August 2021 Pricing Commentary

Canadian and American stock market indices continued their upward price momentum during the month of August, led by the information technology, communications, health care, and financial services sectors. Similar to the month of July, U.S. equities outperformed Canadian common stocks enabling our three primarily American focused ABC Funds to outperform their respective investment benchmarks.

During the month, our top performing Canadian holdings included Brookfield Asset Management, Brookfield Infrastructure Partners, and Canadian National Railway. Of particular importance to our August performance was the proposed takeover of WPT Industrial REIT, a Toronto-based manager and owner of more than 100 distribution and logistics properties in the U.S., by Blackstone REIT. WPT was held in two of our ABC Funds.

In the United States, our top stock performers during the month included: S&P Global, Amazon, Danaher, Waste Management, Apple, NVIDIA, Alphabet, Microsoft, Facebook, and Salesforce.

With four months remaining to year end we remain optimistic with regard to the economy and common stocks. Our three ABC funds remain fully invested and we expect to retain this positioning into 2022.

Irwin A. Michael, President
I.A. Michael Investment Counsel Ltd.