Investment Q&A

Q: I see members are looking for charts, with a watch list. These may be useful..
Barchart,com, or tmxmoney.com ....
You have Excellent service.!!!

Q: Instead of Globe Investor watchlists, that have lost much of their utility, I now use the barchart.com watchlists, free for up to 20 watchlists. Plenty of useful features, mainly technical ones. If you call up a ticker on your watchlist the chart allows you to access a comparison chart with up to three other tickers (a feature that disappeared with the revamped Google Finance). The bottom of the main page lists recent news items. (I recommended Barchart to Globe Investor, and now the Globe's watchlists are based on barchart data...)

Q: Hi,
Could you explain the difference between a compounded and an annualized return ?

Thank you

Q: Hi, about the recent question from Brad, who, like many of us is left clueless when recent changes to Globe Investor Watchlist app resulted in loss of a very useful feature which updated news as and when released from various news wire sources for the stocks on the watchlist. I am now using Yahoo Finance ( I think it's free), where I have uploaded my Watch List and most news releases are updated as and when out. The only issue is that, Yahoo Finance also posts Motley Fool/Accesswire articles, frequently, linked to these stocks, but are of no use for me. I am reasonably OK with this.

Q: This is for Brad,
I set up a lot of "alerts" at my online broker to get information relatively quickly.
You can also set up an account (free) at CISION (newswire.ca) under "MY SERVICE" to receive company releases by e-mail.
Hope it helps.
John

Q: Hi Peter
Please help me understand.
In your column in the Post today you claim “our model could care less about the TSX” and as independent investors we are “ free to see to our portfolio far more diversified than the Canadian market”.
So why does the Income Portfolio only have 7 % outside Canada?
Thx Frank

Q: As a follow up to the Greenblatt's formula for selecting value stocks from earlier today, can you please provide a shortlist of your favorite large caps meeting or coming close the "value" requirements and are listed on the TSX?

Thanks

Q: I've noticed very divergent opinions on the future of the Canadian dollar versus other currencies. My own opinion is it's headed down but, as you know, these things are difficult to predict especially when unknown political decisions can suddenly change things. Do you have opinions in this area? How do you anticipate the Canadian dollar will perform versus the US dollar, the Euro, the Pound, etc? Do you make recommendations regarding the amount of foreign exposure in investment portfolios based on forex implications. If so, where (US, European, emerging markets, etc.) and what percentage?
Feel free to choose your own time periods if you feel able to answer this.

Q: Can retail investors ask their broker(say Td) to make their trades Anonymous (broker #1) or is that just available to institutional players? I notice selling of Questor shares by anonymous and wonder if the seller is trying to make shares available on the cheap before next week's management meetings with institutions and analysts.

Q: Perhaps Ron, who was considering Russian ETF's could read the book "Red Notice" by Bill Browder to get a handle on how business is done in Russia.

Q: Hi,

I often read in your commentary that a "...the market cap of XYZ Corp. is simply too small....". With that thought in mind, can you provide some insight as to what is "too small" and at what point (in terms of market cap) that a company escapes the purgatory of being "too small". I ask because I find this somewhat counterintuitive. It would seem to me that a company that is poorly run (but has a larger market cap) can often get more attention than a company that is well run but is much smaller.

Q: If a company is listed on the TSX Venture exchange and also traded OTC in the US can you purchase on one and sell on the other?

Q: Can you explain how the over the counter market works? I was looking at the price for Reliq on TSXV and then on the over the counter market, there was a .50 cent difference in the prices when I was looking. Thanks

Q: Does the data in the company section come from Bloomberg ? Any chance we could export the detailed quote and ratios in excel to compare companies ? How is the leverage ratio calculated ? Thank you

Q: I have a question on portfolio allocations. If I have a 50% fixed income and 50% equity mix and I look a no stock being more than 5% does that mean 10 stocks at full positions (5 % of full portfolio) or 20 stocks (5% of equity portion). 10 stock positions seems quite concentrated.

Q: You, at 5i, represent yourselves as fundamental analysts but according to your answer to Darcy on April 5th, you show yourselves to be at least aware of technical analysis as well, with your answer of the death cross re ATD.B. You might be interested to know that, on the weekly charts, the 20 week moving average just crossed below the 50, often considered to be a selling point for many long-term investors. As well, the weekly RSI broke below the 50 line as did the Full Stochastics and both lines are still pointing downward. There is a support band between about $50 to $55 with the current price at $55.58. The price could easily drop to $50 or less.
Technical analysis is more an indication of investors' attitude than is fundamental analysis and I assume your are still okay with ATD.B's fundamentals or you would have sold it out of your portfolios; is that a fair assessment?
(I gave up timing the market a long time ago as I could never maker any money at it. But I am still fascinated by technical analysis and watch it, I guess, as a hobby).

Q: What are Robo advisers and would you recommend their services and if so, whom? Thanks, Bill

Q: Hi Peter, Ryan,and Team,

The Motley Fool had an article called "3 Canadian Dividend Aristocrats With Dangerously High Payout Ratios".

They cite current and 2018 payout ratios for these three stocks:
CGX: 150% and 144%
ECI: 182% and 124%
PKI: 340% and 329%. (yikes!)

They end the article with this statement:
"It’s important for investors to understand the sustainability of a company’s dividend. These aristocrats all have a history of raising dividends, but their high payout ratios are reason for concern. This does not necessarily mean they are bad investments, but investors looking for sustainable dividends may be better off looking elsewhere."

Should this article be taken with a 'grain of salt'? Are their payout ratio numbers valid? What about the Motley Fool in general? Is it worth reading their articles?

Thanks as always for your level-headed and pertinent advice.

Q: Hi 5iResearch Team,

Just wondering if there is a site(sites) one can go to for short positions on both Canadian and US equities.

Cheers,

Q: A few questions if I may:

1. I gather that Preferreds are becoming increasingly rare and that they are concentrated in financial stocks. Is that also true in the U.S.?
2. Is there a site that lists or focuses on Canadian Preferred shares, or similar in the U.S.?
3. In a gradually increasing interest rate environment I assume it then follows that Preferred share prices would be under downward pressure?

Thank you!