Investment Q&A

Q: Thank you for all your guidance over the last year. Most helpful.
My undisciplined approach to buying and selling has led me into a 25% weighting in consumer discretionary and cyclical sectors and only 5% in utilities and tecom sectors combined. I'm nearing retirement and will depend on dividend income. Therefore I'm thinking I should sell some and buy the other. Out of BYD, XTC, CGX, CCL.B, ATD.B, DOL, MG, WPK which would you sell? Or would you just reduce all evenly? What are your favourite utilities/telecoms with good secure dividends at this time? I already hold half weighting in T, BEP.UN, ECI. Maybe increase those and add others like AQN, BCE, FTS?

Q: My wife and I both have TFSAs. We are in our eighties and the proceeds from TFSAs will go to our children on the second death. Would you consider MFC as a suitable investment for both of our accounts in 2016? Do you have better suggestions?

Q: With the current market conditions in energy, is CFL positioned for growth in 2016? At their current price the dividend is ~10%, but they have lost over 50% on their price in a very short time. Are they a prospective long term growth, or likely to fail if the energy sector continues to hurt.

Q: My strategy for TFSA's differs from most because of age and income needs. Would you consider CYH to be a good choice for a monthly income or would you have a better choice. Thanks for guiding us through the most difficult of years (2015) and good investing to all 5i members and staff in 2016.

Q: I have some money to invest that I may need in 3-5 years as income but would like some up side other than the amount the bank pays. I have been thinking of putting it into a bond fund but with rising interest rates do you think that the potential capital loss will be offset by an overall gain in this time period. My overall holdings is mostly in equities and I would like to start to increase my bond holdings. Also do you think PH&N bond fund is a well run fund. What do you think a neutral interest rate for today is. Thanks

Q: I am considering zwu for income with utility exposure - an area rather beat-up last year. Could you comment on the asset mix in the fund and if you consider the dividend sustainable? I can't find any payout ratio listed, and would appreciate this number if you can find/calculate it.

Thank-you

Q: Hi folks,what would be your picks for companies in solar industry,any good ones in Canada? as feel longer term,there could be great opportunities in this field,thanks as always

Q: Thanks for a great year of service - with your great stock picks and advice I am well ahead of the markets with lots of winners.
As allowed I will add $5500 to my TFSA January 1st. I am thinking of adding to positions I already hold in my TFSA - either adding to MSI or CSW.a which would still keep them well below 3% of overall portfolio. I find both stocks a bit confusing as both are steady eady dividend companies but both are down over the last few months - Corby's considerably for the year for some reason - down despite another special dividend. I believe both companies have very safe dividends but wondering which would you add to given some sort of catalyst that might take their stock price higher. I realize this is a tough call given in very different (but stable) types of markets.

Much thanks

Q: Hello,

Now that the feds have started raising rates, what is your take on REITS in general? Is is a good time start a position for long term hold?
If yes, what are your preferred ones for a 20K investment?

Thanks
Marios

Q: Hi Peter & Staff: On Dec 1/15 I purchased 1500 shares of TCL.A.@ 21.37. Reports from Thomson Reuters and S&P Capital were positive. Ten days later the stock had lost 20%. Do you know why? I am not interested in a 3 to 5 year hold so should I just take the loss and move on? Can you recommend a replacement? Perhaps I should have contacted you before buying. Your service is much appreciated. Thank you.

Ron Noble

Q: Like your opinion on Chorus Aviatione for my tax-free savings account. Merry Christmas and a happy new year to you. Jack

Q: I am retired and have some cash sitting in a bank savings account earning very little. I am thinking about taking a portion of that cash and buying a short duration Corporate Bond etf such as RBO,RQI or RQE. What are your thoughts on these funds/etfs and do you have any other suggestions.

Thanks Ken

Q: i think the worlds coal use for power is going to decline as time marches on.Coal has other uses ,would this be enough to keep wte . viable. thank you.

Q: Could you comment on yieldcos vs parent companies from the point of view of the individual investor. I understand that a yieldco should provide higher yield and more predictable dividend growth. But is there a tradeoff in terms of expected growth in the share price? Also, is one - ie, the yieldco vs the parent - more attractive than the other in registered accounts? I am particularly interested in ENB vs ENF.

Q: What is your opinion of this high interest savings ETF. Is this a safe place to park 100K in order to get a small return (1%) while waiting for an investment opportunity.

Q: Looks pretty good right now-PE 5.7--EPS 3.03--Div 3.95%--Rev and Inc UP--
fundamentals look good--Insider plus Company buying shs--1st two weeks of Dec dropped $4 dont know why?--US$ helping profits
What do you think of them?
Best of the season to everybody

Q: Wow...a lot of talk about pipeline recently at i5R. I have a 5% sector position in Pipelines, equal parts of ALA, IPL, KEY and PPL...plus the start of a full position in ENB, all in a registered account. Seeing how KEY has momentum, I am pondering replacing ALA with KEY. And also seeing the differential of p/e metric for PPL and IPL, I am considering replacing PPL with IPL. Another consideration is to concentrate in fewer positions, aka cutting down on the number of positions to monitor. What say you about these two ideas?.....Tom

Q: Hi, I'm sitting at about 4% BCE and 2% Telus of my total portfolio. I'd like to add a bit to Telus but I'm concerned I'm already at a full weight for telecoms. Can I add some more and, if so, how much? Thank you.

Q: Hello 5i Team,

I am looking to add to the dividend growth portion of my portfolio and want to increase my positions in both Telus and Agrium to full positions (5-6% weightings). Would you recommend waiting to add or would you be comfortable adding at todays prices for a long term hold?

Thanks again for the great service,

Keith

Q: As we all know the materials sector including oil, gold, non precious metals, fertilizer etc has been devastated over the past few years. I have always held some large cap names in all of these such as Teck, Agrium, Potash, Goldcorp, SU, Chevron,WCP,VET, IMO, Exxon -Mobile, even XEG, in reasonable weights for portfolio diversification purposes. Now I am am 59 and on the cusp of retirement. My sole retirement income will be dividends from my portfolio and CPP. Do you think it in the future it would be wise to avoid the materials sector altogether at this stage in my investing career. My current plan is to just hold on to my current holdings as their value has dropped so much that selling them will not raise all that much cash and I believe if I am patient there will be a rebound in materials and the respective stock prices. Maybe I can get out of these positions when they rally again in a few years, avoiding them altogether for the rest of my retirement, and continue to collect my dividends from the more stable dividend growers in my diversified portfolio. Unless of course these stocks fall out of favour next.