Investment Q&A

Q: Price movements in the US after-hours market have had me puzzled for months. I have noticed *unexplained* spikes in share prices in after-hours trading. As a simple test , I set up price alerts on a dozen Nasdaq-listed companies and asked Schwab’s platform to alert me if the prices fell by significant percentages— amounts that were , say, 20% below closing prices, and that price drop was not attributable to earnings releases or other news .
To my surprise, the platform sent me far more alerts than I expected. All alerts were after hours.

Here is an example on trading in NVDA after 5 PM November 8, 2023. NVDA traded almost 35 million shares during the day within the price range: US$459.68 – US$468.67 (a tight range of 0.21% , from high to low).

At 5:17 PM I received an alert that NVDA had fallen below US$393. I checked on nasdaq.com for the after-hours trading. The low price shows is shown at 5:35 PM as US$228.29, after which shares went back to US$461, apparently soon after.

The above is not necessarily an isolated case, going by my alerts being triggered. Notwithstanding that my test is simplistic , I ask if you have any knowledge of how, and why this happens.
(Screen shots below but I am not sure if your system will show images).

Q: Good Day.
Wondering if you could, "feed me a fish," by finding the short positions in both the US and CAN markets; then "teach me to fish" by showing me where I can source this data on my own. I cannot remember where I have found it in the past.
Thanks

Q: Can you please tell me how the 10-year total return of XEI compares with XIU and XIC? Do you know methodology used for selecting holdings in the S&P/TSX Composite High Dividend index? Where can I find a complete list of the holdings in XEI?
Thank you!!

Q: turning asking questions into a popularity contest seems out of place in a service we pay for.

Q: Re: DRIP's. I have accounts held with different companies. Over the years I have noted that the proceeds from the DRIP's arrive in my account at different times in relation to the release of the dividend itself. One company is very prompt in its delivery whilst another often takes 7-10 days. Is there an advantage to the second company? Are there any rules governing the payment of DRIP's?

I like the changes that you are making to question time.

David

Q: Adding my two cents on the recent interest in direct registered DRIP programs, I would like to highlight the fact that some companies offer a direct share purchase program as well. Depending on the company, there may or may not be fees. I have several direct holdings and have found the ability to send a small cheque to add to my holdings as funds become available to be quite beneficial over time; especially with respect to the companies that permitted this with no transaction cost.

Q: Are withdrawals from a First Home Savings Account eligible for the purchase of land to enable a person to build a house themselves, or is it only for the purchase of existing homes?

Thank you for this excellent service.

Q: I have a follow-up question to my Oct 26th question asking what are the 3 most important ratios to use when evaluating REITS. Your response to my initial question was "We would consider debt ratios (debt to value), with caution above 55%, cash flow to interest, with caution below 2X, and dividend payout ratio, with caution above 80%. Book value can be important but is often over or under-stated and needs to be looked at carefully. Valuation metrics (price/cash flow) are also important."

For NXR.un you calculated those ratios as NXR.UN 48%, 97.1%, 1.6X.

Is the Dividend Payout ratio calculated after the interest payment? If not, does that mean these companies are taking on debt to pay either the interest or dividend?

Q: I just received a Chapter 11 notice on a small holding I have AKUMIN. Another in a long line of US Healthcare companies that list in Canada and go bust! Looking at the trading history on your site, it looks like it was trading very small volumes (9.5k) at around .20 for 4 or 5 months and then all of a sudden on Monday October 23rd, its last trade, was at .51 for 1,170,000 shares. Two questions 1) why would anyone buy a large block and pay a huge premium for a stock that is in trouble???.......does this not wreak of foul play? If not, why would someone have purchased these shares? 2) Is my money dead or is there hope it will come thru bankruptcy with some shareholder value? I would love your perspective as this seems really odd to me.

Many Thanks

Scott

Q: Hi, With respect to recent topic of DRIP discounts, we have had our accounts with CIBC Investors' Edge for a long time and we have never had any issues receiving DRIP shares with a discount, if the company offers it. Of course, the brokerage only buys DRIP shares with a minimum of 1 share and balance of dividend is received in cash. Generally, we would need to make sure that we call the brokerage to register a DRP with the company well before the Dividend Payment Date, preferably before stock going ex-dividend.

If company does not have a DRIP program, then brokerage also offers a Synthetic DRIP, as per the their own approved list of names.

Hope this helps.

