First quarter earnings results will continue to flow for several more weeks. Here are results on eight more that have come out since the May Canadian Edge was published Friday. Read More

Roughly half of the current 33 Portfolio holdings effectively have no further 2011 trust tax risk. They may falter as businesses if this recession goes on long enough, but that’s an entirely different issue from dividend cuts in response to the tax alone. And as we get closer to 2011, that distinction should translate into much higher share prices. Read More

Aggressive holding PennWest Energy Trust (TSX: PWT-U, NYSE: PWE) has trimmed its distribution again, this time from a monthly rate of CAD0.23 per unit to CAD0.15. Full details and rationale in management’s words are outlined in a press release posted on the trust’s website. Read More

Bird Construction Income Fund (TSX: BDT-U, OTC: BIRDF) reported 11.4 percent growth in fourth quarter revenue over 2007 levels. That was somewhat below the 37.5 percent full-year growth rate. But it reflects the continued strong health of the company’s contracting business, which increased order backlog by 14 percent last year to a record CAD1.1 billion. Read More

When we put together the March issue of Canadian Edge, investor sentiment on global markets--including Canada--had literally never been worse. Investors were willing to dump everything, including trusts that were weathering the recession as businesses and whose double-digit dividends were in no danger. Now, I’m starting to get questions from many of those same readers asking if we’ve passed the turning point, and if they should start backing up the truck to buy. Read More

Fourth quarter numbers for the remaining Canadian Edge Portfolio picks to report continue to trickle in at a patience-trying rate. The good news is when we’ve finally gotten numbers they’ve been very encouraging indeed. Read More

A USD100 per barrel decline in oil prices, a similar drop in natural gas, frozen credit markets, the falling Canadian dollar, 50 percent-plus declines in major stock market averages and a sharply contracting North American economy: Fourth quarter 2008 and first quarter 2009 are hardly the best of times for the 33 trusts, funds and high-dividend-paying corporations in the Canadian Edge Portfolio. Read More

The best news thus far in this, the season of preannouncements, is how our holdings outside the oil and gas production business have been maintaining and even increasing distributions over the past several months. That’s even as the global credit/economic crisis has intensified and their share prices have been subjected to unprecedented volatility. Read More

One reason energy trusts haven’t been cutting more prolifically is management teams’ systematic use of hedging to lock in prices over the summer. This held back returns in the first half of the year but is proving to be a major plus in the second half. And many trusts are using the money to reduce debt further, which improves both long-term sustainability and their ability to weather the current very difficult environment. Read More

The kind of statements these trusts are making in the face of market adversity is exactly why we want to keep owning them. This is not the time for wholesale liquidation, any more than it is to start doubling down. Stay the course. Read More