The Canadian Investor - RESP and 12 stocks to watch for a reopening economy

Episode Date: March 15, 2021

In this week’s episode, Simon breaks down Registered Education Savings Plans (RESP). We then talk about twelve companies that should benefit from a reopening economy. Tickers of stocks discussed: MA, V, DIS, IDG.TO, LYV, FUN, SIX, SU.TO, BKNG, EXPE, BPY-UN.TO, GOOG Want to send us a question? Check out our Anchor.fm link in the description below and leave us a voice message! Getstockmarket.com Candian Investor Pod Twitter: @cdn_investing Simon’s twitter: @Fiat_Iceberg Braden’s twitter: @BradoCapital Links mentioned: Gov. of Canada RESP website:  https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/education/education-savings/resp.html CESG application site:  https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/education/education-savings/savings-grant.html Canada Learning Bond: https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/education/education-savings/savings-grant.html CNBC Stimulus Check Survey: https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/08/how-the-young-plan-to-spend-stimulus-checks-deutsche-bank.html --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/the-canadian-investor/messageSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Simon, how's it going, man? It is 20 degrees here in Toronto right now. Yeah. I'm feeling pretty good about that. Yeah, I think it's around 10 in ottawa um i've still not been a lot outside because of my knee i still have to rest it a bit but uh i can we open the window let the breeze in it's a it's a little taste of spring there you go so i'm back from vacay feeling good feeling fresh you know it's really nice to go a while without looking at the stock market.

And I encourage all of you to do the same. I got a question on the Stratosphere Forum today about should I be watching after hours prices and these kinds of things? It's like, no, absolutely not. Long-term investors do not actually have to look at their stocks every day. I know, crazy foreign concept, but you really do not need to look at your portfolio that often because the speed that real business fundamentals change compared to how fast stock prices change is a big, huge disconnect. So this is just another classic reminder to focus on the business not the stock price because as we've seen volatility is very normal and we're

back at all-time highs you man yeah yeah exactly and just a quick note just because you brought it up for after hours trading so always take that with a grain of salt sometimes it can be a good indicator of what will happen the next day but usually there's limited liquidity there's limited trading so you can do see some spikes you know happen after hours and the next day it'll be completely different so I would say tread with caution when especially after hours but yeah you don't need to to check your portfolio all the time it'll probably drive you crazy even though even though i do it myself yeah i mean i mean i think we all i think we all do probably probably all check more than we should but um that's just

because we enjoy it and there's nothing wrong with that all right so today we're going to talk you're going to mention a little bit about stimulus package and a report you saw from CNBC. You're going to dig into RESPs and then we're going to talk about the classic coined term reopening trade, which is essentially businesses that have pent up demand or could be potentially undervalued based on the pandemic they've suffered uh you know a hit to their business because of the pandemic and that the future probably looks better for them uh with the light at the end of the tunnel so uh simon you want to kick it off there yeah yeah so um yeah the first thing i wanted to mention so a lot of people will see all stocks are going up and you'll see also also in the names that especially Brayden will be mentioning is, yeah, okay, these businesses will benefit from reopening, but they're at all-time highs.

Well, a lot of it is because of the new money being injected in the economy, but specifically in the stock market. And there's an interesting article on CNBC, and I will add it to the show notes. So you guys can have a quick look, just basically a survey that they did. Over 430 investors, we use online broker platforms, and just to know what they plan to do with their stimulus checks. And depending on the age group, it's basically between 37% to 50% of the amount they receive that they plan to invest into the stock market. So in some cases, people are actually planning to invest half of their stimulus check into stocks. So I personally think that that's probably a factor right now. There's been

obviously some good news with vaccines rollout in the US, but also in Canada. But just that infusion of new cash is probably a big driver of those higher prices and a lot of all time highs right now. And one of the reason why tech stocks or growth stocks have kind of pulled back from their little dip a week or two ago. Yeah, they're a very short dip. I tweeted, I said last Saturday, I tweeted, good morning only if you bought the dip. Because, I mean, these businesses are very high quality for the most part. Many of them are very high quality for the most part many of them are very high quality so

