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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: I currently hold 3% positions in FTT, TCL.A, ARE in the Industrial; as well as MG and NFI in Consumer Discretionary (I realize that these are in a different sectors but are also semi-industrial). I am thinking of adding MAL as a long term recovery play. FTT, & ARE had been added last year for these reasons. I'm quite bullish in NFI and see it as having the most upside in the short term.

Do you see this as being a good addition/strategy?

To fund a 1.5% position MAL is there one company that you see as not having as much "upside" that you would trim by half, or a combination that you would suggest trimming from?

Thanks!
Cory
Read Answer Asked by Cory on April 06, 2021
Q: This is hypothetical.

I have $100K invested in a Canadian corporation which pays a dividend of 4% annually. Today that investment is worth $110K.
Do I take the capital gains which equals 2-1/2 years of dividends and look for other investments or look for this company to pull back and buy it later? Another option is to do nothing. Given the frothy market, taking the gain today looks like a good move.

For a registered account there are no tax implications. For a non-registered account there are tax implications.

How would you view this situation from each perspective?

Thank you
Read Answer Asked by Ronald on April 06, 2021
Q: Hello Folks:
It recently appears Tech stocks are moving opposite direction to industrials such as Cummins, Caterpillar, John Deere and others.
I would think the reason these industrials have moved up so much is based on an improving economy. If so why do tech stocks decline when these industrials increase?
Do you feel there perhaps continues to be more upside in these industrial stocks than tech? What are your views on these industrial stocks (including Honeywell) as longer term holds with aggregate an weighting equal to tech?
Thanks for your excellent service
brian
Read Answer Asked by Brian on April 06, 2021
Q: I remember reading a question about old stock certificates and how to find if the company is still active but I couldn't find the reference in the database.

I inherited 500 shares Belmar Resources Inc. (an Ontario company) but have no idea who/what they are? What should I do to find out?

Appreciate your insight.

Paul F.
Read Answer Asked by Paul on April 06, 2021
Q: my wife and I both have rif accounts in the high six figures which I manage. what would you consider to be the maximum number of equities we should have in our combined accounts with no overlaps.
Read Answer Asked by Ross on April 05, 2021
Q: Publish publicly in whole or part (or none) at your discretion, within the limits of what is appropriate for an investing advice service.
This is in response to Ed's tax/accounting beef of April 1.
I'm a retired tax accountant who served many investors who were plagued by this same situation.
I used to give my investment clients a little mini-editorial about it being the responsibility of the investor to have all that data, either prepared and kept by the investor themselves, or by someone else (which may have been the broker) the investor paid to prepare it for them. I developed a spreadsheet (which I used myself as well as making it available to my clients) to assist them in doing it for themselves if they so wished. Simple spreadsheet, usable in Excel or Google Sheets, which anyone comfortable with spreadsheets could replicate.
I'm happy to post the above, as well as a copy of the spreadsheet if that is possible, in the forums, though I note the most appropriate forum (Tax & FX issues) is now 5 years old. Perhaps a new forum topic, but I don't know how to start one?
Read Answer Asked by Lotar on April 02, 2021
Q: Good day. This is more of an informational request on brokerages and processing day orders. I ordered 500 shares of XMH today (Itrade), which at that time had a price of 24.50. I put in a limit order and got a partial fill of 200 shares. But I could see, after a short time, that there were bids for higher than 24.50 and it was near end of day. I raised my limit bid to 24.55, and got another 200 shares. At 3.59 to finish the order I changed it to a market order and got the last 100 at 24.60.
Throughout this the actual price/value of the stock never changed from 24.50. It remained at 24.50 at end of day. I had thought that a stock/etf exchanging hands for a higher price would raise the value of that stock/etf?
Read Answer Asked by John on April 02, 2021
Q: This is a tax / accounting beef, but it may apply to a lot of subscribers.

I'm doing my taxes on my own, and it is extremely time-consuming and frustrating when it comes to investments. CRA wants all the US numbers converted to CAD.

I have a US-based margin account to avoid the constant back and forth with losing money on exchange rates. I own relatively small amounts of many US stocks. Almost half of my tax time is related to accounting for stocks, looking up the original purchase date or settlement date, figuring out the US exchange rate (from the Internet) on that particular day, then adding to the cost base another day and a different US exchange rate when I added a few more shares to it, then subtracting that from the sell price with the sell date's foreign exchange rate. If that’s not enough, CRA wants us to include the commission in the cost base, but then the sell price needs to have the commission stripped out (with its US exchange rate calculated). What’s that all about?

