Chan's Personal Blog

After mulling over the Tim Hortons' (THI) IPO (initial public offering of stock), I have decided to throw my hat into the ring, and I'm all in. I've been following the news around this IPO very closely in the last few days, and in the last 48 hours alone, a ton has happened.

The biggest development was on Monday, the Tim Hortons' IPO got a huge endorsement by a very influential stock analyst. The guy's name is Jim Cramer, and he has a very popular show on CNBC called Mad Money. Over 500,000 people watch his show every night for his stock picks. (I'm one of them.) In the first part of his show, he issued a triple buy on Tim Hortons.

Hours after he made his endorsement, demand for the stock surged even more, and Tim Hortons decided to increase the price of their IPO. It was supposed to trade at $21-$23CDN per share, but now they've moved it up to $23-$25CDN per share, and the stock hasn't even started trading on the public markets yet. They boosted it because of the insane amount of demand they're getting on the stock.

In either case, I'm just getting some pre-game jitters right now because it's the night before the big trade. If the stock market had a Stanley Cup playoff, or a Superbowl, then this would be the playoffs.

I'm planning on getting up tomorrow at 6a.m. to get my order in for THI shares. It's also more nerve wracking this time because some of my friends are putting money on this stock based partially on my advice. The only thing worse than losing your own money in a stock is losing someone else's money in a stock. I sure hope I'm right about this one. But, I've done the homework on this stock, and I think the arguments I've presented are sound, and Jim Cramer cited a few sources that I covered as well.

I've also had a few people tell me that I'm crazy for following the hype on this stock. Some people say that this is a super risky move on my part because no one knows where the stock price is going. I hope I can prove this unbelievers wrong.

Anyway, tomorrow's trading day is going to be absolutely crazy. Hopefully I can bag a few shares of THI before it blows past the $30CDN per share mark. Time for bed. Gotta be up early for this one. The early bird gets the timbit!

Note: To anyone who hasn't talked to me directly via e-mail about THI, be aware of the strategy. Buy on the first day, wait for it to peak in a few days, and sell it all off. Wait for the price to come back down to normal prices, and buy into it again if you're in it for the long run. The first week strategy is a TRADE and not a long-term investment. I don't want anyone buying this thing tomorrow morning at market price, limit your orders to at most $29-$30/share. You've been warned. I don't want anyone coming to me in a few months complaining about how much money they lost because of this blog article. I'm not responsible for any money you gain or lose on this investment, and this does not qualify as financial advice. This was written for entertainment purposes only.

I've been dreaming about this coming week for a long time now. What we are about to witness is a defining moment in Canadian history. Is it a potential new Liberal Party leader? No. Is it a Canucks game? No.

I am talking about Tim Hortons finally issuing its stock to the public! This is called an initial public offering (IPO), and they're issuing 29 million shares to the public. The stock symbol will be THI, and the starting price will be between $21-$23 CDN. The stock will trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE), and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

I previously talked about this in an earlier story entitled, "Never Doubt The Might Tim Hortons."

This last week I've been coaching one of my friends on investing and such, so I've been thinking a lot about the subject of investing. It got me thinking about what I was like when I first jumped into investing, and I'll describe it later in the article. After going through my records, it looks like in two weeks, it'll be my fifth anniversary as an investor.

It has been quite an interesting five years in the market. I've seen the dot com bubble implode. I've seen the markets crash because of 9/11. I've seen two gold rushes, where the price of gold goes through the roof, and I've seen America enter two wars. I've seen interest rates drop down to practically nothing. More recently, I've seen the housing bubble build up, and oil prices go through the roof. It has been a wild ride, but I've learned a lot about investing, and thank God, I'm still in the black.