anytime you see a business executing extremely well and pulling back like how can you not find this is we're going off topic but how can you not find amazon trading like a four and a half percent free cash flow yield extremely attractive here uh that's that's a name i'm i'm like yeah even at even at that market cap it still seems like it has so much room um but we don't have to digress into that yeah exactly i mean i i don't disagree with that because i bought amazon maybe a month ago so uh but yeah let's uh did you have anything else for the news or we'll go straight to our ESPs? I'll post some news later tonight on my Twitter at Bredo Capital because a name that people often request I talk about, which trades on the TSX, reports earnings in three minutes as of recording this right now. So later I'll post an update on the results.

Okay, perfect. So let's go right into registered education savings plans or RESP. So we, we had a few tweets on this maybe a month or two ago asking if we would do an episode on it. So I had to do some research. So I took a couple hours earlier this week just to research this, these type of registered account because I was not super familiar with them so this will be a high level they are definitely more complex than our RSPs and TFSA by far especially you'll see depending if your child ends up not going to school but I digress I'll break it down as as best as I can so there. So there's three types of RESPs.

There's an individual RESP. So that's basically if you only have one beneficiary. So when I say beneficiary, I'll be referring to the child. It tends to be good if you're not related to the child themselves. It could be another family member. it could be even a neighbor, it doesn't have to be a family member. So that's the kind of type of RESP that would apply here. A family RESP is probably one of the most common. So the child must be related to you by blood or adoption. So the family RESP can be created by the parent, grandparent, brother, and sister. It's great if you have more than one child in the family because there can be more than one beneficiary as long as it's a sibling. The group RESP is only for one child. Again, it's probably my least favorite of the three, mainly because it combines the

money and savings towards the plan with other people. And it's typically managed by the provider with low risk investments, but also means that your returns might not be as good. So those are the three types of RESPs. In terms of what they can be used, so they can be used for a wide range of education. So I think a lot of people think it has to be university, but it does not. So there's a,

you can find full lists on the government of Canada website, but these are just kind of some of the most common ones. So, so obviously university, colleges, trade schools, in Quebec, Cégeps,

apprenticeship programs as well. So it's really, it's a really... What is a CEGEP? A CEGEP is basically, so if we have some, well, I know we have a lot of non-Quebec listeners. So I did my schooling in Quebec, so I'm familiar with it. So basically when you finish high school in Quebec, instead of going straight to university you have this basically in between University where you can also do a sort of technology a three-year program if you're like a technician or something like that but you can you most people will do two years and then go to university for

three years instead of the four years for university. Some people will even do one year of CEGEP. I actually think it's a really good concept because I know when I finished high school, I was pretty immature, so going straight to university may not be the best thing. It's also way less expensive than university, and typically when kids finish high school, they're not always sure what they want to do, right? So CISEP is actually a good hybrid where they have general but also a bit more specific courses to really decide where they want to go for their careers and their training.

So that's kind of a little breakdown. Yeah, I think personally it's really good. I believe it's free. I think it's still free because obviously it's been a while for me. But kids have to pay for their books. So obviously it's definitely more cost-effective for students. Those $800 textbooks you mean? Yeah.

The $800 paperweights. Yeah, pretty much. Okay, go on. Yeah, so in terms of the contribution and tax treatment, so you do not get a tax credit for an RESP like you would get from a RRSP. The gains are tax-free while the money is in the RESP. The money is taxed at the child's income level when it's withdrawn. So that's really how, why it's so powerful in terms of vehicle, because the child,

when he starts withdrawing on those funds, if he's at university or college or whatever, chances are that the child won't have a lot of revenue. So it'll be a super low tax bracket. So in a lot of cases, even the child won't have to pay any taxes depending on what the his income is, right. So that's where it becomes a really powerful savings vehicle. There is a $50,000 lifetime maximum contribution per child or per beneficiary. You'll see that I will interchange these terms. If the money isn't going to be used by the beneficiary, the account can be transferred to a sibling. If no sibling, then the RESP must be closed by the time the child is 36. So all that to say you do have time. If the child wants to go and do a trip in Europe for a few years. That's fine. You can still go to post-secondary education a bit later on.

