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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: Hi!

I read something about Canadian CDRs on the NEO exchange. Anything to worry about? Transactional friction etc....
Read Answer Asked by D on December 06, 2021
Q: Good day. In various news updates etc. on some of the stocks I own I see press releases from law firms reaching out to investors who have lost money investing in a certain company to contact them regarding potential class action. Are these notifications non-events with law firms fishing for business or is something else going on? Investors in Novavax with losses exceeding $100,00 is the most recent request I've seen. Thanks
Rob
Read Answer Asked by Robert on December 03, 2021
Q: Earlier I asked whether it is allowed to transfer the "dividends" only of a stock that pays those dividends in $US - I have the stock in my Cdn RRSP and I would like to transfer the $US "dividends" to my $US RRSP in order to save fx fees. I beleive it is called "journalling". Your reply noted the word "stock" not dividends.
Read Answer Asked by Reg on December 03, 2021
Q: Everyone, at times when the market is in a short term downward trend I look at the companies 3 or 5 year share price and it always cheers me up. If the fundamentals have not changed then the long term trend will always continue UP :) Clayton
Read Answer Asked by Clayton on December 03, 2021
Q: Dear 5i,
I often see and hear the word "growth" describing a particular stock in the media. This term seems very nebulous to me. Does it refer to earnings growth, sales growth, revenue growth, operating cash flow growth, free cash flow growth, others??? Analysts often say a stock is expected to grow 10% but, what does that really mean? Hope you can clarify.

thanks
Read Answer Asked by Ian on December 03, 2021
Q: A comment, not a question:

Brett asked you a question on 2 DEC 2021 regarding buying US shares in his TFSA --> whether to first purchase USD and buy US stocks in a USD TFSA account or simply buy US stocks using CDN dollars in his (presumably) CDN TFSA account.

My experience in buying US stocks with CDN dollars in a CDN TFSA account is that in the event of a sale of the US stocks, my online brokerage (CIBC's Investors Edge) automatically converted the sale proceeds into CDN dollars. Which I didn't necessarily want done, but I wasn't given a say. Ultimately, I opened a US banking account to transfer USD into my US TFSA account. Sale proceeds of US stocks are kept in USD and I am free to convert back into CDN dollars. Or not. Which I prefer to the alternative.

I hope my experience helps Brett and others.
Read Answer Asked by Ian on December 03, 2021
Q: I have my RRSP with a full service broker - Canadian dollar & $US account - If I bought a stock on the TSE in canadian dollars and that stock pays it's dividends in $US - is it possible (to save any conversion fees) to have the dividends transferred to my $US RRSP? If YES - is there any cost of any kind to be expected?
Read Answer Asked by Reg on December 02, 2021
Q: I missed Peter Hodson’s talk at the Canadian money show. Do you have a link for a replay?

Thanks
Read Answer Asked by Joanne on December 02, 2021
Q: I want to be better prepared for the next big market correction. I have been keeping ten per cent cash that can be deployed when I correction happens and I know where I want to add to positions and start a couple of new ones, for instance Microsoft. I have never shorted an individual stock but I might consider an ETF that shorts an index. Where should I start my learning? Most of our money is registered accounts which complicates shorting. I am not suggesting I want to do it now but if the market gets forthy next year and the federal banks start to raise interest rates to comabt inflation there is going to be carnage. Thanks for the good service. Glad you informed me about Constellation Software five or so years ago What I gem!!
Read Answer Asked by Paul on December 02, 2021
Q: Hi,

I was wondering if I could get your thoughts on a general trading/investing strategy.

Over the years, I have seen my valuations go up and down, up and down-yet I stick to the buy and hold strategy knowing I am not smart enough to time the market.

I am now thinking of adopting this strategy: selling approx 30% of a security position when I think it looks frothy. If the prices goes up, I still have 70% holding to benefit... BUT if it goes down, I would buy back that 30%.

I am not referring to day trading in and out-this would be a rebalance once/twice a year. What do you think in general of this strategy?

Thanks as always for your sage advice.
Read Answer Asked by Brad on December 01, 2021
Q: Peter et al,
This question is directed to Peter, because I need an answer from someone who has seen many takeovers. In the case of the acquisition of IPL by Brookfield, I opted to receive exchangeable trust units for as many IPL shares as possible. The trust units, as you well know are used to effect a tax deferral on the IPL shares.An allocation factor was used and " X " number of units were allocated. The remaining shares were given the cash value of $20.00 / share. This total was then divided by the VWAP of the BIPC shares for a five day period. The resulting price was higher than the $80.00 ( 4 x IPL price of $ 20.00. ) This resulted in fewer trust units received. If there was any fractional shares remaining , they were rounded down, and no payment received.My questions-- How common is it to use a VWAP instead of the offered price as the divisor, especially as the equivalent Bipc shares fell shortly after the 5 day period. This price must have been supported? How common is it to round the remaining share or shares? I have always got paid for fractional shares.It is fine and dandy to say that Brookfield are good allocators of capital, and good managers, but they certainly are not shareholder friendly. Comments please?

Thanks as always,
Ben.
Read Answer Asked by BEN on December 01, 2021
Q: Could you explain how this works and how much correlation we should expect between the CDRs and the original stocks? As of this writing, midday, for example, AAPL is up 2.4% but its CDR version is down .2. Amazon is up 2.37% in the US but it's CDR is only up .63. GOOG is up 2.21 but it's down .35 in Canada. And MSFT is up 2.34 in the US but only .19 in Canada. Disney is down 1% but its Canadian CDR is down 3. 84.
Read Answer Asked by John on November 30, 2021
Q: When you refer to a " long term holding period ", can you be more specific to the time period in years? The reason I ask is some of the research I have done on Morningstar referrs to greater than 9 months as long term. Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Richard on November 29, 2021
Q: What do you think is going on with the Canadian tech sector? Today is a perfect example with US tech companies climbing (not surprising given that the NASDAQ is up 250 points) while the vast majority of Canadian companies remain in the red (eg. AT, STC, CTS, LSPD, SHOP, TOI, CGY). I appreciate that our companies (less SHOP) are much smaller but something doesn't seem quite right here. Could it be that short positions have been opened up by international investors against the entire sector?

As always, would appreciate your analysis.
Read Answer Asked by karl on November 29, 2021
Q: Peter,

I would be quite interested in your very knowledgeable opinion on the Sat article in the Globe re the Bridging Finance Inc fiasco. It smells of Madoff of the North. I find it ironic that they would lend to mid-sized companies that had been ignored { declined } the banks , but the banks were then pushing out the end product as a recommended investment. How with any common sense would the spin sent out by the Sharpes ever pass the sniff test when they claim they were in essence lending to companies that banks would not touch , yet had zero writeoffs. I must be missing something.

How as retail investors are we to protect ourselves when the " experts" look like they were hook line and sinker into a pile of garbage.

Thanks

Paul
Read Answer Asked by paul on November 29, 2021
Q: Hi folks
Ok...so I woke up this am to world markets down....I decided to buy a bit more BNTX for obvious reasons. It was already up to its highest of the day and I thought it would go up more but that's OK.. my question is...how can a small investor like myself get in before a stock soars? Who are these early, ahead of the game buyers? Seems unfair to me!
Thanks for your steading support and have a warm weekend
Read Answer Asked by El-ann on November 29, 2021