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Investment Q&A

Not investment advice or solicitation to buy/sell securities. Do your own due diligence and/or consult an advisor.

Q: In response to another subscriber's question you said you "...would be more comfortable with Nestle. It trades at 19X earnings, with a 3.4% dividend. Debt is high, but so is free cash flow. Solid earnings growth is also expected from the company. It does not have a great record of beating earnings estimates, but overall we think it would also be fine as a consumer sector investment."

Nestle trades as NSRGY on the pink sheets. What would be the tax treatment if I bought and held this in my RRIF account? My understanding is that Swiss withholding taxes would be deducted at source and the after tax yield would be much less than 3.4%.
Read Answer Asked by David on December 08, 2016
Q: Re: Comment by Denis
Unilever trades under two primary symbols: UL and UN.

UL is traded on the London exchange and there are no withholding taxes. (but some minor administrative fee).
UN is also Unilever, but is traded in Amsterdam and there is Dutch witholding tax.

Hence for an RRSP or TFSA, one should always buy UL. As for a non-registered account, if the withholding tax on UN does not exceed 15% (the max foreign dividend tax credit offered by the CRA to individuals, to the best of my knowledge), it doesn't make any difference whether you purchase UL or UN.
Read Answer Asked by Gregory on December 05, 2016
Q: see eric reguly article ROB magazine last saturday re "socially committed corporation"
It is currently close to a 52 week low
Please advise re pros/cons buying now for tfsa; can i buy this directly on the european exchange or must i buy as Adr ; it seems to have 2 listings i.e. UN and UL
Many thanks
Read Answer Asked by Peter on December 02, 2016
Q: Can I have your thoughts on ZDI or an alternative you suggest. Yield and holdings look good. Also, what do you suggest as a foreign stock holding percentage for a portfolio not including US stocks. Looking to add foreign dividends and exposure with existing incoming Canadian dividends from portfolio. Does ZDI hold the stocks directly or through another ETF, I want to get as close as I can to the ownership of the stocks through the ETF avoiding any unnecessary extra fees.
Read Answer Asked by Nino on November 30, 2016
Q: I have a question about the effect of demonetization on Indian stocks in the short term and medium term. I currently own ZID ETF (down 10%), ICICI Bank IBN (breaking even) and Dr Reddy's lab RDY (down 8%). Should I continue to hold? Would appreciate your views on these.

Thanks
Read Answer Asked by satish on November 25, 2016
Q: Hi,
Ive own a few etfs (vgg and vfv). I have some other individual stocks as well, but the majority of my portfolio is in the etfs looking for long term growth. I have been thinking about adding emerging markets but am having a hard time rationalizing it. I saw that a few days ago you recommended VEE. Can you explain the value of this etf, or is there a better way to get some emerging markets exposure? VEE opened at 24.65 4 years ago and has been up and down a little, but is only at 28.84 today. Is 4 years not thinking long enough for this? Im just having a hard time seeing the value of adding it to my account since VFV has doubled and VFV is up 65% in less time.

Thanks!
Read Answer Asked by david on November 18, 2016