Updating IMPERIAL OIL LTD. and TELUS CORP.

Article Excerpt

IMPERIAL OIL LTD. $40 earned $0.25 a share in the three months ended June 30, 2009. That’s down 80.5% from $1.28 a year earlier. The drop was mainly caused by falling crude-oil and natural-gas prices. As well, its Cold Lake and 25%-owned Syncrude oil-sands projects were closed for maintenance during the quarter, which added to its costs. However, oil prices have more than doubled since last February’s low of $32 U.S. a barrel. Higher selling prices and a return to full production at its oil-sands operations should help Imperial’s third-quarter earnings. Best Buy. TELUS CORP. $34 continues to attract new wireless subscribers, which helps it offset losses of traditional phone customers to cable companies. In the second quarter of 2009, Telus added 111,000 wireless subscribers, down 36.8% from a year earlier. Still, Telus ended the quarter with 6.3 million wireless users, or 7.8% more than a year ago. Average spending per wireless user fell 6.6%, but this should improve with the economy. Buy. Buy…