Investment Q&A

Q: First thanks for all the great advice.
On tax loss selling, is a spouse considered "beneficial?" In other words can I sell something for a tax loss and if she buys the same stock within the next 30 days, do I lose the tax loss?
Second,is there historically or generaly a dip in upwardly momentum stocks after the Dec 24 deadline as people who want to take profits and want to move the tax gain into the new year. ie a stock like CSU, which is not a tax loss selling canidate, will managers in general wait to shave?
Many thanks

Q: I presume everybody uses Stockcharts to sneak a technical peak .
In addition to the default MACD and RSI , I insert Bollinger Bands and Full Stochastics ( they are fun and easy to use ) .
I realize that you don't put much faith in technical analysis , and that you subscribe to a more sophisticated service .... but which oscillators do you suggest for lowly "Stockcharts" people ?

Q: Just for clarification purposes:

If you sell a stock at a loss in a non-registered account the superficial loss rule applies to all accounts, registered and non-registered.

If you sell a stock at a loss in a registered account the superficial loss rule DOES NOT apply. One can buy that stock back in any account, registered or non-registered.

Thanks for your confirmation or clarification.
Ron

Q: Peter, so many questions around energy stocks. Let me ask questions around your daily routines from the time you wake up till you go to bed :). Do you check the futures market when you wake up and before you go to bed, listen to BNN or CNBC during the day, go thru Bloomberg see commodity prices, check out stocktwits, read broker research reports, etc..Just want to find out what you daily routines are with regard to stock markets. Thanks.

Q: Hi Peter & 5i Research Team,

This might be of interest to other members also. I just happened to log into my TD Waterhouse account at 11.30 pm on Dec 4 and was surprised to see that my stop loss and buy orders for Amaya were "pending cancellation" and no longer active. I immediately telephoned TDW and was initially told that I must have cancelled them myself! When I said I did not, they put me on hold and then came back to inform me that TDW cancelled these orders because Amaya Gaming has changed its name to Amaya Inc. On my request they then reinstated the orders over the telephone. They also said that if I had not called them these cancelled orders would not have automatically been reinstated! Do you know if other brokers do the same? Because if I had not noticed this by chance I could potentially have lost out monetarily when the markets opened tomorrow.

Q: tax loss selling question.

TAX LOSS QUESTION ; can I claim a loss by selling for example COS in my personal account and have my wife buy it back in her personal account in less that 30 days ?

can I claim a loss by selling for example COS in my personal account and buying it back in my CORPORATE / BUSINESS ACCOUNT in less than 30 days ?

Ernie

Q: Hello Peter:

I see on some bullboards for stocks that investors ask someone to post the house positions for a certain stock. What info can be derived from this? Is this how much the various brokerages have traded a stock for their clients or is it how much these brokerages actually own themselves and move around. I am with Scotia iTrade and my trades are personal decisions, do they end up in these house position totals?

Thanks in advance

Brendan

Q: Hi folks: Looking for a website to see daily charts on how the 4 or 5 main "sectors" in Canada are doing. Not sure of the difference between a sector and an index, so maybe index charts would be better. Also, what is a "capped index"?

Q: Hi Peter & Ryan,
I know that I can not re-purchase the loosing stock during the 30 days after selling it, but am I allowed to purchase the profitable stock 30 days before or after the tax-loss sale?
Thanks,
Morris

Q: Does AQN trade in off hours? I was updating my mobile bloomberg portfolio just after nine this morning, and saw that AQN was down 3.37%. Since I know it was up yesterday I thought that a bug. But when the market opened my yahoo finance and Globe portfolio both listed AQN down 3.37%.

Q: I am learning a great deal from your question and answer pages but for the life of me I cannot understand why a company like Loyalist keeps loosing share price. Over the past week or so there have been several positives including record earnings, new acquisitions, insider buying and the share price goes down or stayS even. This is DRIVING ME CRAZY! (All caps means I REALLY mean it!) Can you tell me why the price isn't going up?

THANKS!!

Q: Hi Peter and team,

In the past you have mentioned how when a company reaches a certain market cap threshold (e.g. one billion dollars) it starts to attract more interest from investors.

When the reverse happens (i.e. when a company's market cap falls below these thresholds), do these investors start unloading, helping to increase the negative stock momentum?

The case in point is Surge (SGY). As of close on Monday it's market cap is now 970 million (below the magic billion dollar threshold). A week ago Monday its market cap was over 1.3 billion dollars.

In addition to OPEC, US production increases, tax-loss selling, and year-end portfolio positioning, can this also be a contributing factor for the accelerating downturn in some stocks like SGY.

Paul J

Q: Wife and I are both in RRIF and depends on withdrawal roughly in line with gov. age minimum. For investment purposes, is it wise to consider our CPP and OAS as fixed income? and therefore can increase our dividend equities. Right now we are both roughly 50/50 in RRIF not considering CCP and OAS. Thanks

Q: You often make reference to diversification being the best defence against ups and downs in the market and that timing the market is a mugs game. I have seen the benefits of diversification in my own accounts but I am confused by what exactly defines "market timing".

I have two examples. One, many analysts talk about "going defensive" and buying defensive stocks, (whatever they are). Secondly, you talk about certain sectors being cyclical (oil, automotive to name a couple) and you even recently suggested, when referring to XTC "When inflation hits and interest rates rise for a sustained period of time to slow things down in the economy, it will be time to leave the ballpark.". Having made that remark, you still do suggest we stay in energy.

My question is, when is leaving a sector or "going defensive" considered market timing and when is it just good investment sense (if ever)? Or should we never really think in these terms and simply buy good companies, maintain a diversified portfolio and always ignore the ups and downs?

Looking forward to your valuable insight.

Paul F.

Q: What criteria do you use to determine potential takeout candidates ? Could you share a couple of examples Thanx Robbie

Q: Hi, Just a comment on Dave's missive about investing. There are more than one way of making money in the market. Different styles suit people with different temperaments. If you like buying when thing go up and make money, good on you. I'm more with Warren Buffet, I like stocks when they go down. As an example, in Jan 1998, oil was $13 a barrel(!!!)going to $10 and change. I took a full position in COS at $3.84 a share. People thought I was stupid as it took $14 (!!!) to produce a barrel from oil sands in those days. I sold most of my position at $50 (should have sold it all! But the remaining shares yield 36% on cost). Just different people, differing ways to make money. Henry

Q: Hi 5i,

I am currently 5% down on CPG in a non registered account. I am thinking of using this loss to offset my capital gains. I understand that there is a 30 day waiting period before entering into the same stock, but does this apply if I want to purchase before 30 days in a RRSP or TFSA instead of the non registered.
Thank you.
Janice

Q: I was looking at the US asset class 5 years returns an was surprised to see MLP's as indisputable No 1 (+200%), even far far from the Reits at +87%.
Could you explain the difference(S) of the 2 assets classes and if there is an MLP defined class in Canada?
Thanks

Q: Peter & crew I understand stocks are more easily moved in "Round" lots. If I have only 100k to invest & I want to limit at 5% per stock I'm restricted to buying stock that is 5% of 100k. For instance I've invested in CTC many times in the past; but at the price of CTC now I can't Why don't Ctc et al split so that more Canadians invest in good Canadian companies? What prompts companies to split? Thanks

Q: I have stock in Allergan. I understand that Actavis ACT.US has agreed to buy Allergan for $219 per share.

A Pershing- Valeant has sent a proxy to buy and replace Allergan directors.

I do not understand that if Allergan has been purchased by Actavis, why there is this proxy battle for Valeant still to buy Allergan. This was in the mail to-day