There is some grants that are available. I'll go into a bit more detail with that. with that. If you close the account, if the child is not going to use it, the remaining funds can be transferred to an RRSP or withdrawn. If they're withdrawn, you're not taxed on what was contributed since you were already taxed, but you are taxed on what was earned at your income level plus 20%. So keep that in mind. And that's where it gets really a bit more complex is if the account doesn't get used and the guy, the child doesn't go to post-secondary education, like this is just a simplified version. But if you ever get in this situation, it's probably best to consult with the tax professional because it can get a bit complex. I mean, I tried to sort it out, but yeah, it was a bit beyond my expertise. The last thing that's really interesting for this type of account

is the Canadian government actually can give you a matching called Canada Education Savings Grant, in short CESG. So what that is, it's 20% matching your contributions up to a total of $500 per child for the year. There's a lifetime maximum of $7,200 per child for the CESG. If you missed a match for a given year, you can actually make up for it to get the additional $500 as a catch up for a given year. You can catch up for one previous year at a time by contributing more than the $2,500 per year, just like I mentioned. To go back, if your child ends up not going to post-secondary education, the CESG grant must be repaid to the federal government.

So keep that in mind. So that's just, like I said, it's just an overview, RESPs. It's, like I mentioned, it's definitely more complex than our RESP and obviously a lot more complex than a TFSA. But yeah, it gets tricky, especially if the child doesn't use the money. But it's a really, really interesting vehicle, especially if you have more than one kid, because you can use it for, you know, you might have two or three kids, maybe one of them doesn't go to post-secondary high school, post-secondary education, but you could use it on another child. but you post-secondary education, but you could use it on another child.

So that's an RESP in a nutshell. Brayden, anything to add there? No, I think that's good. We've been getting lots of questions about this account. The only thing I would ask you is if I'm planning this and I have a kid who's probably going as post-secondary or the other option you know they want to do an apprenticeship or whatever it may be there's got to be some gov website that we can point them to right it's some sort of yeah federal yeah there is so you can look it up yeah i'll add

that to the show notes as well so it has all the information there's also like a full cra page on it that kind of go of goes into more detail about the taxation, especially the age 36 maximum, but also for the grants and so on. So I'll put that in there. Also, there's something called, and I'm going on memory here, I believe they're education saving bonds that those are only available if you have a certain level of income so it's for lower income families so I'll add that as well in terms of links so our listeners can go and have a look and get more information obviously I'm not an expert in these type of vehicles so especially our ESP this is just a high-level breakdown. So make sure you do your due diligence if you open one of those accounts.

But it's definitely a very interesting account if you have a family and you're planning to save for their education. Yeah, good overview. It's one of those things where you got to just work through it. You just follow along on the site, work through it. It's really the grant. That's really something. The grant and the tax transfer aspect of that vehicle, those are the two main components of this account. Yeah. As do-it-yourself investors, we want to keep our fees low. That's why Simone and I have been using Questrade as our online

broker for so many years now. Questrade is Canada's number one rated online broker by MoneySense, and with them, you can buy all North American ETFs, not just a few select ones, all commission free so that you can choose the ETFs that you want. And they charge no annual RRSP or TFSA account fees. They have an award-winning customer service team with real people that are ready to help if you have questions along the way. As a customer myself, I've been impressed with Questrade's customer service. Whenever I call or email, every support rep is very knowledgeable and they get exactly what I need done quickly. Switch for free today and keep more of your money. Visit

