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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, in a bad market, a slight miss of whatever metric leads to a big drop of price. It is Ok for long term investors who got in long time ago and had huge gain already and took some profit. What is your recommendation on the above mentioned stocks for those lone term investors just bought in recently. Buy more, hold or sell? Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by victor on August 14, 2017
Q: For an investor with a higher risk tolerance who is always fully invested, do you think it is possible to profit on a risk adjusted basis from buying into a market dip on margin (assuming a "reasonable" margin rate of <6%)?

Given your experience, what would be reasonable parameters of a system to do this? I am thinking something along the lines of: If the market (e.g. index tracking ETF(s)) drops 10%, deploy 10% margin, drops another 10% deploy another 10% margin, ... subsequently deleveraging by a similar scheme on the way back up. Are there other schemes in the same vein you are aware of which are profitable?

Would it instead make more sense to wait for the market trend to reverse before deploying margin? For example, say you sit idly while the market drops 30%. Then you wait for the trend to reverse (e.g. Spot price > 200 SMA) and deploy margin, perhaps in 20% increments monthly as the trend continues eventually delevaraging at a new market peak.

Thanks as always.
Read Answer Asked by Andrew on August 11, 2017
Q: Hello team,

Is there any site that gives you the short% and its change on Canadian stocks?
The shortsqueez.com only gives the short interest on US stocks.
Thank you!
Read Answer Asked by Saeed on August 10, 2017
Q: With so many potential valuation and growth metrics available, it's hard to know which ones are REALLY important. I would love to use a handful (3 to 6?) of metrics that I could use to screen companies in order to create a "to buy" list.
Do you have any recommendations for a group of "must-use" metrics?

(Some that I am considering are: EV/EBITDA, PEG, Price/Cash flow, P/B, Price to Sales, P/AFFO for REITs, Debt/Equity, Dividend yield, Dividend Payout ratio, and a company's history of raising the dividend)

Would I want to use different metrics for growth vs. value companies?

Also, is there some place that I can look up a company's metrics (i.e. EV/EBITDA, P/B, etc)?

Thanks!
Read Answer Asked by Jonathan on August 08, 2017
Q: Greetings Peter and team,

Again, thank you for your logical answers to my previous questions.

In the 60s, a self-made, wealthy graduate of the Benjamin Graham, Columbia University program which warren Buffett praises, recommended that investors keep half of their portfolio in cash. When the market drops 10%, he recommended that they use a third of that cash to buy stock bargains. Today, that would be a US market index ETF. If the market drops another 10%, he recommended that they use all their cash to buy bargains, again, say a US market index ET. And if the market drops another 10%, he recommended the investors margin their portfolio fully.

I would appreciate your views on this seemingly risky approach to investing money not needed for near-term use.

Thank you,

Milan
Read Answer Asked by Milan on August 08, 2017
Q: Just a comment, I’ve been a member since you launched your site. I read a load of investment things daily, and your offering is unparalleled. While I don’t ask many questions, I truly benefit from the Q&A every day, and of course the insight gleamed from your portfolios.

Since your company has grown a lot, obviously the demands - the sheer volume of questions alone - has clearly grown with it, because over the last while I’ve noticed a very big difference in your answers. They’ve lost the choppiness: the quick, short, get-to-the-point way in which they were always written. Now, they’re very smooth, all corners are rounded, very well-written quite frankly, so I assume that answers are now being dictated, and a ‘writer’ is putting them together for publication. Very nice, easy to read in a mellifluous kind of way. But I have to say, I miss the choppiness!

Had to comment on it, it’s just that marked a difference. Thank you for the excellent service, I look forward to staying with you until you hang up your hat!
Read Answer Asked by Warren on August 08, 2017
Q: The recent hand wringing (and rightly) over CRH (haven't owned for years) has made me question what rationale retail investors use to buy and sell. I understand why advisors suggest a buy and hold strategy. But can't understand why retail investors need to be tied to that philosophy. I'm making a leap and will assume most members of this site use a discount brokerage. Given the almost insignificant cost to buy and sell (assuming buys and sells of more than $10,000), isn't a more active approach to trading a reasonable proposition? I use technicals to take the emotion out of the equation and would love to know what buy and sell discipline you would suggest. Having personal buy/sell rules might help investors feel better about making these decisions.
Thanks for all your support and advice over the years.
Read Answer Asked by Kyle on August 08, 2017
Q: Peter
From Morgan Stanley, i think, a well written little dose of common sense...
print or keep for you

NEW YORK – The S&P 500 closed at a new high on Wednesday in what analysts hailed as the accumulated result of several hundred million people waking up every morning hoping to solve problems and improve their lives.

The index finished up 4 points. Goldman Sachs strategist Bill Blake said the move was the result of unidentified marginal buyers being a little bit more motivated than unidentified marginal sellers. “We’ve now had 241 years of people in daily competitive pursuits to do things a little better, and those benefits add up over time. Mix that with some good luck and where we happen to be in the business cycle, and here we are,” he said. “My job is to sound smart, but you can explain this stuff to a five year old,” he laughed.

Corporations earned $5.89 billion in after-tax profits. Financial advisors and middlemen took in $710 million in fees. The difference, Blake said, would accrue to investors over time.

Analysts warned of several metric tons of dopamine and cortisol careening through the global economy, which they said created a near certainty of poor financial decisions. At some point, Blake said, these bad decisions create social proof and feed on each other, leading to recessions. “When is the next recession?” he asked. “I don’t know. Whenever the second mortgage you took out to buy a boat to appease your insecurity convinces your brother in-law to do the same, and his boat gives the boat salesman enough misguided confidence to become a day trader, and then all three of you crack under a collective bout of geopolitical bad luck or something. But we’ll move on.”

About 9,000 new businesses formed on Wednesday. Another 8,200 dissolved. Analysts expect the trend to continue, calling it an “unmistakable example of basic capitalism.”

Fifty-five million American children went to school Wednesday morning, leveraging the compounded knowledge of all previous generations. Analysts expect this to lead to a new generation of doctors, engineers, and problem solvers more advanced than any other in history. “This just keeps happening over and over again,” one analyst said. “Progress for one group becomes a new baseline for the next, and it grows from there.”

Three dozen political pundits yelled at each other on TV in front of an audience of 75 million. Meanwhile, a couple hundred million people were reasonable and productive in front of an audience of zero.

Just over 1,700 patents were filed at the U.S. Patent and Trade Office, with a few expected to change the world over the coming decades. “Pretty damn cool” said Sarah Donald, a PTO spokeswoman. “I wish more people paid attention to this kind of stuff.”

Facebook stock fell $0.23 to close at $169.16. Four-hundred seventy one news outlets covered the move. No one knows why.

Analysts expect more of the same tomorrow, with the trend continuing into next week.

* Nothing, and yet everything, about this post is accura
Read Answer Asked by claude on August 05, 2017
Q: Please advise what is the effect of strong Can.$ on the aforementioned stocks.Thanks for u usual great services & views
Read Answer Asked by Peter on August 02, 2017
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