2022 Edition: TSX Tax-Loss Selling List

The TSX has made quite a surge up this quarter, and year-to-date it is only down about 6%. That said, there are plenty of stocks deep in the red for the year. Some of them will have equity investors so underwater in them that unlocking capital losses will push prices even further down.

2022-11-21-TSXTaxLossSaleList (Excel version)
2022-11-21-TSXTaxLossSaleList (PDF version)

Attached is a spreadsheet that contains in rank-order, the year-to-date losers of the TSX, with an arbitrarily set market cap floor of $50 million and everything under 25% year-to-date.

There are some aberrations here and there that you will have to adjust for (dual class stocks, Dorel performing a massive special distribution, etc.) but for the most part there is a lot to go with here for research crusades.

I was floored by the number of companies on this list – 209 – and 81 stocks went down more than 50%.

There is a very obvious split between these companies. Most of the severe losers do not make money (and consequently do not give out dividends), while the second half of the list (between 44% and 25% losses for the year) approximately half the companies do exhibit a trailing 12 month positive EPS characteristic and more than half of them gave out dividends. Some of these companies are quite credible.

Screening these companies for value is an interesting exercise. The whole market environment from 12 months ago has completely transformed – specifically interest rates have gone from 0.25% to 3.75% with a very probable rise on December 7, technology companies have been completely murdered (witness the rise and fall of Shopify, down 73% for the year and no longer a top-10 component of the TSX Composite… they’re 11th) and instead of marijuana companies and gold mining companies being pervasively on this list, we have a much broader spectrum of sectors represented.

Some of the IPOs have exhibited extremely poor performance, especially in the software sector – for example, Vancouver companies Copperleaf (TSX: CPLF) and Thinkific (TSX: THNC) are down 83% for the year. Those option grants aren’t getting exercised in my lifetime. Both of these companies have a ton of cash on the balance sheet, have little debt, are losing money, but their market caps are still considerably above their book value. Will all of that software R&D (expensed and hence not on the asset side of the balance sheet) be realized in the form of profits sometime?

With this much breadth there are a few prospects I’ve been eyeing, but just like a tiger waiting in the bushes, there is a right time to pounce.

Anything on this list that catches your attention?