questrade.com for details. That is questrade.com. Gotcha. All right, on to the second part of the show, the reopening trades. So we have a couple names here. I have twice the name Simon wrote here because he did the RASP summary. So I'm going to fire off two and then Simon is going to throw us one as well. So, you know, mine are weird because, you know, pretty much all of these traded all-time highs. And typically I'd be looking at this as a list of things that I'd want to look at that's beat up because there could be a turnaround story. Not that I'm that type of investor in general, but if you're really looking at this trade, that's probably where your head would be going. But these businesses are very, very good businesses

that are affected by the pandemic with tons of built up, pent up demand for them. Now, they do trade at all-time highs. They might have lagged some of the high-flying tech or not, depending on the name. But these are companies that the future doesn't just look like, oh, it's back to business as normal. I think there's tons of pent up demand with all the savings rates, you know, globally savings rates are at all time highs and consumers are hungry to get out there and do stuff. So I'm going to start with two names I talk about all the time and I'm bundling them as one. It's Visa and MasterCard. Now Visa and MasterCard obviously benefiting from the cashless society that we're going towards that was sped up from the pandemic. Cash is dirty now. But if you look at the financials, Visa and MasterCard have actually taken a hit on their

top and bottom lines. And that's because a big part of their business is cross-border transactions. So when I go use my visa in another country, that's a cross-border transaction. And cross-border transactions fell 29% because of the pandemic. And that affects the business quite a bit. The revenue was down 17% in that quarter where transactions fell 29%. So net volume might be improving a lot with the cashless society that we're going towards and everyone only taking these types of payments. But once that travel opens back up, Visa and MasterCard, a big part of their business, is that cross-border transactions.

And that's going to come back in a big way. Visa and MasterCard, a big part of their business is that cross-border transactions. And that's going to come back in a big way. Visa and MasterCard have performed excellently over the last month or so, but they've lagged a little bit. And I think there's just so much upside in these businesses right now. It's remarkable how much upside they present. So that's my first one. Second one is Disney, which is very interesting because there's a lot to unravel with Disney right now. There was a huge narrative shift between the impending doom of Disney when the pandemic hits. It's like, oh, there's no movies and no

parks, which is such a big part of the business, by the way. The parks is a really, really big part of the business. And then all of a sudden, Disney Plus just starts rocking it. And Bob Chapek, the CEO, they've done such a good job of navigating the situation, but also switching the narrative. Disney Plus just hit 100 million subscribers, which is pretty insane. I think that was their five-year target that they absolutely smashed in like three months. So with parks reopening and the movie business reopening,

their intellectual property is just probably the best on the planet. I mean, think about how valuable the IP at Disney is. And now they have this other segment with 100 million subscribers uh paying that monthly fee with disney plus and it's like wow okay so this this business got stronger kind of out of nowhere uh and once those other segments open up uh with the reopening is disney is just in a really good spot right now and uh i don't know position but this is talk about ip i mean you can they can just milk that ip and forever and it's a really good business and congrats to the management team they've done a really good job are you a subscriber i i'm i'm one of those people i am'm one of those people.

I am literally one of those people you can see on the curve when the Mandalorian is out. I'm a subscriber, and I'm not when it's not out. Once I finish them, I'm like, okay, sorry, I don't want to watch Frozen 2, so I'm going to probably just cancel this and resubscribe later. Yeah, I mean, we did the same thing but i kept it a little longer because um my fiancee likes the christmas movies so obviously disney has a lot of christmas movies so we kept it during the holidays and then canceled it yeah yeah yeah i mean but they've hit that 100 million mark post post mandalorian season finishing so there's something to it right there's something to the

story and the kids love it and the parents are willing to you know get the kids this prescription throw it on their ipad and so that they can work at home in peace yeah yeah it'll be interesting to see um how the price increase goes in the next few years and to see if that impacts membership or not i have a feeling it probably won't all that much because netflix has had a decent pricing power but that that is the one part i think it'll be interesting to watch yeah it's a good point i i was so wrong about netflix's pricing power issues and uh yeah no one even cares when they raise it a buck or two anymore. So I suspect a similar story with Disney. Okay, so I'm going to go.

