Here's info for the next Ottawa share club meeting from the share club email list:Dear Share Club Member

Our final session of the Spring will be held next Tuesday, May 15 at 7.00 pm, at the Ottawa Citizen Building on Baxter Road.

This participatory meeting will be led by Sherwin Waldman from our club and David Waldman, a credit analyst from TD Bank.They will talk about the following:

In today’s volatile markets and in a quest for reliable returns, investors are looking for higher dividend yielding stocks and alternative investments. On Tuesday we are going to take a look at mortgages and mortgage funds with a brief look at REITS. One of the central themes will focus on due diligence. As a group, we will have the opportunity to participate in an actual case study and you will have the opportunity to decide if you are going to make the loan. We will deal with issues such as which accounts should you hold these alternative investments in and what the advantages and dangers are.

Be ready to take a test to determine your knowledge.

On another topic, as some of you may be recall at our meetings Bob Mackenzie has carried out a number of company analyses using value-based methods to determine the intrinsic value of a company. For those interested in this topic I should like to draw your attention to the following:

• The Little Book of Valuation by Aswath Damodaran;
• A web site to accompany the book allows you to look at valuation models, and carry out calculations: www.wiley,com/go/littlebookofvaluation

Not all of you have the time or the inclination to value companies. But this book claims to give you the tools if you choose to try, and it will provice you some shortcuts in case you do not.