Investment Q&A

Q: Hello again 5i,
Another question regarding my intention to sell stocks in my RRSP and buy fixed income. I have wondered, since I already have the stocks, whether I wouldn<t be better to simply put a stop loss on the security and let it ride, rather than selling it outright. That way I would still have the income from the stock and would be protected in case of a downturn. If the stop was triggered, then I could buy fixed income. What are your thoughts on this stragegy? Am I missing something?
thanks

Q: Hi Peter and all,
I have been purchasing flow through shares for a few years and overall, I don't think I am ahead. Have been letting some roll over into the associated mutual fund which have zero cost base and like the idea of temporarily using the 1/2 that is otherwise taxable for my own account. Do you have any advice on what to look for when selecting the best issuer of flow throughs and secondly is there any good way to decide if the shares should be allowed to roll over at the end of the holding period or should the flow through be sold immediately? Thanks Will

Q: Hi Peter &team, Could you explain what is Subscription Receipt Offering? Is it offering of new shares with favorable term to the debt holders of the company? I am referring to here is financing of SWY's diamond mining construction. MN

Q: Hi Peter: My husband and I who are both in our mid 70's have sold our house and so have a lump sum to invest. We are retired so looking at fairly conservative investing. We are considering investing in ETF's and would appreciate your guidance as to the percentage diversification between Equity ETF's, Bond ETF's and cash equivalents. Thanks Judy

Q: Are we approaching a bear market? Tim Shufelt, in Sunday's Globe and Mail, Quoted Denis Mark of the National Bank, and others, who pointed out that while the indexes might not have fallen off, that is largely because of the movement of money into large cap stocks. The 'average' stock, he said, was down 10-12%-27% on S&P-TSX-NSQ from its highs, depending on the index. He called it a stealth correction, and said it would soon spread to large caps too. Any advise? The TSX has fallen 8 of the last 10 sessions now.

Q: Hello - I would like to swap stocks between my self directed RSP and US cash accounts. To do this, I would like to sell company A in my SDRSP and buy it back in my US account. I would like to sell company B in my US account and buy it back in my SDRSP account. The market value is about the same for both.

My question is about the 30 day rule. Company B would trigger a capital gain so I would have to pay that tax. Since there is no capital loss, does the 30 day rule apply in any way for repurchasing the stock?

Thanks

Q: Preferred Shares
Why do some companies use "Series" and "Letters" thereby making the nomenclature very confusing?
Thanks

Q: Hello Peter and Co,
In my opinion, stock prices have gone up in the last few years because economic prospects were improving; by bringing more liquidity in the system, quantitative easing has greatly contributed to the rise in stock values.
QE will fade away soon (in the fall? early next year? don't know for sure; when that happens,it would stand to reason that stock values would correct. How does one prepare for such an eventuality? I could raise some cash, say 20-30%. For your info:
my long term objective was to get a growth rate of 7% pa; however, my portfolio has gone up by 14.6% pa in the last 3½ years whereas the benchmark has gone up by only 5.4% pa in that same period.
I value your opinion.
Thanks
Tony

Q: The following is what I discovered when searching for TSX rules for odd lots. It seems in general there is no discount or premium for less than board lots, but in practice, it's probably pretty easy for a M.M. to get around; the powers can't even agree on how to spell the word(s)!

Policy 4-604 Responsibilities of Market Makers
(3) Maintenance of a Two-Sided Market
3. Odd-lot Responsibilities—General—Market Makers shall maintain an odd lot market at the board lot quotation for immediately tradeable incoming oddlots. Booked oddlots which become tradeable due to a boardlot quote change will execute at their original limit price.

Special Circumstances—.......... If a Market Maker wishes to call an odd-lot market at a different price than the board lot market, the prior consent of a Market Surveillance Official must be obtained.


In view of the above would I have a case for a fill on a mixed lot open limit order where my board lot was filled and the odd lot part unfilled? This happened to me on CM. Thanks, J.

Q: Hi :
Just a follow up note on the AX.UN offering .
I was only issued 500 shares , and not the 1000 shares I had requested . The morning after the offering the price plummeted below the offering price , and was still lower on Friday afternoon. In retrospect, I would have been better off ignoring the offering and buying at Market . New Issues can be frustrating . Thanks

Q: Hello Peter and Team,
Can you advise as to the most effective means to identify a company`s debt, expressed as dollars as opposed to D/E ratio. Just got stung on JE and was not tuned in to the debt scenario as the fundamentals ( value in PE/PR ) all seemed solid on the BMO Investor site. However, in hind sight, the D/E was posted at -5.7+ and the Div yield is 10%+.... caveat emptor I guess, but I would appreciate a suggestion to a more informative resource to truly identify excessive debt. Please be gentle .....
Thanks as always!

Q: On 5/13,Thomas stated that AX.un's offering did not sell out in the usual 10 mins.Please provide site for this type of information. TXs a lot. Peter

Q: Hi Team : a general question on takeovers using PFE as an example. Is it fair to assume the buyer's stock price will weaken while the buyout rises? Assuming the buyer (PFE) has to raise equity/debt and the price of the target keeps rising,PFE share price will likely stagnate/fall during this process?

Q: Peter; re " Market Proxies" - this is the kind of research you would need a Bloomberg connection for - as members we get the connection all rolled into one membership. Thanks.Rod

Q: REITS
Hi There
Leaving aside sector type and geography, which are the three or four most important financial parameters in assessing a REIT for sustained income and a little growth and what would be the limiting min or max values?
Thanks as always.

Q: The ‘don’t buy’ category of ‘C’

Just reading your new LIQ report,and noticed this remark. I hadn't realized there might be verbal interpretations of the high school grades. Is there a section somewhere on what the letter grades might infer?
Or, obviously we should just read the whole report each time to understand the nuances of each situation.

Thanks,
Marilyn

Q: I had a real nice shock to wake up to this morning, HYG opened up down 22% and BAD opened up down 6.5% the initial cost on BAD was $40. HYG had a public offering of $15 why would they do this when the stock was at $21.40 the day before? this is not the first time this has happened to me, approx. a year ago COM did something similar and so did BTO gold, is this the norm? if you buy a stock you run the risk of things like this happening I have had an online account for about 10 years and have lost a lot more money than I have ever made but since you opened up this great service I have decided to stay with the account because I have somebody that will give me valuable information going forward. Thanks, Dennis

Q: Would you short POT going into the summer months?

Q: My family and I recently sold a piece of property and we have 200,000 that we would like to invest in a portfolio. I was thinking of purchasing 20 different companies over the next 6 months or so to be diversified.

In an ideal portfolio what type of weighting would you allocate for each sector? Is 20 companies enough to be diversified but also manageable? Also, would it be a good idea to have a mix of small cap (growth), big cap and dividend focused stocks? This portfolio would be used for our savings and I hope to have it for years to come.
Thanks

Greg

Q: We are hearing bull and bear arguments,with the majority to the bears side.The market is topping, the market is fully valued and the market is overdue for a correction.Some are saying a major correction and that it may be wise to go to cash and wait it out.Peter, I would be very interested in a recap of how you handled the 2008 crisis.I know you teach to hold if fundamentals are still in place.Your experience in the crisis and how you handled your investments for clients would be nice to hear.