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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: Hi Amazing Team,

Don asked a question today about Canadian Western Bank: With Alberta hurting and oil prices crashing would you consider the western bank safe. Your answer began with: We would be cautious on CWB....

My question is please: I have a significant CWB bond maturing Jun 16 2022. It is in the money. Would you be inclined to hold or sell?

Many, many thanks for what you are doing in this time of crisis. Michael
Read Answer Asked by Michael on March 20, 2020
Q: I am wondering about Bond ETFs and why they are dropping when interest rates are at historic lows. Does this have to do with liquidity issues of the etf's, with people trying to sell them so fast that the managers of the ETF cannot sell the underlying assets quick enough? Does that mean that the underlying assets of the ETF are actually much higher than the price to buy the ETFs themselves? As an example I am considering the 9% drop of ZAG that occurred today.
Read Answer Asked by Federico on March 20, 2020
Q: I Have held these bond etfs for a long time and they are down considerably. (-16 & -30% -9.00 % -5.16%)and still counting

My question is :
Do I have any reasonable reasonable expectation of ever recovering the capital if I hold them ?
Or I am reasonably safe in selling them and putting what is left in a better place ?


Read Answer Asked by Leonard on March 20, 2020
Q: I know very little about bonds and most ad advisers suggest some bonds for a 73 year old like me. Is this a good time to add bonds to a RRIF? If so, what bonds or bond funds do you recommend?
Thank you for your service.
Don
Read Answer Asked by Donald on March 20, 2020
Q: Dear 5i
With the recent chaos in the markets i had gone to mostly cash but kept the bond ETF`s ( CLF , CBO , XBB , ZAG ) , only to watch them go down quite a bit as well . It's a bit concerning to think that i was well protected to the down side ( at least i thought i was ) , only to see bonds go down . You would think with interest rates going down ( generally good for bonds ) bond yields going down that bond prices typically go up . But such haven`t been the case . In light of all this should i be temporarily reducing my bond exposure or is the worse over do you think for dropping bond prices ?
Would appreciate your insight .
Thanks
Bill C.
Read Answer Asked by Bill on March 18, 2020
Q: XRB is 100% government bonds and is now trading at a substantial discount to NAV. How can this be as the bonds are all government issue and (hopfully) the government is not going to default? Is this another case of dumping anything for cash or is something else happening? Would you enter a small position here as hedge against inflation down the road?
Read Answer Asked by Ronald on March 18, 2020
Q: Do you know why GOC 5YR bond yield are rising so much today? I'm surprised at how theses rates have held up... do you know why?
Read Answer Asked by Darcy on March 17, 2020
Q: Hello 5i,
What do you think of REM as an income stock for a retired person?
Thank you.
Lisa
Read Answer Asked by Elisabeth on March 17, 2020
Q: There were a couple of questions today on BMO's ZCS. Both your replies suggested not too much concern holding the short term corporates over a longer period of time. Do you have differing thoughts on ZCM and ZLC? BBB rated bonds in ZCS, ZCM, ZLC are 36%, 58%, and 39% respectively.

Also of note all three seem to have a large discount to NAV. Yesterday between 4.3 to 5.5% (ZLC being the highest). Not sure that is normal, or not, as I don't look that closely and BMO doesn't appear to post the info.

Thanks
Read Answer Asked on March 16, 2020
Q: Interest rates are dropping but bond funds are getting clobbered - they normally would go up - is there fear that huge numbers of companies are going bankrupt such that bonds will not be repaid? It doesn't seem to matter whether short term or long term bonds - they are going down. XBB down 3%, ZAG down 3%, ZCS down 4% today so far. This seems crazy. Is this a buy opportunity for corporate bond funds or is the great depression about to happen and everything should be sold into cash?
Read Answer Asked by David on March 13, 2020
Q: Hi, I am surprised bond index funds have not performed great at this time either? Which ones are doing well? Today is another bad day...investors brought to their knees..I personally have several lessons learned..One of them being never feel shy to take profits off the table due to tax consequences. .The second one being, the day you feel like selling your bond fund in order to purchase more equities ( while assuming that this would be for the short term)..is the day you should be selling more equities.. cheers,

Shyam
Read Answer Asked by Shyam on March 13, 2020
Q: If you were holding a Real Return Bond here, would you convert to a regular Bond fund? Or are bonds also not safe in the current environment? They also have been negative in the last week which is puzzling. This is for a company pension so my options are limited to funds - or daily interest savings.
Read Answer Asked by Kel on March 13, 2020
Q: I have both CLF and ZAG in my bond portfolio. CLF continues to go up as interest rates come down. ZAG was doing the same until the last two days. Do you think the drop in ZAG is due to the industrial bond component and business credit risk? If there is fear that businesses will default on their bonds, it might be appropriate to take profits in this fund.
Read Answer Asked by Ken on March 13, 2020
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