I went a little different direction, as you know, on this one because I wanted kind of a Canadian flavor for these picks because we are the Canadian Investor Podcast. Are we? Yeah. I forgot. Sometimes we get carried away with these like high growth businesses in the U.S. and obviously there's way more selection in the U.S. but there's

a couple of businesses that I found interesting for some more value plays so keep down deep keep that in mind one's probably a actually two are probably more like deep value plays so the first one is a very small cap i would probably probably say it's a micro cap even so it's indigo chapters um the ticker is the market cap on that yeah it's 103 million oh it's that small wow okay yeah so it's really been uh like their stock has been crushed over the last year and a half or so. So yeah, chapters is really interesting for me because the obvious premise or the obvious thing against it right now is obviously Amazon. Because a lot of people just order books on Amazon. And why would you go in person and so on? Well, my counter argument to that is, yeah, of course, I won't deny that a

lot of people will go and just order that whatever book they want online. But I personally actually like to go to Indigo chapters. I do like that a lot of them have Starbucks so I can go there. My fiance likes to go there as well just to browse around. I like to go just have, you know, a coffee at Starbucks and then I'll browse, sit down, maybe, you know, read a few pages of some books and then decide if I want to buy it or not. But the reason why I think it could do pretty well, it's also like super cheap right now, is mainly because people are, you know, rightfully so. They're fed up with the pandemic and being stuck inside.

And I think especially people that may not have enough money for a trip or something like that, they may enjoy these little experiences like that where, you know, it's the little things, just going in person, spending an hour or two at chapters with a coffee, reading some magazines, some books, whatever it is. So I think they're, you know, it's not necessarily a super long term investment, but as a value play, I think it's pretty interesting because their current ratio is over one. So they're not in financial trouble or anything like that. They're trading at less than point 15 price to sell. So that's that's really low obviously um and i mean once like i said once

the pandemic is over i feel like they they'll do pretty well and they've done like pretty decently over the pandemic like their revenue went down a little bit but not as much as i would have thought and their balance sheet looks decent and it could also be a takeover play as well so I don't necessarily advocate investing in companies just because you think it'll be taken over there's going to be activist investors but it's it's one I'm actually thinking about I'll have to dig more into it but in that taxable account a bit more as a play money. It's one that's intriguing for me as a devalue play. Yeah, I like it as long as we preface it that, yeah, it's probably a bit of a melting ice cube,

but it's got to be worth more than $100 million. Especially because their e-commerce experience is actually pretty good. I've used their e-commerce experience is actually pretty good i've used their e-commerce experience many times like well pre-pandemic um and there's lots of locations nearby and you can get it shipped to the store you can get it right to your house and a lot of people like if you're like reading books like us going to the bookstore is nice it smells good like how good do books smell and like that's a real thing yeah um so if you don't have a mask i like it yeah if you yeah exactly if you're not wearing an n95 you can smell it um but i like it i mean is it the greatest business ever no is it probably worth more than what it trades for probably so i'm glad you went the different route because i'm just going like so so consensus with these picks hey it's all good

gotta mix it up right mix it up a little bit yeah i like i like it okay uh two more kind of obvious reopening experiential plays but these were two businesses that I basically had on my watch list before the pandemic. I was like, oh my God, this is not good for these businesses. But now it's like, I guess they're already trading at all-time highs. So, I mean, is it a reopening trade? Maybe we're a bit too late to them but live nation may have may have the most pent-up demand of any business i can think of personally uh concerts are going to come back with a vengeance

i mean i'm a huge concert goer all of them got canceled i had a bunch that i was excited for and who's gonna be selling those tickets well ticket master is and i i think that artists are ready to get back out there do long tours you know do way more shows than they had even previously planned because i think there's just so much pent-up demand for this right. And people would love to go to concerts. Do I think concerts are going to be happening? Like really in the next little bit? I mean, maybe probably not. So we the market may have got a little ahead of itself with this one. But when it does come back, I believe that this is a business that's really going to benefit from it. Whether it's concerts, whether it's sporting events, you name it, Ticketmaster sells those

tickets and Live Nation is the owner of that and they will benefit from that. As do-it-yourself investors, we want to keep our fees low. That's why Simone and I have been using Questrade as our online broker for so many years now. Questrade is Canada's number one rated online broker by MoneySense. And with them, you can buy all North American ETFs, not just a few select ones, all commission free so that you can choose the ETFs that you want. And they charge no annual RRSP or TFSA account fees. They have an award-winning customer service team with real people that are ready to help if you have questions along the way.

