Investment Q&A

Q: Thankfully never a share holder, I'm trying to learn from the Valeant fall out. In doing so I ran across an article discussing the reporting of non-GAAP (general approved accounting principles) results and estimates. Apparently, Valeant does this, amongst others, and there are since cautionary tales...

Can you please give me a Coles notes lesson on non-GAAP data? It seems like they are all the rage, but should not be trusted...

Best.

Q: Thanks for tweeting out any news on dividend changes. Your recent tweets show:


Black Diamond $BDI lowers #dividend 37.5%.

Supremex $SXP raises #dividend 10%.

Telus $T, in our model portfolio, raises #dividend by 10%


There’s been so many lately and I note a few got missed, however I was wondering if there might be a place on your website for “Dividend Changes”? That way we wouldn’t need to put up with all the unwanted Twitter ads etc.

Thanks.

Q: Is there any historical evidence supporting which day of the week is best for buying stocks and which day for selling stocks? Thanks, Bill

Q: Telus today reported a 10% increase in its dividend, but I think it meant 10% for all 2015 including the previously announced 5% dividend increase from Spring 2015 of 2 cents from 40 to 42 cents. If my understanding is correct, then the Telus dividend increase is overstated and Telus is guilty of taking credit twice for the same positive news. Full disclosure - I have a full position in Telus and am well satisfied. Can you provide a general comment on companies taking credit for the same news more than once. If so, the politicians have competition.

Thanks as always to the work of the team.

Q: Can you give me a site providing short interest for all TSE stocks rather than top 20? Looking for CSU short interest.
Thanks

Q: I have a question regarding best strategy for my son's portfolio. He is a 30 year old engineer, who has absolutely no knowledge of investments and no interest in learning about them. I finally convinced him that GIC is a bad place to park his money, so here is the question. How would you structure portfolio for a young person who wants to sleep at night, check his investments once every 3 months, and doesn't have much tolerance to loss? He has 120K to invest (incl. 40K in TFSA). I assume ETFs is a route to go here...? What combination of ETFs you'd suggest?

Q: Hi 5i team,
Questrade sends me an alert if there is trading volume 2x or higher the average volume for stocks I own. Today I received an alert in regards to Sylogist at 12:31. The volume was between 4-5x average, yet the price had not moved 1 cent all day to that point. This may be a silly question, but how can this trading activity be explained?
Still loving the service, still learning a great deal.
Thanks in advance,
Rory

Q: Hello All,
I recently read an article in CMS about setting up a US income portfolio with call options. Have had some success with this strategy myself. I would like to use this strategy in the Canadian market with some present holdings - MFC,TD,BNS,RY,ENB,PWF,STN,SLF,HCG,MG as examples.
What are the pitfalls and possible advantages of selling covered calls in Canada? What Canadian stocks would you recommend?
Thanks very much,
Great service.

Q: Re Peter's Tsx.Switch to any discount brokers of the big 5 can.banks for real time quotes.I use CM---$6.95 per trade,detailed reports on companies including consensus target price,daily technical analysis etc.Search & you may find that a promotion by 1 of the big 5,which pays cash or some free trades for a certain period.All the best

Q: What does it take for a stock to split, i.e. BCE? Has it split in the past, and do you think there is a possibility it will split again in the near future? Thank you.

Q: I just received your reply to my question about LIF and in the reply you used the term OK 4 times. Once you had ' ' around OK. I have noticed the use of OK in many of your other answers as well. I am never quite sure how to interpet the use of this term. Does it mean JUST OK. i.e. "We don't really like it but it's not bad enough to dump on it" OR is it to be viewed in a more positive light. It always seems to me to be a bit of fence sitting.

Q: Can you recommend a free site where I can find real time market/stock action.
The typical 15 minute delay on sites I'm familiar with, even my Questrade account, can be a problem when placing a limit order on something that's changing quickly. Questrade wants $20 a month for the privilege.
Thanks Peter.

Q: There seems to be chatter about a current shorting situation of a number of Canadian stocks. Can you comment on this chatter, and what advice you would give if I owned a stock that seems to be targeted by short sellers. Perhaps, what fundamentals should I specifically look at?

Q: Why is so much emphasis put on comparing a company's recent earnings to analyst estimates?
It might be because the market is generally a forwarding looking mechanism, but, call me cynical, could it be of benefit to both the analyst and the co. to have the co. beat expectations as they seem to 99% of the time?
A comparison of recent earnings to last year's comparable period would to be a better metric.
Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Derek

Q: Hi 5i,

Now that many companies have reported can you please give us an overview of what the earnings look like so far?

Are they meeting expectations or below?

Do you have a sense of forward guidance from reported companies?

Thanks,

Q: I found this lengthy article on naked shorting that was written in June this year that describes what could be happening today to the Canadian bio_techs. Publish at your discretion.

http://smithonstocks.com/illegal-naked-short-selling-appears-to-lie-at-the-heart-of-an-extensive-stock-manipulation-scheme/

Q: A lot of short selling chatter around here. There is the case of Globo Plc a UK listed small-cap that immediately denied any wrong-doing last week before suspending their shares to formulate a response. Well the response was that the CEO and CFO resigned after dropping the bombshell that up to 60% of revenue was fictitious. Unfortunately I am still a holder of these suspended shares but fortunately a very small fractional position which was always thought of and treated as a "spicy ingredient" in my overall portolio. Sometimes there's really a fire behind all the smoke blown around by short-sellers.

My question is once the shares start trading again what would you imagine to be the response - with a potential 40% of revenue being "real" would you think this will survive ? An impossible question really but whatever opinion you have to offer is fine.

Q: Well, BNN just reported that BYD.UN, EFN, CXR, STN, and to some extent CSU, are being talked about for shorting. Apparently the "theme" is to attack "growth by acquisition" companies. This is getting really frustrating!

Q: I have been invested in the markets for over 40 years, so i have had a few ups and downs to deal with, but so much has changed in the last few years, with now most of the trades being made by computers and the internet giving anybody that wants to say anything about a stock, right or wrong, it's getting more difficult to be a long term holder of a stock. Sure if you have been a long time rising stock, you can handle a setback, but lot's of investors get into a stock just before maybe some short seller hits the stock and you are down a lot. Yeah, people say if you like the stock it's a buying opportunity, but that's a tough one if you are now fully invested in the stock. It just seems now, that just about anybody can drive a stock down, with a jittery market. So which one do they pick next, you can hope that it is not one of yours, so maybe just hold cash and buy the stocks the shorts drive down.

Q: Good morning,

Could you explain the following concepts and how they are used to interpret what is happening with a stock:

1) Overbought (example DOL)
2) Oversold (example VRX)
3) Short interest (BNS @ 2.5%)

Many thanks