Online sales help offset lockdowns

Article Excerpt

CANADIAN TIRE CORP. is a buy. The retailer (Toronto symbols CTC (voting) $205 and CTC.A (non-voting) $168; Conservative Growth Payer Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 60.8 million; Market cap: $10.2 billion; Dividend yield: 2.8%; Dividend Sustainability Rating: Highest; www.canadiantire.ca) will increase its quarterly dividend by 3.3% with the March 2021 payment. Shareholders will then receive $1.175 a share instead of $1.1375. The new annual rate of $4.70 yields a sound 2.8% for the class A shares (2.3% for the voting shares). The company has had to close its stores in Ontario as the province acts to slow the second wave of COVID-19 infections. Like the spring 2020 lockdowns, Canadian Tire’s online business should help offset those lost sales. In the first nine months of 2020, e-commerce sales soared 211% to over $1 billion (10% of total sales) from a year earlier. Canadian Tire is a buy. buy…