Q: A comment on your recent blog...You say the TSX is up 14% year to date and yes, we should be happy with that. But a little context here; for those of us who are in for the long term, that is following a dismal quarter. If we go back to the end of September, the 9 month return is an anemic 1.95%.
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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 have a non-registered US dollar account with a discount (bank) brokerage. I wish to transfer some of the cash in the account to Canadian dollars. What is the most cost-effective route to achieve this. Thank you in advance
Q: Considering only the dividends and disregarding the other differences, what is more likely, that a strong covered call etf such as ZWH would stop paying a dividend, or that an annuity purchased from a major bank would stop making payments? Or are both extremely unlikely events regardless of the economic scenario?
Q: Do you have any guidelines for individual stock weightings based on market cap using less than 1 billion for small cap, 1 to 10 as mid cap and greater than 10 billion as large cap? Would the weightings apply to both the initial purpose and current market value?
Q: Please clarify which kinds of securities should be held in non-registered accounts vs RRIFs and TFSAs. I have held yield-assets in our RRIFs and capital assets in our TFSAs and personal accounts, preferring to pay capital gains taxes on appreciation in personal accounts than paying full rates on capital appreciation upon withdrawals from RRIFs. What is your advice and are there exceptions?
Q: Hello Peter,
Always get notification of Toronto Money Shows. Have you ever thought of coming out West? Maybe SK or Alberta? Thanks,
Wes
Always get notification of Toronto Money Shows. Have you ever thought of coming out West? Maybe SK or Alberta? Thanks,
Wes
Q: Philip asked about a site for historical p/e for companies. Morningstar is great, go to the site search a company and under the valuation category it has 10 year data on p/e, p/b, p/s, PEG, etc
Q: how do exchange traded bonds work? do they pay interest semi annually? do they have a maturity date? do they have a credit rating? do you like the ag growth issue or the Cargojet issue? thanks for your input Richard
Q: I have often thought it would be useful to look at charts showing how the PE ratio (and other financial ratios, for that matter) of a company has changed over a lengthy period of time, say 10 years or more. Could 5i provide such charts? Are they easily available anywhere else?
Q: Kenneth asked this morning about moving AQN from the U.S. side of his RIF account back to the Canadian side, at a 2% exchange rate. Is it correct that one must pay FX fees when moving a stock between sides? I had thought that this is another facet of Norbit's Gambit that would eliminate the fees.
Q: I own convertible debentures shares and many of them have been redeemed before their maturity date in the past few years . The most recent case is DII.DB.U which is being redeemed 5 months before maturity. Why do companies do this? Are they saving that much that is in their best interests not to pay the outstanding interest amount for the remainder of the period to maturity?
Q: I'd like to thank you for the Analytics walk through presentation yesterday and for answering my questions related thereto. I am in the process of downsizing from a house to a condo and have every intention of purchasing your portfolio management service as soon as my move is completed. Mike
Q: In your opinion how many years is short ,medium,long term for investment purposes?
Q: Stock Alerts....I would like your take on how to set Stock Alerts.
I have Income, Balanced and US Portfolios and I cast an eye on the stock prices generally on a daily basis, aka at the end of the day. But with this and that, and especially in the outdoor summer months, I thought it would be worthwhile, prudent to have stock alerts set to give me a heads up when a stock is hitting a new high or a 52 week one....and that's easy to do. But on the downside, what should I do to be aware if a stock is breaking down or taking a noise dive? Like what parameters or percentages or is there something else I should consider in setting downside Stock Alerts? ...........Tom
I have Income, Balanced and US Portfolios and I cast an eye on the stock prices generally on a daily basis, aka at the end of the day. But with this and that, and especially in the outdoor summer months, I thought it would be worthwhile, prudent to have stock alerts set to give me a heads up when a stock is hitting a new high or a 52 week one....and that's easy to do. But on the downside, what should I do to be aware if a stock is breaking down or taking a noise dive? Like what parameters or percentages or is there something else I should consider in setting downside Stock Alerts? ...........Tom
Q: HI 5i team, recently you mentioned couple companies with a growth rate of 50%. Do you mean revenue or earning or some measure ? Will you please list top 20 Canadian companies with such growth prospect. Thanks.
Q: Hi 5i team, if I remember right you do caution small investor like us buy and sell in the first hour of each trading day. Is there any reason behind this practice ?
Q: Like other members I am searching around for a good watchlist system. I have looked at TMX money but am somewhat confused about their platform. I can't see if there are any fees associated with their service. How do they make their money? I have not registered with them yet.
Thank you,
Paul
Thank you,
Paul
Q: Peter,
I am trying to get a handle on the way the industry calculates debt to equity ratio. I look at ATD.B and on 5-I it shows .84. Morningstar shows 1.17. They don't seem to include other LT liabilities. My calculation shows 15,577 / 7563 = 2.05 ( April 2019 YE).
