Investment Q&A

Q: Are there any regulations / rules as to how much notice a company must give to a general investor on when the company intends to report earnings every quarter? If so, what are they?
Is there a specific site they are to report said announcements?
Sometimes it seems it's a little loosey-goosey.

Q: Not a question. I saw Rajiv's question today inquiring about "any statistical data on the Santa Claus rally."

(Hopefully this is an appropriate thing to share on here.) There's an account on twitter by Wayne Whaley (@WayneWhaley1136) and he regularly posts statistical data studies on the US markets. I don't have a twitter account, so I just take a look via a google search occasionally for fun. I do recall seeing him tweet Santa Claus rally specific statistical studies in the past, including last Christmas.

Q: Everyone, do you glean anything from premarket stock prices? Clayton

Q: Hi Peter and 5i Team,

Can you recommend a book to give as a gift for investing/financial literacy that would be suitable for a high schooler?

Thanks for all the great advice that you offer and wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday season.

Q: Everyone, what would ultra high net worth people be concerned about today? Clayton

Q: A while back you recommended the book
“ The Psychology of Money “ so I picked up a copy and am glad I did. I recommend it for all members ; easy to read , fun, informative. It has changed ( for the better ) on how I look at investing and my life choices. Thanks. Derek

Q: Hello 5i team,

I was wondering if you have any statistical data on S&P, Nasdaq performance for a week or two after the Santa rally? To confirm the Santa rally should end two days of trading in the new year?
Regards

Q: I like what Global X has to offer in their line of ETF's. However, I think I read one of your Q&A responses a couple months ago that their can be a concern with overloading the overall percentage of ones portfolio with a given ETF company. Did I understand that correctly? If so, just wondering what the potential consequences are in doing that, and if you do recommend spreading investments over a number of ETF companies.

Percentages are personal, but perhaps 5i has a ballpark-ish range that they would be comfortable with for a given ETF company (?)

Q: Pardon the abruptness but It sure would be nice if members could start behaving g alittle more independently and USE THE SEARCH BAR FUNCTION !! Asking the moderator to confirm when a respective dividend date and amount is going to be paid AND Asking about all the Canadian public equities that pay a USD Dividend... BOTH QUESTIONS have been REPEATEDLY ASKED FOR 5 yrs ! Considering the vast amount of hi level expertise our moderator has too offer everyone these very basic administrative requests are serious waste of the moderators and other members time ! Perhaps implementing some better auto populate drop down functions or some How to Video s could be created to combat this ?!? This saved time for the moderator could in fact add value and time for the moderator to reallocate research report time for some USA Equities since PA subscribers are encouraged to hold a 40% USD portfolio allocation !! My estimate is nearly 25% of some daily question volume is really just laziness of the author not using the platforms software search functions. JMHO !! You can deduct 2x the credits for the abrasive tone of my request :) and wasting everyone s time having to read this. Have a nice day

Q: my tfsa equities are long trrm holds and i want to buy stocks/etfs that are on the drip program
Please advise where i can look to find out if an equity is available for drip
Many thanks
peter

Q: Retired, dividend-income investor. Long, long term holder of BCE in my wife's cash account. Sold it in mid-Nov, captured a $12k cap loss, and plan to buy it back next week....prior to the ex-dividend date.

I am ok buying it at the roughly $38 level, even if it floats around that level for the short to medium term. I understand that there might even be some further downside risk. I plan to buy around 1400 shares, either in one shot or maybe 2-3 tranches.

Your opinion on which makes more sense in this case? Multiple purchases is the more conservative way to go, but one shot gets the full dividend back (and more) to where we were a month ago. The BCE board has said they would not touch the dividend for now....although their credibility has taken a hit lately. We are ok with "some" volatility. It's almost a "flip a coin" decision.

Thanks for your help...Steve

Q: Hello, in light of the Canadian dollar trending lower recently, does it make more sense to buy CDR’s as opposed to the equivalent US listed stocks? Since CDR’s are traded in Canadian currency on a Canadian exchange I can still buy the same amount of shares with my Canadian dollars even if the dollar drops as opposed to buying US listed shares on a U.S. exchange with my Canadian dollars which should cost me more as the Canadian dollar drops. Many thanks for the amazing service that you provide.

Q: My question is on trimming winning stocks. You will often comment on this question that it is about the size of the stock in relation to your portfolio. I have a number of stocks that are half positions which are up 100-200% so now are almost full positions so I don't "need" to trim them. But I'm often tempted to trim at a new high to take some profits with the idea of re-buying on a pullback. I realize this is market timing so I hesitate, but I've also seen thousands of dollars disappear on a downturn. I have bought some stocks I think of as longer term trades so I have sold them after a profit and it has felt good to cement that profit so to speak. But some stocks like Apple, or BN that I see as more core holdings -with these type of stocks do I trim or just leave them, let them run and buy more on a pullback with new money presuming I have more. Any further articles on this would be appreciated as well. Thank you!

Q: I have added at end an addendum to the question I sent just seconds ago (my apologies):
I was making use of the Thompson Reuters [since renamed and/or bought by LSEG(?) ] that were made available on broker platforms and through some financial papers. The said reports have not been available at such sites for several months. LSEG does not sell subscriptions to non-institutional customers. I am looking for alternate sites and ask if you have recommendations e.g. Koyfin, GuruFocus, FinChat , Trading View—and there are others you would know. Would you also care to suggest the best stock charting tools available that include hard to find data such as PEG, forward P/E, EV/EBITDA &c. Thank you. :ao:sab

Q: Further to Rob's question about the Forums this morning:

I wonder if newer subscribers are even aware of the Forums, unless they happen to come across it by accident at the bottom of the website (who scrolls down that far?).

At the beginning of the year you replaced the "forums" link at the top banner with "Podcast". But I recall that the banner used to feature close to a dozen links, including forums, albeit with the words spaced more closely together. Granted, "Companies Search" takes up room now, but given the the wide spacing between the current handful of links, couldn't "forums" be fitted back in there?
And/or added back to the left sidebar?

Chris M.

Q: What is 5i opinion of Investor Business Daily service? They publish an IBD50 and IBD Big Cap 20 list. Have you looked at these names on the list over any period of time and is it a valuable tool? You may not be able to answer this if you don't use the service but if you do out of the names on the lists what would be your top 5-7 names?

Q: Everyone, for a medium risk person what would be a reasonable rate of return. Clayton

Q: Forums

If you dig deep enough in the web site (Click on members, then click on Start Here, scroll down to the last choice ) you'll find forums.

There are not many participants in these forums.

5i felt it was worthwhile to have a forums section, perhaps you could comment on some of the reasons 5i subscribers might want to participate in these forums.

I also posted this question in the forums section (Brokerages and research tools) if anyone wants to add to 5i's answer.

Q: Do the banks or credit unions insure an account up to 100 000 or
250 000. If a person has 1 000 000 and the amount actually is 250 000
does that mean you need four different banks or does four different accounts
work?

Q: I am retired and live full time in Canada. I use Norbert’s Gambit to buy US stocks for my US account. The alternative is buying US stocks from my Canadian account and paying extra conversion fees coming and going.
Does this strategy make sense?
I use the Gambit for exchanging $20000 or more.
When purchasing a Canadian etf of US stocks what are the conversion fees charged typically; would they be the same or different than if an individual was buying each stock on his own
Thanks for your advice
Much appreciated