Investment Q&A

Q: Your thoughts on the S&P 500 over the next few quarters? Is the risk/reward in favor of stepping into both spy:us and spgp:us in equal proportion's. Or continue to collect 5% from money markets for a couple of quarters. Is the P/E for the spy and sogp all ready pricing in the profits for the year? Would you prefer spgp over spy or would you have other considerations? It looks like spgp has been outperforming spy.

Thanks
Brian

Q: Seems to me finding stocks to create personal wealth over the long term is not that hard if a bit of effort is put into it, could be said all you need is common sense perhaps. Also seems to me the most common mistake for small diy'ers would be portfolio management, the buying and selling mostly, tax planning perhaps to a much lesser degree. 5i has provided many many good ideas as a long term member over the years, a few loosers too - dont want your head to swell too much. 5i deserves much credit to my success, thank you very much. Your investing ideas have provided several opportunities, I feel it's the portfolio managment skills you've taught me that was more important to create wealth. All that being said, could you expand on this remark you posted today, "we tend to leave some (minor) room to add if opportunities present themselves in the future" ?

Q: Hello Peter,
I will greatly appreciate your thoughts on my thinking process as I construct my portfolio for this year. I would like to know how closely your thinking aligns with mine and what would you do differently.
I am a retired senior, not risk averse yet mindful of the necessity to curb excessive enthusiasm. I like to think I keep the risk to reward tilted towards the latter.
My thinking goes like this. I expect the Canadian economy to go through a mild recession or at best ride the US economy to <= 1% growth. Hence, I want to allocate 30% Canada and 70% US (including marginal international through ETFs).
I feel that since interest rates have peaked, the stock market should return higher than historical average this year. I think the allocation should be 20% income, 25% balanced, 30%growth,10% investor suite and 10-15% trading opportunities. I think that automated AI/technical based trading software will have a larger presence, making the market a little more volatile and provide with trading opportunities.
I also think that more interest rate cuts in Canada than the US, the income portfolio should be all Canadian. High yielding stocks should provide capital appreciation as well in this environment.
I am not considering Shopify and CSU as part of a portfolio. I already own them and they are qa significant part of my assets. Any adjustment will have significant tax consequences. If required I will take decisions independent of the portfolio.
I look forward eagerly to your feedback.
Regards
Rajiv

Q: A question regarding interest rates and the effect it has on income stocks such as those in the Income Port.

Much is currently being hypothesized about interest rates going forward. Not about higher or lower, but the amount of cuts and how long it will take to get to a neutral rate.

That being said, if rates were to drop by 2% over the next year, and all else being equal, maening no black swan events or a deep recession, to name a couple, what correlation would you assign to stocks which have been beaten up during the 4.75% increase to the BOC rate? A 2% cut in rates is a 40% reduction, in the rate.

I assume that with falling interest rates, money would flow back from savings accounts, GIC's and the like. Stocks like BCE, T, ENB and the banks and utilities or any that are currently yielding >4% should see some attention, no?

Thoughts?

Thanks,

Kelly

Q: Understand that crypto is outside of your coverage universe, I am curious to hear your thoughts on Bitcoin as an investment.

How viable is it?
Do you see it appreciating in value over the next 5 years, and if so, would you expect above market returns?

Lastly, for an agressive investor (with the clear and unequivocal understanding that huge losses can be Incurred), what would seem like a reasonable portfolio allocation, in terms of percentage, to BTC? I was thinking 10%.

Thank you.

Q: Everyone, what did you learn at the end of the first week of trading? Clayton

Q: Market timing for investing in QQQ. Is this the good time to get in?

Q: Do you think there will be a dip first week of January when people take some profits and don't have to pay the taxes until 2025? Should one sell some stock if they're in registered accounts next week and take advantage of this?
Thanks

Q: As a general comment; I have noticed that you quite often end your answers to questions on commodity related stocks (especially energy) with ‘If sector exposure is desired’.

May you expand on this caveat? From what I gather, 5i is generally averse to the commodity sector. Are my assumptions correct ? Thank you for clarifying.

Q: Everyone, large cap tech stocks have had an amazing year. So going into next year and next year, will managers sell some and redeploy cash or sell lots and deploy cash or will they keep there current amounts hoping for an average gain next year? If they sell this will put a downward momentum on the Nasdaq 100. Clayton

Q: Just for the fun of it, can you trace the predictions of the so-called analysts from the big banks for year end 2023 for S&P 500 .

Than let's take a good laugh!

Thank you for delivering the best advise I have received in my 40 years plus of investing.

Yves

Q: I know you don't believe in timing the market but after the last few years i've ended up with a fair bit of cash on sidelines, yielding around 5%.
Post pivot i'm now thinking about when/how to deploy. Assuming interest rates have peaked and we start seeing cuts in 2024 i expect cash yields to start decreasing as well.
So if you wanted to "broadly" deploy your cash reserves throughout 2024 how would you proceed? Thinking some mix of SPY, RSP, EMV (much smaller allocation) as I have retained most of my high convinction Canadian stocks.
Dollar Cost Average monthly or quarterly
Wait for next broad pullback, we know it's coming just not sure when. Can still get a nice cash yield while waiting.