Please advise the calculation method that is consistent in the industry so I can compare apples to apples with different companies.
Thank you,
Paul
I am trying to get a handle on the way the industry calculates debt to equity ratio. I look at ATD.B and on 5-I it shows .84. Morningstar shows 1.17. They don't seem to include other LT liabilities. My calculation shows 15,577 / 7563 = 2.05 ( April 2019 YE).
Please advise the calculation method that is consistent in the industry so I can compare apples to apples with different companies.
Thank you,
Paul
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Vanguard Conservative ETF Portfolio (VCNS $31.77)
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Vanguard Balanced ETF Portfolio (VBAL $37.29)
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Vanguard Growth ETF Portfolio (VGRO $43.60)
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Vanguard All-Equity ETF Portfolio (VEQT $54.70)
Q: Hi
My question is about structuring and managing a portfolio across multiple registered and unregistered accounts. Please forgive if this question has been asked before.
Between 4 family members (including two young children) we have 11 trading accounts on the go, including 5 unregistered (3 Cdn and 2 US), 2 tfsa’s, 2 rrsp’s, and 2 resp’s. My approach to date has generally been to try to diversify within each account and try not to duplicate between accounts, with an eye to overall diversification.
This results in three problems (at least): sub-optimal diversification within and across accounts, too many holdings (which are difficult to monitor) and a low average $ value per holding. For example, 11 accounts times ten positions per account is 110 holdings. As for low value, a 10% holding on a $50,000 registered account is $5,000, which represents only 0.5% of an aggregate $1,000,000 value (example).
I have been thinking of treating all of the accounts holistically rather than individually while accounting for tax considerations of course. My goal is to try to get the number of holdings down to 20 - 30, with an average value of 3% - 5% of aggregate portfolio value. I find the main difficulty to be in structuring the lower value accounts.
Two approaches I have been mulling over:
1) Scrap the individual account diversification approach and perhaps only hold 1 - 3 positions in lower value accounts. This approach would probably mean that no account on its own will be diversified but the aggregate portfolio will be (hopefully).
2) Try to maintain the account diversification approach by investing in only one etf per account until the account eventually reaches a size sufficient to hold more positions (then I suppose the approach would flip to the first approach). The idea being that each account would hold a different etf (and at least be somewhat diversified) that would contribute to the overall diversification of the aggregate portfolio.
Do you have any comments or guidance on managing multiple accounts? How do investment professionals manage their own family accounts? Any best practices that you are aware of, or good articles that you can direct me to? Any considerations besides tax; for example, how do you apportion risk between family members and accounts?
Thanks
Derek
My question is about structuring and managing a portfolio across multiple registered and unregistered accounts. Please forgive if this question has been asked before.
Between 4 family members (including two young children) we have 11 trading accounts on the go, including 5 unregistered (3 Cdn and 2 US), 2 tfsa’s, 2 rrsp’s, and 2 resp’s. My approach to date has generally been to try to diversify within each account and try not to duplicate between accounts, with an eye to overall diversification.
This results in three problems (at least): sub-optimal diversification within and across accounts, too many holdings (which are difficult to monitor) and a low average $ value per holding. For example, 11 accounts times ten positions per account is 110 holdings. As for low value, a 10% holding on a $50,000 registered account is $5,000, which represents only 0.5% of an aggregate $1,000,000 value (example).
I have been thinking of treating all of the accounts holistically rather than individually while accounting for tax considerations of course. My goal is to try to get the number of holdings down to 20 - 30, with an average value of 3% - 5% of aggregate portfolio value. I find the main difficulty to be in structuring the lower value accounts.
Two approaches I have been mulling over:
1) Scrap the individual account diversification approach and perhaps only hold 1 - 3 positions in lower value accounts. This approach would probably mean that no account on its own will be diversified but the aggregate portfolio will be (hopefully).
2) Try to maintain the account diversification approach by investing in only one etf per account until the account eventually reaches a size sufficient to hold more positions (then I suppose the approach would flip to the first approach). The idea being that each account would hold a different etf (and at least be somewhat diversified) that would contribute to the overall diversification of the aggregate portfolio.
Do you have any comments or guidance on managing multiple accounts? How do investment professionals manage their own family accounts? Any best practices that you are aware of, or good articles that you can direct me to? Any considerations besides tax; for example, how do you apportion risk between family members and accounts?
Thanks
Derek
Q: Good morning, i have taken the Canadian Securities Course, but what else would you recommend to get more educated and familiar with all of the financial ratios in a company, thanks? They seem to have different meaning from industry to industry.