Thank You

Q: Thank you for your answer to my question. Regarding the PE, I cited RBC DIRECT but neglected to mention the 5I profile site which also was about 8. Your answer to my Q mentioned 16x. Which is correct? This kind of discrepancy also shows up on various other sites. How does an investor know which number is correct.

In this instance 16 is still decent but I would be happier knowing I bought it at 8x and expecting even better growth in the years ahead.

Thanks.

Q: Yesterday you said to BEN re DRIPS that you should register shares in your own name directly with the company- did you mean a person would have to call/write the company yourself- and have the physical share certificate from your brokerage? Thanks.rod

Q: Good morning

Just to clarify and I will use ENB as an example. If I buy ENB on November 13th and sale the stock on EX dividend date which is Nov 14th will I receive the dividend?

Thanks
Jimmy

Q: Greetings:
You have had several questions concerning drips and the discounts allowed when the shares are purchased. I was advised by my discount brokers that they decide what companies will be put in their list of drips, and furthermore no discounts are provided unless the shares are held in your own name. All other drip programs are synthetic drips. Please elaborate.

Thank you,
BEN

Q: When doing my research, how much validity should I place on Morningstar Analysis Price Target and 3/4/5 start Ratings. If there is a $16.00 price difference to todays price. How valid is that??

Q: Why is this stock classified as Consumer Discretionary as opposed to a staple? There seems to be a disconnect sometimes. For example, Molson Coors is classified as a staple yet PLC is discretionary. Obviously thought is put into these topics by experts but the service offered by PLC seems to be for a pretty non-discretionary matter!

Q: In the event of windup, dissolution, liquidation, where do the various debt instruments rank with respect to each other ie. bank debt, debentures, notes and preferred shares? When there are several debentures, notes and preferred shares outstanding, how do they rank with respect to each other?

Q: While most microcap tech stocks have been trending down for 2 years now, despite some companies showing financial strength, AirIQ's stock price has been trending upward and hitting new highs. What can we learn from AirIQ?

Q: Good Afternoon Peter,

Sorry for the length, but I would appreciate a second opinion please.

A cautionary tale for any other members using BMO Investorline, the new website no longer displays journaled stocks correctly or coherently.

For example: Earlier this year I bought NVEI:US in US dollars, it’s dual listed so I called in and had it journaled to the “Canadian side”. With the old BMO Investorline website the stock’s symbol would update the next day to “NVEI:CA” and display in Canadian dollars. Clear and logical.

With the new website however, the stock’s symbol did not update and remained as NVEI:US.

Thus, I called in again to confirm that the journalling had actually worked. They confirmed that it had & the representative seemed surprised that the symbol was still displaying on my screen as NVEI:US in US dollars, instead of NVEI:CA and in Canadian dollars.

Fast forward a few months: I wanted to sell my NVEI as a tax loss. I clicked the link to sell it and the symbol that automatically showed up on the website’s trading page was NVEI:US and in US dollars.

To my understanding this was incorrect. While NVEI:US is an equivalent and exchangeable with NVEI:CA, they are in fact two entirely separate stocks, listed on two entirely separate markets, in different currencies. I can’t just go ahead and sell one as if it were the other. {Question 1: Do I have this right?}

So I manually changed my sell order to NVEI:CA in Canadian dollars and sent in the order.

When the order filled, everything got more visually confusing on my computer screen with this stock. So I called in again and found out that when I manually changed my sell order from NVEI:US in US dollars to NVEI:CA in Canadian dollars I had failed to notice that the website had automatically switched it to a buy order. (I can only assume the reason was because the website didn’t recognize that I owned NVEI:CA not NVEI:US...) So what happened was that I wound up buying more shares of NVEI:CA instead of selling what I already owned.

To relieve my stress, I then asked the representative on the phone to please sell all of the NVEI:CA I now owned and wipe my hands of it. {Question 2: I think this now voids my tax loss sale?}

My frustration only boiled when the explanation I was given regarding why the stock journalling went awry in the first place was non-sensical. I’m trying to remember the exact wording, but it was along the lines of: “the market you bought the stock on can’t be changed … the dual listed stock will display on the screen based on the primary market that the stock is listed on regardless of which version you own.” It made me wonder if the representative I was speaking to this time didn’t know what journalling a stock actually was, or if it was me.

If you can please confirm or correct my understanding of the two points I highlighted, that would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Q: A big thank you to Peter for sharing his tips on Analyzing Financial Statements the other day. I learned a lot.
Here's the link on youtube for whoever missed it.

https://m.youtube.com/results?sp=mAEA&search_query=how+i+find+investing+opportunities+in+a+company%27s+financial+statements