Investment Q&A

Q: There is a consistent discrepancy between what appears as the book value in my Qtrade and RBC account and what appears in my 5iresearch portfolio. I've verified that the share numbers and cost prices are correct. The differences are much higher on my American stocks where the MV is always higher than what shows in my original accounts. Is there an explanation for this?

Q: I'm wondering if you could recommend a free watchlist (stock) tracker. I've used Globeinvestor for years but now they've limited its use without a paid substription.

Thanks as always.

Dave

Q: According to Sedar the taking over company paid out the money on Friday. How long would it normally take for the funds to show up in my account?

Q: For ETFs with smaller AUM (like some Canadian ESG/SRI etfs) what is the most you would invest in that fund. For example would you be comfortable investing $100K in a fund with $10M AUM? Would you look at some other metric or just stay away from smaller funds all together?

Thanks!

Q: Hi 5i,
I will use OTEX for my question but any interlisted company with US$ revenue will do say SHOP.
With the CDN$ raising how does this impact canadian share price? Is it possible that this represents a headwind? Wouldn't it be prudent now to journal/convert CDN shares into US shares. If CDN$ strengthens my canadian share values my decline if the company revenue is mostly US$. If CDN$ weakens that is ok I will make bigger profit if i convert back to CDN$. Am I correct?

Q: Hi 5i,
Doing some Sunday morning tinkering, and have noted that in Portfolio Analytics you classify NFI and VMC as Consumer Cyclical. Could you explain the rationale for that, because if I follow that classification for those 2 companies it has quite an impact on my actual and recommended sector weightings. I had thought they were both broadly Industrials before being further fine tuned to machinery and heavy equipment, based on the products they provide and the "consumers" (municipalities mainly) of those products.
Thanks,
Peter

Q: I have 5i for its portfolios which I follow, invest and succeed with as I update with you each month (thank you very much!). I also have Mornngstar which provides a different view of my portfolio and access to assessments of companies in my portfolio and relevant information. As a DIY investor I believe I need to be informed as to what is happening thus I look at my portfolio every day even though it is said you need to look at it only once a year! Simply Wall ST. is another venue for portfolio information. This shows my portfolio, again, in a different light. Since I only depend on 5i for the most part (sometimes I sell a loser earlier than suggested or add to winners) and its portfolio analytics, and since I do not really act on the information provided by the other companies but it is comforting to know and explain about my portfolio.
MY QUESTION IS: Do I really need Simply Wall Street and Morningstar?
Stanley

Q: On April 19 you responded to a question, stating the SI of GME was 19%. Where do you get that data. And is it the same today? Thanks

Q: In a recent question a subscriber described their portfolio as a percentage of balance, growth and income stocks. What stock parameters would you suggest that I use to categorize stocks into balance, growth and income stocks. Thanks … Cal

Q: Is an update for the "Canadian Stocks That Pay US Dividends" blog planned? - the current list is 2 years old containing names like ECA (now OVV and Denver based) and BHC which I show as having no dividend. Others like BEPC and BIPC could be added and the list might be amended to include current yield to be more useful to income investors. They may be other adds or deletes too...

Q: One of the largest tech crashes .com bubble in the Nortel days took years for these companies that survived to get back to where they were. The same thing is happening today probably on a smaller scale. Would it not be better to get out of these and into something else or into cash as they just fall day in and day out? Or, do you think by the end of the summer will they have bottomed out and have some encouraging results? Waiting for your guidance. Thank you.

Q: What is a growth focused investor to do in this market? I understand the shift and aversion from high growth/tech names into value stocks and the fears of higher inflation/rates affecting markets going forward are hard to predict in duration. Many growth companies are reporting solid earnings, however are still falling with the market backdrop. With a 5% cash weighting currently and as I see some of my position weights in my growth stocks decrease because of this market drop, does one A) increase exposure now to value names and sectors that could benefit in the short term such as materials, industrials, energy or B) further add to quality growth names if one has a longer horizon (8-10+ yrs) such as WELL, LSPD, VEEV, TOI, NVEI, U, DOCU, CRWD and just ignore this short term shift in sentiment? I just don't want to be catching a falling knife in some of these growth names but I see some great entry prices to add a bit at these levels with them being 30-40% off from the recent highs. Thoughts?

