Paul Harris.
Paul Harris is partner and portfolio manager at Avenue Investment Management. His focus is North American and global equities.
Top Picks:
DH Corp. (DH.TO)
DH Corp provides technology for the financial services industry. The company is expanding out of the traditional cheque producing business through bolt on acquisitions in the U.S. which is more than half of their revenue. The stock trades at 15 times earnings and has a 3.2% dividend yield.
Element Financial (EFN.TO)
Element is now North America's leading equipment finance companies within the four verticals of commercial & vendor finance, aviation finance, rail finance, and fleet management. The company has strong exposure to the U.S. and recently completed the acquisition of GE Capital's U.S. fleet management business Element is well positioned to benefit from the resurgence of the U.S. economy and growth in lease financing. The stock trades at 12.2x 2016 earnings.
Barclays PLC (BCS.N)
Global financial services provider engaged in retail banking, credit cards, wholesale banking, investment banking and wealth management. It trades at 0.7 times book value, with a yield of 1.6% and trades at 9.0times 2016 earnings.
Past Picks: July 4, 2014
Deere & Co. (DE.N)
Then: $91.38; Now: $94.96; +3.92%; Total return: +6.75%
Qualcomm (QCOM.O)
Then: $80.99; Now: $61.91; -23.56%; Total return: -21.71%
Bank of America (BAC.N)
Then: $16.03; Now: $16.25; +1.37%; Total return: +2.61%
Total Return Average: -4.12%
Market outlook:
The past few weeks have seen the return of some volatility to global equity markets. Concern over the Greece and EU saga continues to impact the market, as the probability of Greece leaving the Euro Zone has steadily increased over the past week. We have also seen some poor economic data in Canada as the collapse in oil prices continues to wane on economic growth. The U.S. economy continues to add jobs each month at a reasonable pace, and the U.S. seems to have bounced back from its period of negative growth in the first quarter. The divergence in monetary policies from different Central Banks across the world has also played an impact on financial markets over the past few months, which we have seen reverberate through FX markets. With oil at these levels the Canadian dollar still faces downside risk relative to the strong U.S. dollar.