two intermediate producers

This is a look at two intermediate oil and gas producers -Pengrowth and Pennwest.Pengrowth produces more natural gas that Pennwest but Pengrowth is working on developing a heavy oil plant in the oil sands area.Pennwest is slowly(at this stage) divesting some of it's acreage while Pengrowth is  selling only  a little non-core assets.However at this time debt is more of a problem  for Pennwest than it is for Pengrowth.Pennwest has about$2.7 billion in debt while Pengrowth has $1.7 billion but Pengrowth has increased revenue after acquiring another producer called N.A.E Oil and Gas.Pengrowth has negative EBITDA of $66 million while Pennwest has a negative EBITDA of $134 million.Neither will likely have a positive EBITDA for this quarter but Pengrowth will be closer while continuing to generate more revenue from it's oil sands plant.
The price of oil has come down this quarter from the last quarter while natural gas has increased slightly.This will help Pengrowth more than Pennwest and should show a greater increase in revenue for Pengrowth.Look for a small negative EBITDA for Pengrowth and a bigger one for Pennwest.Then investors will have to ask themselves if Pennwest still deserves such a premium in it's stock price.see Workathon for stock market advice

airline stocks

This is a look at three airline stocks-Air Canada,Chorus Aviation,and WestJet.Air Canada has gone from about $2 per share in August to above $5 in October.A dramatic rise that is probably related to their $3 billion refinancing that dramatically increased their assets but gave them negative shareholder equity of $3.34 billion.On the other hand,they have had continually increasing traffic and load factors over 2013.According to stockbroker's reports their earnings per share was $.65 per share with a P/E ratio of 7.97 and Ebitda of $124 million.
Secondly we have Chorus Aviation which has seen a slight increase in traffic and has somewhat restructured their business.They have a maintenance facility in Halifax and have put some recent improvements in it as they also closed down their London facility.This, in order, to make Halifax a first class facility.Chorus has investments in Uruguay and previously in Thomas Cook Charters.Thomas Cook ended it's relationship this year.It is too early to tell whether they will increase their                                  investment in Uruguay  and if it will be profitable.
 Chorus, according to stockbrokers has earnings per share of $1.54 and a P/E ratio of 4.87 and an Ebitda of $117 million.
Chorus has gone through an autopsy of it's agreement with Air Canada it's biggest customer and there should be no major changes in it for awhile.There did not seem to be any major changes to the agreement but Chorus has dropped in price since the revision process.Can Air Canada still have strings to pull on this agreement?It is possible.Chorus' assets are much less than Air Canada but so is it's debt.It has shareholder's equity of only about $150 million.
WestJet has climbed from about $20 in the summer to it's present $25 a share.According to stockbroker's reports it's earnings per share is $1.99 per share and P/E ratio of 12.76 and Ebitda of $341 million.WestJet has higher load factors recently while increasing it's capacity.Revenue should increase in the season near Christmas.
Third quarter earnings will be out soon for all three stocks and it is likely that Chorus and WestJet earnings will increase slightly and Air Canada will likely show an increase in revenue and a healthy drop in earnings if it's debt costs come into play in this quarter.WestJet looks like the winner followed by Chorus.How closely Chorus follows will depend on their investments and the profitability of their Halifax operations.

 

Blame it on the revolution

When Mike Harris was premier he brought in "The Common Sense Revolution".It brought with it government cutbacks and layoffs.But Mike did cut back on government spending as he promised.However there was a backlash from the "revolution".The Liberals got in with big numbers and this brought us Dalton Mcguinty and new increases in government spending.Dalton brought in the P.S.T  to match the federal government's G.S.T The economy of the province at that time was about $650 billion or slightly bigger.Almost as big as Finland.Denmark,Norway and Sweden combined. So a 8% tax would bring in about $50 billion new tax dollars for the government.In addition, Mcguinty ran deficits,at first small ones and then as big as $21 billion.There were government programs for everything.Mcguinty even had a program to pay people to harass others that he disagreed with but did not break any laws.This was his government harassment program and it was popular.
Our new premier continues in his tradition.She has money for traffic lights in the middle of highways and money to start new subdivisions in towns like Wasaga Beach and Collingwood.The government will put in new roads and new sewers and new water lines if you will build and then they have money to help you to build.But they have no money for new jobs.Both of those towns ,for example ,have few new jobs.Midland for example could use a new wing on their hospital for special care like Newmarket has.The government should be lowering education costs so young people have all the skills needed to get new jobs.But mostly our premier needs to reduce the P.S.T so people can afford to live in this province.All of these things will help to create new jobs.