As a customer myself, I've been impressed with Questrade's customer service. Whenever I call or email, every support rep is very knowledgeable and they get exactly what I need done quickly. Switch for free today and keep more of your money. Visit questrade.com for details. That is questrade.com. Moving on, booking holdings. By the way, this company is about to hit a hundred billion in market cap. I was just looking earlier. This is a huge business. Travel demand obviously is going to explode. But just like many things, the platform is usually, not usually, but very often is better in terms of profitability than the actual airlines. The platform like Booking Holdings has much better profitability, much better gross margins. And they own really, really good assets.

I'm a big traveler and Kayak and Google Flights are my go-to for flight booking, with Kayak almost always being the best one to show me the best results, the best prices, the best flight times, which is a booking holdings asset. I took 29 flights last summer. I guess it would be two summers ago now. Wow. And they were almost always booked on kayak because when I look on any other competitor, kayak would always show me the best price at the best time, and they just have the best. I think they have the best product. So Bookings is a great company.

It's really at all-time highs again, but it's quite large. They own good assets. If you believe travel is coming back in a big way, these are the businesses that are going to benefit from that. Yeah, and I would probably add even VRBO. Sorry, not VRBO, but Expedia, who owns VRBO. I'm not super familiar with their financials, so just a name like that. But just the aspect that they have that kind of booking like Airbnb a little bit.

So I find that a bit intriguing, but would be in the same category, obviously, as booking holdings. Yeah, very similar. They would be direct competitors. And just a quick note on Life Nation. Did you know that the Blue Jays are playing the Texas Rangers in their first game against the Rangers? Actually, it'll be the home opener for the Rangers and they'll have full capacity at their stadium.

In Texas? In Texas on April 6th, I think. Oh my goodness me. Fifth actually, I think is the home opener. So just to go to the Live Nation one, I mean, the concert may start before we actually think, maybe not in Canada, but probably in the not here yeah um so yeah that's a good point i saw like even like the raptors that they're playing in florida and they're gonna have uh fans and you know texas

is just saying okay everything's open full full-fledged go for it so i mean we'll see it's hard for us here to even realize that that's possible but uh it's happening so good point yeah exactly so uh so my next one is uh one we've talked before so sun core energy um so that's obviously a play on reopening because um the overall uh demand for oil has gone way way down with the pandemic. Like Brayden said, people were not traveling. They sell jet fuel, for example. So that's a decent portion of their revenue. You know, people just not driving as much with the pandemic. So their revenues really got hit. They had to cut the dividend. But if you think that that obviously things will get more and more back to normal, and as much as I like renewable energy, we're still not there for a full transition for probably several years, probably if not a decade or more.

companies, it's definitely a good play because it's also a well-diversified oil producer. So they refine. They also, they're a producer. They have a gas station with Petro Canada as well. So it's a well-diversified oil company. So if you're looking for a oil play, this may be one that would be interesting for you. Personally, just for personal personal reason i don't want to invest in oil so i wouldn't but i do know we have some people that ask us a lot about different oil producers in canada um any any comments on that wood brian i've seen some really really smart people go into some of these beat up oil names with good reason. And there's a reason to believe that, you know, the time could be right for some of these names.

Like you said, it might not be for us, but there are some really smart people who understand this industry much better and are, you know, betting the house on a recovery with these names so could be a good idea yeah it's probably a really good value play yeah yeah yeah i don't know if you'll catch it in either of our portfolios but um that's all right i mean look no one that like you, you invest the way that you want to invest. Exactly. That's it. Exactly. That's a great point.

