Investment Q&A

Q: I am two years before retirement and have a moderate risk profile. My current allocation is 25% Canada, 70% US, 5% Developed, and 0% Developing. Considering the state of the economy in Canada and Trump's threats about tariffs, I am wondering whether it's a good idea to decrease my allocation for Canada to 20% and instead allocate 3% to VWO and 2% to ILF. What's your opinion on this? Where do you anticipate better returns—in Canada or in the emerging markets covered by VWO and ILF?

Q: Retired (70 yrs old), dividend-income investor. Been meaning to ask this question for a long time. We run a concentrated portfolio of roughly 10 ETFs and 10 stocks, plus fixed income on top. Our pro-rated MER for the equity ETFs is 0.64 and for the entire portfolio is 0.38.

I use the ETFs above that are sector ETFs (like HHL, NNRG, XIT) as my proxy for the sector and am ok with the trade off of paying fees for a sector ETF instead of having lots of stocks.

I then add my individual stock selections to achieve my targeted Asset Allocation for the entire portfolio (like AD, BCE, FTS, GSY, RY, NWC, PBH, TRP, WSP, etc). I weight each of these relative to my risk tolerance.

Does this make sense to you? Does my "sector ETF" make sense, especially with a potentially large weighting in one ETF. Virtually all of my ETFs are capped at around 7% of the equity portfolio and the stocks are capped at 5% max.

Your thoughts on my strategy and on my MER....thanks...Steve

Q: What could President Trump do after January 20th that would cause a Stock Market Crash

Bob

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: What Companies or Financial Instruments to you suggest buying in preparing for the event of a Major correction ?... - I know long term planning/holding will average things out with certain holdings... But...

- I'm basically asking for your thoughts to protect a portfolio in the event of a Major correction, without having to wait 3-4 years for things to bounce or grow back...

- Please Suggest An Insurance Policy or Ideas ( Stocks or Investment Instruments) of sorts to invest in...Other than a diversified portfolio...

- I know Insurance costs money, But what do you feel are good investments for risk at this point to protect our money and investments?

Thanks,
M

Q: The CAD continues to weaken against the USD. Interest rates are declining in the US so I’m not sure why the USD is so strong. Trump’s tariffs are thought to be inflationary so possibly the market is already anticipating higher interest rates. Typically I am fully invested. Trying to decide if I should sell a portion of my USD stocks like NVDA to raise some cash. I agree that the tariffs are coming in spite of what we Canadians do to secure our border. May I have your thoughts on the USD and the tariffs?
Thanks,
Jim

Q: Everyone, what is the one risk that you are spending the most time on right now? Clayton

Q: Where do you expect small cap stocks to go over the next few years given that they have been relatively underperforming over the last few years seemingly? It appears they are starting to move forward and starting a catch up with all other bigger capped stocks.

Q: Is it time to take some profits from the market?

Q: I have a very novice question. When people say the market is "overvalued" or "high" how do we know that? Do we look at the P/E Ratio?

Can you provide a bit of insight on this? Thanks.

Q: I am thinking of moving all my equities into ETFs. Would now be a good time to do it, or should I wait until March or so?

I have no tax benefits from doing it now. I feel that the US general market may be a bit inflated right now due to the US election euphoria. I also feel there could be some tax loss selling with certain stocks (like BCE), due to time of year. This could result in my selling my stocks low, and buying the general market high.

Could you please comment on this?

Thanks.

Q: Hello 5i staff
I have a portfolio consisting in a few etf’s and a few stocks for the American side. One of these is a small cap etf. On the Canadian side it have mostly large blue chip stocks. CSU, BNT, etc. These are mostly at the full 5% quota. I keep some of these smaller stocks, I suppose because I enjoy winning. The problem, though, is that I hate losing. I keep the amount of these smaller stocks small because of that fear of losing, I suppose. They are often between one and two per cent of a fairly large portfolio, which is low percentage wise, but still quite high dollar wise. I am an advancing senior with moderate risk profile. Have a modest pension, which allows us mostly to live without touching investments. I have been wondering lately whether I should just bite the bullet, take the risk and add more to these fast growers ( and from time to time, fast losers) or whether I should just sell them all and consolidate in the larger stocks and etf’s. especially since I can say that I have won the game? Perhaps I could keep a few for fun. But, I guess that is what I am doing now. I know that you cannot give personal advice. But, I find that you usually have interesting things to say about these kinds of situations. As well, it has been cathartic and possibly helpful for me just to frame the question.
Thanks for all the help you offer us

Q: Hi 5i Team,

For the equity portion of a portfolio, what would be your suggested allocation between Canada, USA, Intl (or World ex-North America) and Emerging market ?

Thanks

Q: Do you think with the big rise in the TSX in the last couple of days that it is getting a bit frothy, and perhaps it would be a good time to trim and retain some cash for a pullback? Do you expect a pullback between now and the end of the year?

Q: Shall the BRICS reorganisation against the US dollar and/ or the wars (Ukraine, Middle East) affect the North American stock markets ?

Q: Regarding potential Trump tarrifs, do they apply to services also or only goods?

Do you see any of the companies (DRX, CLS, BN, PRL, Hps.a, ENB, Shop,.... ) affected by this?

I have gains on most of them. Would you sell right away and buy later,.depending on market outcomes?

Would you have a different strategy for stocks that I plan to sell in 1 year vs 5+ years?

Q: In this morning's Globe and Mail David Rosenberg made the case to move into cash in an article titled "It's time to move into cash. Even most bonds and commodities have become too risky". What do you think of this strategy?

Q: hi. this "question" section seems heavily populated with the latest/greatest growth stocks-ie tech, AI, crypto etc. Can you provide some insight on where you see value outside of these frenzied trades? can you include comments on 1)regions - Canada, USA, Europe, Asia, China, emerging markets etc. 2) industry 3) small vs medium vs large cap.
cheers, Chris

Q: Hello Peter and team, With the Trump cabinet taking shape do you now consider healthcare stocks (and EFT's) as well as renewable energy stocks (and ETF's) as dead money for a few years or do you see some exceptions in either domains?
Thanks for your always good insight and analysis.
Adel

Q: Now that we’re closer to world war 3 should we go to cash? How do markets react during times of world wars?