenue to climb by 5 per cent to 8 per cent and earnings per share to jump by 20 per cent to 25 per cent in the current fiscal year. The stock's got the throttle wide open.

DOO (TSX), $48.10, up $2.39 or 5.2% over week

Ten Peaks Coffee Co. (DOG)

Remember when you switched to decaf, and you fell asleep at work, and you woke up with only one eyebrow? That's why you should never switch to decaf. The same goes for your investments: Shares of Ten Peaks Coffee, which sells decaffeinated beans under the Swiss Water brand, sank after it swung to a fourth-quarter loss, hit by higher expenses, lower volumes and a foreign-exchange loss. The stock could use a double shot of espresso.

TPK (TSX), $6.24, down 36 cents or 5.45% over week

General Mills (DOG)

Bad: eating cereal for dinner. Worse: owning shares of cereal maker General Mills. Citing higher transportation costs and rising prices for grains, fruit and nuts, the maker of Cheerios, Yoplait, Nature Valley and other food brands warned that operating profit for the current fiscal year will fall by 5 per cent to 6 per cent – worse than the 1-per-cent drop it expected previously. With the stock down 25 per cent this year, investors are skipping meals altogether to save money .

GIS (NYSE), US$44.21, down US$6.28 or 12.4% over week