Q: Hi Team,
As a growth investor my stock portfolio is about 75% high growth tech weighted (mostly US) and has now fallen 25% or so from peak during this rotation. I have so far been hesitant to trim or sell anything up to this point. Is it time to bite the bullet and cash out part of my holdings and buy into other sectors that favour inflation? Or do you think the damage is near done here and possibly start adding to beat down quality growth names? Right now the sky is falling for my type of portfolio and trying to decide which way to go. Or perhaps just do nothing...
Thanks
Shane

Q: Once a margin account gets above 1M is the recommendation to open another brokerage account due to CIPF insurance only covering 1M? It doesn't seem practical for some of the more affluent investers to have multiple brokerage accounts.

Thank you!

Q: I am interested in finding out more about structured notes. On the surface, it appears a good instrument for regular income. However, do not understand several aspects of it and also there seem to be several types of structured note, e.g. principal protected, exchange traded notes. Not sure what types are suitable for my goals. Can you please provide your views and brief description, or link for more information, or contact who could provide more information. Thanks

Q: Me, scratching my noggin to explain this......Today, the market is down but in my portfolio, the US stocks broke even but the Lonnie ones are way down. Maybe it's to do with the mix of the stocks in the portfolio, eh?!.....or the timing, which Canada just catching up the down ongoing down drift in the US market?
The Canadian ones relate well to the 5iR portfolios and my total portfolio is 45% balanced, 22% income, 11% growth, all Canadian, and the remaining 22% is composed of US stocks. Coming back to today, I wondering if you agree that the Canadian stocks seem to be hit harder or fell more than the US ones? Any specific reasons for that? Thanks for attempting to put a finger on it, or two.....Tom

Q: Hello Peter,
My margin account is dominated with US stocks and a corresponding borrowing of US dollars. The Canadian dollar has been exceptionally strong probably at the top of the trading range. I generally prefer not to speculate on the dollar and keep the borrowings in the same currency as the assets. However, I am tempted to convert about 50% of the US borrowings to Canadian.
In your experience, would you endorse this, or just stay the course?
Regards
Rajiv

Q: Hi,

Under your analytics tool, it's clear that I am too heavily weighted to Canadian stocks. To solve that problem, I'd like to get some US cash to purchase more US stocks. To do that, I'd like to use Norbert's Gambit.

I'm also overweight Canadian financial stocks so my thought is to sell my, for example, TD stock on the US dollar side of my RRSP account to get the US cash.
I would then buy GOOG or some other strong tech stocks as I'm currently underweight tech.

Based on what I've read about Norbert's Gambit, it's often suggested to buy DLR on the Canadian side and then sell DLR.U on the US side to get your US cash.

My question is - as I already have some stocks that are dual listed, such as TD, can I simply sell them on the US side of my account rather than buying the DLR and going that route. Does that make sense?

Thanks so much. Great service for the average Canadian.

Q: Hello 5i,
I have just completed three very detailed posts about performing Norbert's Gambit using RBC Direct Investing. (For Peter who had asked the Question sometime in the past week or so). I have tried to be as diligent as possible but there is always the chance that I have made an error or omission - which I also noted in the post.
I know you do not normally monitor the Forums, but in this instance I was wondering if you would like to review the post for accuracy if you have someone on staff who is knowledgeable about the process? If not, that is fine, but I just wanted to give you a "head's up" about this in case any further questions arise from my Forum posts.
Thanks for providing the members with the Forums - they are an awesome, albeit underused, resource!!!
Cheers,
Mike

Q: Lately, I've been researching companies that sell their products or services directly to consumers such as Angi, Pinterest, Fiverr and Pelaton to name a few. I dig up at least a dozen articles and opinion pieces from various investment-related websites, including yours truly, 5i Research. In the case of the above-mentioned companies, there hasn't been much in the way of negative facts that would lead me to take a pass on any of the above companies,. But, when I go to review websites such as TrustPilot, etc., the percentage of negative comments from consumers of these products or services is extremely high, anywhere from 20% to 70% with ratings of 0 or 1 star. More worrisome is the fact that the number of reviews is in the hundreds which leads me to think that the negative comments do not originate solely from competitors. How much importance would you give these reviews when weighing the pros and cons of an investment in a consumer-facing company?
Robert