Okay. I'm going to go a little more on your tone there. With office REITs and even like high quality retail, like when I think of Brookfield Property Partners, they own the best real estate, like straight up. Brookfield Property Partners, they own the best real estate, like straight up. And I think I am against the common belief that we're not going back to the office. I think many businesses really want their people back. And when you hear Bruce Flatt talk about all the conversations that he has, I'm talking about the CEO of Brookfield, by the way, for those who don't know Bruce Flatt, he talks about CEOs and management teams wanting their people back. Now, are many big tech firms who are very

technology advanced and have the right remote work capabilities. Are they all going to come back? No, probably not. There's a change there. That being said, there is a strong case for human connection in business. Many management teams want their people back in office, whether it's some of the time, all the time, who am I to really say? But I think that office REITs, the price here could be right even for high quality retail, like a Brookfield who owns that central type of mall property right in the heart of the bit the best cities in the world uh the narrative that these things are just going to go

away is just it's just not really true and um this could be this the time could be right for these these things i'm curious on your thoughts there yeah Yeah. Yeah. The only thing I would say is Brookfield property partners being bought out by BAM, right? Exactly. And that's Bruce just signaling to everyone like, hey, yeah. Yeah. I think, no, that's definitely fair. I know my employers, they haven't said exactly what it's going to look like once every, you know, vaccines are available for everyone. But it feels like it'll probably be up to the employees, whether they want to work from home or at work or a combination of the both. So I think a lot of business will probably go that route or do a mix of both. And at the same time, they may actually, you know, keep the same space or have a bit more just as a precaution to like just space out people a bit more. So, yeah, I don't think it's a bad play whatsoever.

I'm still uncertain to what level businesses will kind of embrace that. I know some have mentioned that they want to. I believe Shopify said that they basically will allow their employees to work wherever they want for, I think, the foreseeable future. So I think it will be interesting to see in the next few years what direction it goes. But I think it's probably overstated the death of the office space. Yeah. Yeah. overstated the death of the office space yeah yeah and it's interesting because you the management team may say one thing um but their actions might be counterintuitive like there's been several cases i'm pretty sure shopify got more floors at the at the well being built in toronto like recently so um it's funny you gotta you gotta watch what management says versus

what they actually do and and i think that their actions of of what they're doing are speaking that they want their staff um engaging with each other in person again and uh i could be dead wrong on this like i'm you know like say, you could fill all of Indigo chapters with books, stuff I'm wrong about, but I really believe that management teams want their people back. And I guess time will tell. Time will tell. Yeah, we can revisit that at the end of 2022. The end of 2040, we'll know for sure. Yeah, exactly. the end of 2040 we'll know for sure yeah exactly all right uh last one uh you have one more actually after this but alphabet i mean what a business google is but there's been strong you know strong demand for ad spend over the pandemic and um i think it's going to be even stronger when

experiential type businesses that we've been talking about reopen. Those are big, big customers for, uh, for Alphabet in terms of that, like cost per click, uh, for real time type experiences of people getting their, their, uh, their, uh, add right to the top of every search. The amount of online experiences and consumer experiences that start on Google is over 90%. And this is going to just be really good for Google. Like, for instance, we were talking about Expedia earlier. They spend $5 billion a year on digital advertising. And Alphabet gets a very large chunk of that um because when you are looking for flights or you're looking for hotels where do you go first you start you start with google so there's two things happening there

is google now has a very big travel business. Like if you're looking for flights, they can own the ecosystem in terms of actually showing you on their Google Flights platform. And if other businesses like Booking and like Expedia want to compete on that, the cost per click is very, very high. And Google will say, okay, sure. The margins are better for us if you actually just spend in our core business on our advertising platform. So the cost per click is very high on this type of stuff. With the economy reopening, there's lots of small businesses,

large businesses alike, who are going to ramp up ad spend when consumers are ready to go. Because saving rates are so high and the floodgates are going to open. So as much as we talk about some of these valuations on, not Alphabet, but some of the valuations just across many businesses being frothy with so much stimulus and all this other stuff, with interest rates where they are i know they raise them it's like oh let's freak out they're still so low and there's lots of reasons to be very bullish on the future with with uh you know things coming back full swing yeah yeah definitely um i mean i don't think you can go wrong with Google. Don't have much to add on that.