Q: Year end soon, so time for some predictions. Wondering what you would guess the Bank Of Canada benchmark interest rate will look like in, say, 3 years, currently at 5.0% Over the next 3 years, what level of performance do you expect from the TSX Venture Index and the TSX Composite Index - a lot of people are saying that small caps are due for some outperformance after many years of underperforming. Understood that this is just educated guesswork.

Q: So a lot of people think that interest rates have peaked and are set to go down, thus the market reacts positively. I believe that interest rates have peaked BUT will remain higher for longer. I anticipate that the market will initially react negatively to this but eventually will settle down to the new reality and continue to react to such metrics as earnings growth etc..
Recognizing that no one really knows the future, what would be the likely scenario ( short and long term ) for each of the sector ETF’s I am invested in : Canadian banks , American tech, American healthcare, Canadian large cap industrials/ utilities. Thanks. Derek.

Q: Hi,

Here are my current sector allocations with target sector allocation in brackets and holdings. For a growth focused long term investor, does this make sense to you? We have around 45 holdings with a few ETF's (VEE, XEF) for international exposure and 100% equities.

I've noticed in your growth portfolio, your main sectors are financials, industrials, tech and cons. disc, with the other sectors at relatively low weights and I've tried to match our allocation with that. For an individual DIY investor, how often should one be looking at their sector allocation and rotating sectors? For example, looking at economic contraction and expansion cycles, are there certain times when we should be over or underweight sectors?

Currently, what part of the cycle are we in and with the FED indicating rate cutes in 2024, should I be trimming and adding in certain sectors? I find it too hard to perfectly time sector outperformance so ideally I just want to buy great businesses that will perform well throughout any cycle and I feel that the companies that I own will do very well over time. Do you agree? I'm not looking to make dramatic shifts in sector allocation, but maybe some small adjustments. For example, trim some tech and add to materials/energy. However, when I think about trimming quality companies like CSU/LMN/SHOP, etc.. and adding to more energy/materials, sectors that are highly cyclical and not in control of their own destiny (dependent on commodity prices), I get hesitant. Can I get your general thoughts on sector allocation and sector rebalancing. Thank you!


Technology 24.47% (22) SHOP, KXS, CSU, NVEI, CRWD, TOI, NVDA, LMN, INTU
Financials 22.61% (18) SLF, V, MA, JPM, GSY, TD, TSU, BN
Consumer cyclical 16.02% (18) ATZ, MGA, BYD, SBUX, BKNG, CROX, DOO
Industrials 14.13% (20) WSP, ATS, TFII, GDI, HPS.A, HEI, CPRT, AXON, TVK
Consumer staples 6.34% (5) PBH, COST, DOL, ATD
Energy 4.90% (5) TOU, WCP, TVE, ENB
Communications 4.16% (5) GOOGL
Cash 2.10% (2)
Health care 1.91% (5) WELL
Materials 0.71% (5) LUN
Utilities 0.37% (0) BEP

Q: As interest rates potentially get cut at some point in 2024, What sectors do you like heading into 2024/2025 and what sectors do you dislike?

Thanks
Tim

Q: A family member of mine is looking at investing some money that will serve as a retirement fund/as a hedge against inflation. She is also investing some money in GICs as the rates are presently good, while simulatously serving as an insurance policy should markets take a dive at some point. She is approaching 60 years of age and will be retiring within the next 12 months. She has no interest in investments and we believe that ETFs are the answer. This individual is conservative and wants to minimize risk, while definitely wanting to beat the guaranteed interest rate we get of approximately 5%.

One family member suggested the following ETFs (mostly due to the low cost of fees I believe)

VOO, VEQT, QQQ and S&P500 (which I don't know, supposedly has .05% fee)
(and suggested that 20% goes into QQQ)

Looking at your recommendations for ETF's from the questions asked, I have seen XIC, SPY, CDZ, XIC, CDZ, XGRO, QQQ, VGRO, VIG, ZSP, (to name a few).

I think there are more ETF's than there individual stocks. It would be great to have some coverage across Canada and the US.

We have a few questions:
1. Do you think the list provided by the family member is acceptable?
2. Could you provide your recommendation of ETF's (with a short description of the ETF) that fits the risk level of the mentioned individual (while simultanously providing a little risk). What % of each ETF would you recommend (i.e. buy equal amounts of each of the recommended ETFs or ...).
3. Do you believe that it is the right time to buy ETFs. With the recent run up, is it preferable to wait for a pullback and buy on dips or acquire all today or .....

Please deduct as many questions as deemed necessary.

Thanks.

Q: Hello Peter,

After Fed Powell's update today, is it reasonable to push the pedal for a Santa rally into the new year? If so, what sectors in the US would you look at? Would you look at anything in Canada at all? Any stock suggestions for a 'rational exuberance' would be most welcome.
Looking forward to your perspective.

Regards

Rajiv

Q: Hi Team
I have heard the term, window dressing, where the fund will sell their "dogs" and buy stocks that have gone up at year end so it looks like they have done well. My question is, if the sell at a loss, does that not show up in the year end results showing that they had a bad year?

Thanks

Q: I have cash to invest, mostly into ETFs and as a value investor the P/E of the S&P 500 is a stumbling block for me: 23% for IVV vs about 15% for XIU - so about 50% more. XEF has a P/E of 14.31%. The rule of 20 says P/E + inflation should be 20 or less. A hard question, but do I overlook the P/E of the S&P 500 and invest now with a long term hold or do I wait?
Thanks for your comments!