I don’t know why the trading platform doesn’t figure all this out for you. Are there any smarter ways of doing this, other than switching brokerage accounts?
Read Answer Asked by Ed on April 01, 2021
Q: I have 2 large purchases this year and I have more than enough money in mine and my wifes TFSA stock accounts. My question is, do I sell the winners or losers for the transactions and could you explain why. Thanks. Gary
Read Answer Asked by Gary on April 01, 2021
Q: Good morning Peter, Ryan, and Team,
There's a class action lawsuit involving XBC.
https://www.lexgroup.ca/classaction/xebec-adsorption-inc-securities-class-action/
Do you think that such an action will put further pressure on this "in the doghouse" stock? (Although it closed slightly up yesterday, a welcome event)
Also, if you were an investor, would you join this class action, or is that an unwise move? (IMHO, It's sort of like "hedging your bets", especially since it costs nothing to do so.) Your guidance and advice is always greatly valued
Read Answer Asked by Jerry on March 31, 2021
Q: One thing I have noticed with my behaviour..once I have a two bagger or over I become less concerned about daily movements and thanks to you I have found a few good ones like CSU, SHOP, RH..TFII on the way to becoming one:). Thank you 5i !
Read Answer Asked by Shyam on March 30, 2021
Q: I have updated my tracking analysis and it tells me have have far too many stocks. 50 plus......Many, it details are 1 to 2%. So it will take quite a move in any to move the dial.
I have most from all your portfolios. It is a large dollar investment.

Should I pair these down? How many stocks, if diversified, (long term hold), should I aim for?
Read Answer Asked by William on March 30, 2021
Q: After environmental calamities in California and Texas I often think about the financial risk that infrastructure projects have from climate change. In California this seems to be a perennial risk that will return and is predictable, but Texas' cold snap was a good warning that they can happen anywhere.
I also seem to recall that utilities had to swallow some poorly organized derivative risk during the 2008 financial crisis.
Finally: the Biden government appears quite aggressive with its intention to eliminate all GHG related power production.
My question is: for a business that operates with high leverage and large scale projects that are slow to change and long to pay off, and high sensitivity to climatic shock, are these risks reasonably accounted for in their current pricing; is diversification a suitable means of diluting risk (across the sector), and finally are there more US or international choices such as ETFs that you would recommend over a Canadian centric etf (appreciating that the Canadian companies are somewhat international)?

thank you,
Peter
Read Answer Asked by Peter on March 30, 2021
Q: On Mar 29th you answered Lindsey’s question
“Why are there companies in the model portfolios that are not rated? If you are recommending them why wouldn't you rate them? “
with
"Some other companies have been added for better sector and market cap diversification within the portfolios.”

This explains why they were added but not why 5i doesn’t rate them. Assuming that you have done some due diligence in making your choice to add these companies to the portfolio why not add those companies to your list of rated stocks?

5i prides itself on unbiased research. Besides the work that is done when selecting a stock for a portfolio, what else is involved in rating a stock?
Read Answer Asked by Rob on March 30, 2021
Q: If one uses Computershare to direct register their securities, how does Computershare make money? Tx.
Read Answer Asked by John on March 30, 2021
Q: Buy & Sell are specific recommendations. Hold is confusing? I’ve heard that analysts don’t want to issue sell recommendations for various reasons and that hold means sell. The question I would like answered is;
Why would you hold a stock you would not buy?
I have started a thread in the brokerages and research section of the forums if anyone wants to comment.
Read Answer Asked by Rob on March 29, 2021
Q: In your response to Chris on PE, could you add forward ratios under the "Valuation Ratios" and "Price To Comparisons" categories, where it makes sense of course?

If we used NVDA as an example, the PE ratio shows 76 while it looks like Fwd FY1 is 48 and FY2 is 43, roughly.

It would also be nice to see any sector/industry ratios or any other comparison numbers.

Thx
Read Answer Asked by Christopher on March 27, 2021
Q: Could you please explain what it means when you say a company is priced at
"X" x earnings? For instance, in answering Ben's question this morning about TECK.B, you stated that it is priced at 7 x earnings, but on the TMX website it says that it has EPS of -1.61 and a P/E of -14.70.
Read Answer Asked by chris on March 26, 2021
Q: To whom it may concern.
I mostly hold stocks. My rules are as follows:
Rule 1) buy the best of the best stocks - never compromise.
Rule 2) always think of holding stocks forever.
Rule 3) if stocks trend down - turn off iPad - STOP looking hour to hour day to day. Do anything else that puts you in a positive mood.
Rule 4) stuff happens - don’t panic because it’s just noise. See rule 6 below.
Rule 5) always think of rule 1.
Rule 6) has my original thesis changed because I spent many hours / days of researching and following the stock. If it didn’t change shut off the computer.
Clayton
Read Answer Asked by Clayton on March 25, 2021