Investment Q&A

Q: This is a follow up to Dennis‘s question on the number of stocks to hold in a portfolio. You have suggested that about 20 (15-25) is all that you need. This may be correct for a conservative investor, but I feel your client base is a little bit more aggressive. Hence 20 conservative stocks, and a dozen more aggressive ones. I have used your advice to help me invest in a dozen smaller or unknown companies of which some have done great, some have done well, some are treading water and some have done poorly. I have started all these at a quarter position, which has worked well over the years. My biggest problem is knowing when to trim the great stocks as a fourfold increase only brings them to a full position. A great problem to have. Thanks for your advice over the years.

Q: How do you know when a sector is out of favour and it is time you should start a position?

Thanks

Q: I asked about oil stock companies on April
21.
Let me now ask about paper vs physical oil price. Many oil experts (like Eric Nutall) point to economies hitting a brick wall very shortly.

What is 5i take on it? Is this going to be our black swan event?

Q: I have a balanced position of financials in my portfolio. The banks have had a great run in the last number of years and many are now reaching higher P/E ratios, some at 15.

I continue to like banks but also feel that I should trim some of my position. What would be your view, is there a compelling reason to stay put and hold or would you trim?

Thanks
Tim

Q: Your top three thematic ETFs for overall return over the next 12-24 months please.
USD or CAD.
Please rank and please comment if any are particularly compelling.

Thank you

Q: It was in the news recently that the Federal Reserve had called in the Banks for briefings. It appeared to be centred around the issue of private credit and exposures in the system. The last time I recall a scenario where the Banks were called in was during the financial crisis in 2008 and at that time there was a lot of discussion about corporate liquidity and potential mergers as the crisis of confidence unfolded. What is your perspective on this situation?

Q: Dear Peter et al:

First of all KUDOS to Chris for his appearance on BNN Bloomberg today. His voice was calm, measured and answers balanced.

A question for you. Slightly different from the usual. As everyone is talking about US Israel Iran war, the tariffs have taken a backseat! Trump Xi meeting has been postponed. Asia and many small countries in the world and European countries too have been affected by the current crisis involving oil price.

Surely they can't afford to pay the tariffs, can they? How is that going to play out ? They cut down their exports to the US? Is Global recession inevitable EVEN IF peace breaks out? Your fellow Sprott alumni, Rick Rule is fond of saying "Tariffs are taxes"! Isn't that the worst thing one can do during a recession?

My friends from South Asia and South East Asia tell me things pretty hard in their cities. Small businesses have already been shut down. This doesn't get much air time in North America.

Anyway, your take on this is welcome.

Q: watching chris today on market call and very good. he said he has done a study on the vix and i was just wondering for canadian paying large dividend stocks -where should the vix be to best suit the dividend stocks.

Q: Everyone, Have the fundamental concerns investors raise about stocks changed over time, or are they largely the same questions in different forms? Clayton

Q: The most recent GDP Now reading came in at 1.3%. That is a pretty large and fast change to the downside. What are your thoughts about the overall numbers coming out of the US lately? Thanks.

Q: Good Morning Team 5i & Everyone,

Do you know how leverage, leveraged ETFs and options affect stock prices? Like is it some buying/selling by market makers in the after hours or once per month.. maybe once per week? Or maybe not at all. There are many statistics showing that retail is using record high leverage.

Thank you for indulging my curiosity.

Sandra

Q: Hello team,
There has been a lot of negative news lately regarding private equity and private credit. Can you provide some insight as to extent of the issues with this segment and if this is something that could extend to a significant downturn in the whole financial sector similar to the financial crises we saw in 2008-2009.

Thanks for shedding some light on this for me.
Paula

Q: Can you provide some context around who you include in the “The Best Stock Ideas”
section of your website?

Q: Everyone, what are the three things for the markets to push higher? Clayton

Q: Vix has climbed from $14.48 on Jan 9 to $30.95 yesterday. Do you think we are nearing a contrarian buy signal?

Q: Hello Team 5i and Everyone,

Unless Trump pulls a rabbit out of his hat, from what I’ve been reading the closure of the Strait of Hormuz falls into the category of “too big to fail.” And since the price of oil affects nearly everything globally, one would assume that we’re likely to see price increases soon enough in nearly everything as it is passed onto the consumer. (Like food, unfortunately.)

In another service I subscribe to a member there has a background with global oil logistics. In their assessment, if the war ended today it would take 4 months to get the shipping lanes fixed. 6 months to restart the oil fields at 85% original flow. 4-5 years to fix the LNG plants. Meanwhile countries are starting to hoard oil and oil products too, which only adds to the global demand when we really need to be destroying that demand at the moment. They equated that we need to destroy as much oil demand as we reduced during covid, but this time we need to do it with price.

At least with the problem of the tariffs, if the current US administration had snapped their fingers at any point last year and got rid of them, in theory the problem would have been solved “instantly.” But that doesn’t seem to be the case here because of the drones and missiles hitting the oil refineries. And sadly, especially for the people living inside this war, this is turning into a pretty big mess.

So what I’ve been mulling over is:

What effect would prolonged higher energy costs due to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz have on the data centre & AI buildout, etc and the debt being used to finance these projects? I’m under the impression that the AI buildout is supporting the US’s economic growth at the moment. Also seems like Space X, Anthropic, Open AI are all trying to IPO this year as soon as possible. The KOSPI which is over-concentrated in semiconductors looks like it had a blow off top recently.

What other important potential problems have your attention at the moment that the increase in energy costs could exacerbate?

Any further comments would be appreciated.

Thank you & appreciate the big brains at Team 5i,

Sandra

Q: I keep reading how the S&P is trading at high values compared to historical values and because of that is risky. do you think that etfs that track the S%P 500 (e.g. ZSP) are more risky than a mid-cap ETF such as ZMID or XMC which are trading at their historical values?

Q: Question about middle east . You ve already answer how someone can be positioned in case the conflict stop in 2-4 months and I am well positioned (gold , BTC, tech stock ) the more I informed myself on that war the more I see there is a definitive path for it to last longer . I ve learn how supply routes , production, refineries take a long time to go back on track and the longer it gets , the more complicated it is. It’s not only oil but nat gas too. Qatar facilities have been majorly affected and the Qataris say it will take 2-3 year to rebuild. And this is as of today . So I’m trying to think 1st 2nd and 3rd degree effects. Could you advise on how an investor could position a part of its portfolio for a longer lasting war . They are a great series of pod cast about that in the last 2 weeks on Odd Lots for those interested. Please feel free to propose various ways , ( I know Nutrien is a good example) on how I can allocate a part of my portfolio to gain / hedge on that possibility. Can be through etf, commodities, sectors , specific companies etc. ideally getting some upside with not crazy amount of downside if war does finish soon(ish) . That would also be a great subject for your podcast . Thanks !

Q: I am sitting on a fair bit of cash in my portfolio and would like to start transitioning into dividend paying stocks. I have looked through the income portfolio and notice that quite a few of them are near all time highs. I know you don't like trying to time the market but do you think it would be prudent to wait for the current market volatility to pass before starting to build positions. Looking at Stingray group and TD, they have both almost double in the last year. Thoughts?

Q: In a recent answer you stated "while we might not be too excited about the outlook for real estate". Could you please expand on your thoughts. In addition to a diversified stock portfolio I hold considerable investments in rental income properties - multi-residential and commercial in the Kitchener/Waterloo area. At 69yo I'm considering going more conservative like increasing my GIC holdings.