a wildcat but not a panther

I have followed Wildcat Silver for about a year.It is an interesting venture.It is one of the largest orebodies in north America.So far it is undeveloped, although they have done some exploratory drilling to guage the grade and the extent of the orebody.Their price per share has been higher but it was lower recently as the price of silver fell to the $18 an ounce area.The future price
 is uncertain and almost limitless.
Wildcat is now or soon will be looking for cash to develop this huge orebody.They acquired a small gold company recently that had no property but did have some cash on it's balance sheet.This did help them develop a little bit but now they need to move to another plateau.They need more cash!They are coming to a crossroad.There are a number of  possibilities to raising the needed cash.They could follow the route that Sabina Gold and Silver took.They sold a part of their property for cash and royalties on whatever silver was produced.They had an escalating agreement.If production was beyond a certain level the royalty increased but the cash portion seemed to be fixed.Or they could easily have a farm-in agreement;this involves finding a larger partner to develop all or most of their property for cash and a minor or major share in the asset.A more traditional route would involve issuing convertible or non-convertible debentures on the value of the asset.Convertible debentures would be costly because the conversion would be to Wildcat shares which are a little low now until the price of silver goes back up(at least to $28 or$30 an ounce).This would dilute the price of Wildcat shares but non-convertible debentures would not have this problem.However the money must be rolled over or paid back.With low interest rates this is a viable option.
So either selling a part of their large asset and taking a minority or majority partner on the whole asset or coming up with a creative financing deal like Sabina came up with.I like this option and by the way Sabina Gold and Silver has a large orebody also.One way

or another soon Wildcat must do something to become more like Great Panther Silver which has producing mines.

A plan for the mediator

The mediator should invite the president of Aastra Technology to supper tonight or tomorrow night.Supper is on him as he owes him;in fact, we will pay for supper.Take him to the Oakville Holiday Inn as it is fine and it is functional.You tell him that you are prepared to get a court order to prevent Mitel from operating.Then you apply to the O.S.C. to get a trading injunction to stop Mitel from trading.You can tell Aastra and Mitel that you have permission to buy up to 2 million shares once Mitel has dropped more than $.50 per share(which it will).Or Mitel can sell his P.B.X. equipment at a slightly inflated price in return for all Aastra's Mitel shares and some cash.Once Mitel has returned to it's old price please return the capital.

improvements to Workathon

I see one of the visitors to Workathon is the AdSense Watchdog.This is a good thing because that is the way to improve my web page ranking and maybe to get Google AdSense.This is a desirable service.Google feels that I do not have enough visits to merit a higher page ranking.They are probably unaware that the library people are sending interference to my blogs before I can send them out .This way my page visits are showing up on library staff websites(my competitors,not my support ).So the number of page visits shown on my home page is in the hundreds not the thousands.However Google Analytics shows much more visits on my two web sites.At least I know that they seem to be monitoring my web pages.
On a separate issue Wordpress gives me a tweet button and a button for Facebook.That is very nice  of them.I am hoping to get a tweet button and a facebook button on Blogger.Wordpress surely seems more advanced in this one area at least.Google I hope will catch up here.

Invitation to connect on LinkedIn

From dale mcintyre Insurance Professional Lafayette, Louisiana Area I'd like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn. - dale Confirm that you know dale You are receiving Invitation to Connect emails. Unsubscribe © 2012, LinkedIn Corporation. 2029 Stierlin Ct. Mountain View, CA 94043, USA