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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: I am 70 years old, been retired for 14 years, and can't risk losing capital. Thus my portfolio is currently 100% in fixed income.... 65% in laddered 1-5 year GIC's, 10% in bond ETF's (CBO, CLF, XBB), 5% in preferred shares, and 20% in cash. In the preferred share category, I currently hold CPD, HPR, and ZPR equally. Given a steadily increasing interest rate environment, would you recommend selling CPD and adding to HPR and ZPR, due to their leanings towards rate re-sets? Is a 5% total weighting for preferreds appropriate for this fixed income portfolio? What do you recommend for the remaining cash, given my mandate for "safe" investments? Should I stick with additional GIC's or expand the bond allocation? Thanks!
Read Answer Asked by Paul W on September 18, 2017
Q: I am thinking of putting a fairly large sum of unregistered money into Altagas just to get the dividend. I am not overly concerned about the share price unless something catastrophic happened to the company. I realize that sometimes the strongest of companies can go out of business so before committing I am wondering about the chances of something really bad happening to this company. Perhaps I am safer with a covered call etf strategy (but getting less of a dividend)? Your thoughts?
Read Answer Asked by Bradley on September 15, 2017
Q: hello 5i:
could you detail the differences between HFP and HPR, please, and what type of interest rate environment would be optimum for each? Would holding BOTH be a strategy and is it necessary?
And, could you include backtest results as to what could be expected in the case of an extreme drawdown?
thanks
Paul L
Read Answer Asked by Paul on September 14, 2017
Q: I'm interested in VGK, VWO and VPL. They've all been doing quite well for some time now. Would you wait for some weakness before buying, or do you expect that all these funds will continue to outperform? I notice that the first two funds are doing a bit better than their Canadian-dollar counterparts, VE and VEE. Would you attribute that mainly to the composition of the funds? Thanks very much for your advice.
Read Answer Asked by Brian on September 12, 2017
Q: I'm switching from mutual funds to ETF's and making a portfolio makeover. I have 3 years to retire and wanted to make sure I chose the correct Canadian Fixed Income ETF (at 40% bonds and 60% equities). I'm looking at HAB, ZCS, VSB, ZAG and ZEF. Of these 5 ETF's which one should I go with?
Read Answer Asked by Bert on September 11, 2017
Q: My wife and I are retired with pension income sufficient to cover monthly expenses. We are looking for some income and a bit of growth from our investments. Wondering if an investment in XIN AND XTR would help us reach our goal? Is a return of capital involved with either ETF? Also, could you suggest other ETF's that would help us to build a solid, well-divesified retirement portfolio of ETF's. Thanks so much for you guidance.
Read Answer Asked by Les on September 07, 2017
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