So I'll finish it up with my last one. So it's Ticker Fun, F-U-N, Cedar Fair. So if you're not familiar with Cedar Fair, and obviously they have like one of the best tickers, let's be honest, right? Fun. I love it. And so Cedar Fair fair they have amusement parks so the reason why i took cedar fair over disney or over six flags entertainment is because cedar fair owns canada's wonderlands

i wanted to keep that canadian flavor obviously pretty much all of their parks are in the u.s i mean their revenues just got crushed in 2020 for obvious reasons. They were closed for a big chunk of the year. There is also quite a bit of debt on the balance sheet. So make sure you do your due diligence there. Obviously, things have to reopen and go well for them this year. They did burn like over $ million dollars in cash last year so I mean it was not it was a tough year so this is really a deep value play you need to really make sure you do do your due diligence here but there could be a you know light at the end of the tunnel especially since most of their

operations a vast majority is in the US and we know that the US has been way faster to reopen so that should benefit the Cedar Fair so it's an interesting play a company I'm not very familiar with I knew about it but something people can look into if they're looking into really the deep value that would be that would be the space but obviously they'll benefit from reopening I just want to buy it for the ticker alone. It's guaranteed fun. Exactly. It might be a roller coaster ride, but it'll be fun.

It's interesting because Cedar Fair, I used to be really into roller coasters. We'd go to Florida every year and visit my grandma's place and it was it was in orlando right near some of the best amusement parks and bush gardens you know all all those ones and some of the unreal ones in in ohio and when cedar fair bought canada's wonderland which is only like 40 minutes from my house the amusement park got so much better you know all of a sudden they started building these huge coasters and it's a really good amusement park like it's actually very solid if you're into roller coasters they have some massive coasters and it's really well run it's just it's pretty expensive to go it's not i mean think for a full day it's really not that bad i'm a roller coaster

and i've been to canada's wonderland it was uh was a lot of fun i'd probably go again to be honest it's underrated but i feel like there's monetization like things are missing out on like there's no like winter stuff i could be completely wrong on this by the way there's probably like yeah it's very seasonal no no you're right it's very seasonal so that is the one thing i forgot to mention when you're looking at amusement park um you'll see the very seasonal business so there a lot of them will shut down during the the winter that i know and i actually uh i'm gonna correct myself from earlier because as you were talking, I noticed that Six Flags Entertainment actually owns La Ronde in Montreal, which is an amusement park in Montreal. So you could go Six Flags or Cedar Fair.

I haven't looked really in depth at Cedar Flag either, so they're probably in a similar situation to Cedar Fair. But something to consider if you're looking for deep value plays with a little kind of canadian taste to them yeah that's right yeah six flags owns all the ones in ohio like the really good ones yeah and i've been to that home too and it's a good one it's fun yeah yeah i feel like there's a monetization beyond the like the summer that they're missing out on. They do the Halloween haunt thing, which is pretty fun if you're in grade four. But honestly, I feel like they're missing out on some monetization, but who knows? All right, that does it for this one, guys.

If you like the pod, go ahead ahead give us five stars if you're on spotify and you don't you haven't pressed that follow button at the top there go ahead and do that really appreciate it helps us grow the pod because it is growing so so fast and we appreciate all of you for that if you go to getstockmarket.com you can go it'll redirect Stratosphere. We have a community forum there. You can search up any company we're talking about. Find 10-year financial statements because that is almost impossible to find anywhere else. And yeah, we'll catch you later. See you next week. Take care. Bye-bye. The Canadian investor is not to be taken as investment advice. Braden or Simone may own securities mentioned on this podcast.

Always make sure to do your own research and due diligence before making investment decisions.