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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: A lot of people watch bnn and the guests and there picks, but i just do not understand how they can use the comment that they missed that one, you could of owned boyd.un. ccl, dol,atd.b,esl,nfi,and numerous other well managed stocks that they said were overpriced years ago, but they pick a stock that goes nowhere and that they got stopped out on. The point is that good well managed companies are not cheap and they can have there flat periods, but overall they are the ones to own. You can keep buying them on the way up and hold em. Forget about trying to find some unknown company with no earnings that is going to make you rich overnight. Buy the best and sleep at night.
Read Answer Asked by eugene on September 02, 2016
Q: Your subscribers may find these reports useful. I like that the data is shown by sector. They are available for Canadian and US exchanges.

http://www.dividendhistory.org/report/

Dividend Reports are published every Friday. They are intended to help build a balanced portfolio of dividend paying stocks in each sector. Reports are shown in a newspaper style list that is grouped by category and ordered by market cap so companies can be compared with their peers. Fundamentals such as PE and PB are included with percentages changed for various time periods and 52wk high/lows to help buy on the dips.
Read Answer Asked by Helen on September 01, 2016
Q: What kind of portfolio should one have to lower risks while having a good return? By having most of my investment portfolio in equities am I necessarily taking too much risk. I am 41 have a well diversified portfolio of canadian equities (all 5i recommended, mostly from model portfolio, some growth and some income portfolio stocks) and some blue chip US equities and etfs and some bond etfs. It is currently 70% canadian equities, 25% US equities and about 5 to 6% fixed income. Is this considered too agressive. The RBC direct investment website does an analysis based on their standard ratios of fixed income to equities and put me at higher risk than agressive growth profile..I am fairly comfortable with this mix and I tend to keep my cool in adverse situations..Your thoughts and suggestions are much appreciated. Thanks. Shyam
Read Answer Asked by Shyam on September 01, 2016
Q: I would like to add my 2 cents worth of info towards Tamara's post, in part to add something to these boards in my way of paying it forward for the $$'s I have made off of investments I learned about from other board members.

I have studied Warren a tiny bit and some of the other big gurus a lot more who do similar type investing to Warren B..

What I have read and 1 Guru recently told me was that Warren for example, does in fact sell routinely.

He routinely sells part of his holdings when he determines they have become over valued (above his calculated Intrinsic Value). Not the complete holding but just a portion of his really big holdings, or maybe all of a smaller holding. Meaning he takes a profit. He then may repurchase some shares of the same business 6 months, 1, 2, 3, 5... years later when the stock price has dropped to being on sale again. Repeat and spin. He even does this with the ~ 6 holdings that make up ~70% of his portfolio.

They big guys/gals routinely make 100%++ profits this way.

Said another way, he practices buy low sell high.

These big guys/gals will wait years watching their Watch List all waiting for one on the list to go deeply on sale so as to buy more of or to start a new position. They try to not over pay. So even if they get it wrong they still often do not loose $$$$ or very little because they bought at such a low price. A big important part is what the company is doing not what the market or media is doing/ saying.
Read Answer Asked by Stan (1) on September 01, 2016
Q: Hi Team! Just an investment methodology question.....I have read that Warren Buffet holds 63% of his portfolio in four stocks.( Kraft, Wells Fargo , Coke and IBM I think. He also bought quite a bit of Philips66.) Well there goes the thought of a well balanced portfolio out the window. I hold approximately 30 Canadian and Us stocks with businesses across the board. I understand that he is a value investor who likes his dividends and rarely sells his holdings....so what is the best approach to stock investing? Concentrating on just a few businesses like Mr Buffett, or holding more businesses? Has there been any studies done? Just wondering....Tamara
Read Answer Asked by Tamara on August 31, 2016
Q: Hi,

This is follow up to James' question about living off the dividends from these ETFs.

ETFs = XTR,FIE,XEI,VDY,XHY

Suppose I convert my portfolio(s) over to equal weights of these ETFs and start living off the distributions ~ 5.5% yield. I'm ok with the tax situation. I can account for inflation.

What other risks am I taking? When we see another 2001 or 2008 what is the possible impact to the ETF values & the distributions?

I'm not looking for a guess (and certainly not a promise) as to what will happen in the future. I'm looking for a list of additional things that I need to consider about this strategy for my own risk management before pulling the plug on my current working life. A handful of "what-ifs" to consider would be great.

Thanks,

Gord
Read Answer Asked by Gordon on August 31, 2016
Q: Is there a way to differentiate between different posters who have the same name when presenting the posts on the Board?

For example my posts show "Stan" and it appears there is myself and at least 1 other poster named Stan.

Could a solution, so as not to expose a poster's full or last name, be to show for example, Stan1 or Stan2...? Or transfer to using an alias? or....?

Maybe this would require too much work on 5i's part. I do not know what any solution would involve in resources for 5i.
Read Answer Asked by Stan (1) on August 31, 2016
Q: Good morning Peter, Ryan, and Team,

In today's answer to Adam about DRIPs (SIS in particular), you told him that "on a portfolio basis, we would just never get into a situation where you need to sell something to generate cash". Is it appropriate to sell part of a stock or ETF to raise cash if you're doing it for portfolio balancing? Or is this a dangerous strategy that could backfire if the market takes a nose-dive? I'm presently in a situation like this in my RRIF, which is well-balanced using mostly 5i recommendations, plus some fixed-income ETFs.

Thanks as always for your timely advice.
Read Answer Asked by Jerry on August 30, 2016
Q: Hi 5i,
I'm 58 years old and recently transferred over my Mutual Fund RRSP's to a self directed RRSP. I now have a diversified portfolio except for fixed income - still have 50% in cash. I know I should have around 30% in bonds (fixed income) but having a difficult time justifying investing in bonds with such low interest rates. Can you explain to me if rates start going up won't the value of bonds go down? What bonds would you recommend CBO or CDV or.... Are there bond like equities that would be better at this time.
Question 2: If rates go up in the US will that effect Canadian Utilities, Telco's and interest sensitive stocks.

Thanks,
Luca
Read Answer Asked by Luca on August 30, 2016
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