Investment Q&A

Q: I’m nitpicking but that is not a Cdn site u gave me re: ENB? & 22.2% return. Same one I used but with my purchase date. It’s Mission Statement: “Our main purpose is providing investors with annual dividend growth rates (5,10,and 25 years) for major US listed companies. This information is difficult to find anywhere on the web and we are pleased to offer this service for free”.
I thot the rest was a great answer. Thank you.

Q: Hi Peter and staff,
Congratulation on your 34 percent return. GREAT

Peter will you be starting a new model portfolio the first of march 2o14?
Thanks again Shirley

Q: Any potential minefields( or gold mines) for investors in yesterday's Federal Budget? It looks benign at first glance.

Q: goodday, I would like to make use of my margin account (20000)but there are so many good 5i stocks, I don't know which ones to buy. any suggestions? or should I leave this leverage alone. tkx pat

Q: Hi 5i,

I was looking to tidy up our portfolios and am stumped about how to proceed with some of them. Any chance you can offer some insight? I am retired and am primarily interested in the safety/income paradigm. Here are my problems:
1. SLW @ 1.82% of portfolios, down $1800 and in TFSA
2. XRB @ 1.75% of portfolios, up $500 and in TFSA
4. WIN @ 0.26 of portfolio, down $200 Non-registered acct.
(awaiting some clarity on this one)
5. YRI @ 0.74% of portfolio, down $38.00, Non-registered acct.
6. JE (300 shares)@1.71% of portfolio, down $850.00, TFSA

Time is not an issue, I can wait before acting where required. I have started to acquire 5i B+ and better names and hold many to which I can add.
Some notes: SLW and YRI are the only materials I hold. There might be some exposure in XTR which comprises about 8.6% of the portfolios, TFSA's. XTR is our highest single weighting; next highest would be IPL @ 6.7% and CGX @ 6.10%.
Any thoughts? Please feel free to make any points that might benefit the membership in general in terms of tweaking a porfolio - or how to avoid screwing one up in the first place.....
Thanks!
Cheers,
Mike

Q: Is there an 'RRSP' effect on the Canadian Market?
By this I am referring to an influx of money in the first 60 days of a year that is looking for a home whether through mutual funds or direct investment in the market.
I seem to have an impression that the markets take a dip after RRSP season.
Your opinion is, as always, appreciated!
Thanks!

Q: I'm one of your newer subscribers having joined in Nov '13 and I have been doing much better with my investing since then. I ditched my Financial Adviser/Broker about a year ago when I finally stopped procrastinating and acted upon long held realisation that she was making more money from our accounts than we were.
I now manage both RRSPs and RRIFs for myself and my wife. We own 40 shares in the four accounts, most of them dividend producing, but also some growth stocks and they are fairly widely spread across different sectors and different geographical areas.
I have a few duds, or at least equities or ETFs that I bought at the wrong time when I was out in the wilderness learning to do it all by myself, and I intend to sell them when the time is right to take advantage of your advice given in your answers to members.
It doesn't seem to be too onerous a task at the moment as long as I ignore events like the recent selloff, but are 40 stocks too many?

Q: Since a number of fund managers on BNN have been advocating a significant US equity weighting, do you foresee adding at least some US equities to the model portfolio (or launching a new portfolio)?

Q: In response to a question on Stantec yesterday, you said:
"We still think it is one of the better (top 20) investments in Canada."
What other stocks would you place in that category?

Q: I was looking at your model portfolio. many of those stocks have had a good run. how do I know what a good entry point is on any of them if I were to begin purchasing today? of those stocks listed, which would I consider buying today?

Q: I am wondering about the role of beta in the portfolio stocks. According to my broker's site the beta's for these stocks are: AYA .40, ESL .82, BNS .96. When I overlay the one year charts with the TSX, as expected BNS tracks it closely. ESL and AYA show much better performance with AYA showing a little more volatility. Why would ESL be more similar to BNS?

Q: Hi Peter,
I am wondering if you are planning to do a report on another example of an "F" rated stock.

Q: Great job. My question is to do with share buy backs. What happens to the shares within the company when they do this? Can they not resell them at a future date? Would it not be better to increase the dividend.

Q: Question on Model Portfolio: Total Quarterly Dividend per share by dollar amount?? I could of course add up all the numbers, but wondering if this has already been done and I can find it somewhere on the site? This would be useful for those looking for regular income. Thank you.

Q: Would you please suggest 8-10 stocks to set up a mini diversified conservative growth portfolio that will work in the current economic climate. In addition , please mention a couple of names for some extra giddy up. Thank you so much, Rick

Q: sir
In your Jan Portfolio You have rated stocks A,B,NR etc. I would like to know how these ratings are composed of and how much weight is allocated to each item in your score
Thank you

Q: Hello,

Is it OK to buy odd lot shares, to maintain a certain percentage in portfolio. Are they harder to sell? I have so far tended to buy in multiplies of 100 shares. But sometimes this tends to overweight a certain share in the portfolio because the share price is higher to start with. e.g. The etf "IWO" costs $145 per share therefore this occupies more than 25% of my kids RESP portfolio. Thanks fro your advice. I am learning a lot just looking at the question and answer section each day. cheers, Shyam

Q: This is to follow-up on the question posed by Linda on Jan 9/14 re. tax issues/negative factors to be considered with holding US (or other foreign)dividend paying stocks in a TFSA. Your response was that, yes, in a TFSA witholding tax will be applied on foreign dividends: in an RRSP it will not.
I'm not sure how much weight to give this info when structuring your TFSA. Should it just be -No- TFSA is not the optimal place to hold foreign equity - get your foreign exposure elsewhere. Or - Yes - this is something you should be aware of - it will act as a bit of a drag on returns - but should be subordinate to the over-all objective of your TFSA.
Specifically, I would like to re-structue my TFSA to replicate a mini stand-alone portfolio. And to do so I was considering the Mawer Balanced Fund as a simple one step solution - 40% FI; 20% Can. equity: 40% foreign equity - MER below 1% and consistently outperforms its benchmark.
Question: should the negative tax implications on the 40% foreign component be cause enough not to follow this approach?
Thank-you

Q: Greetings, Team:

I wonder why resource stocks (e.g. Baytex and Crescent Point) tend to go down and are criticized, whereas tech and pharma stocks (e.g. Constellation and Valient) tend to go up when they acquire?

Q: Are any members familiar with the Linde Equity Report which focuses on American stocks? In 2013 it was ranked top financial newsletter - in contrast Jim Cramer's (Mad Money)was 77th. I'd appreciate any feedback members may provide.
Thank you in advance,
Helen