skip to content
  1. Home
  2. >
  3. Investment Q&A
You can view 3 more answers this month. Sign up for a free trial for unlimited access.

Investment Q&A

Not investment advice or solicitation to buy/sell securities. Do your own due diligence and/or consult an advisor.

Q: Hi!

As part of my industrials sector weighting, I have 4% allocated to transportation. Given the current environment, I believe airlines are the best value, but probably also the riskiest. Nevertheless, my portfolio is reasonably well balanced. Do you think it is prudent to invest my 4% allocation entirely in AC? It clearly provides better value than the railroads and trucking, but as I said, with increased risk.

Thank you,
Jason
Read Answer Asked by Jason on December 19, 2020
Q: Retired, dividend-income investor, who normally employs a buy-and-hold strategy. I have long term core positions of mostly conservative equities (ETFs = CDZ, XIT, ZLB, ZWC, ZRE, LIFE; Stocks = AD, AQN, BCE, CSH, FTS, MFC, NTR, NWC, PBH, PLC, RY, TRP, WSP) and fixed income of annuities, Fisgard and Gov't-Private pensions. I believe my portfolio is set up fairly conservatively.

I have cash for another position in my Cash Account. I have been reading several 5iR questions lately about various themes for 2021 (Recovery Trade, Swap from Growth to Value, Emerging Market improvements, Take-Over Candidates, etc.). While I'm not even sure if this is possible, I'd like to ask you to screen for as many of them as possible (all thrown into one big ball) to create a half dozen candidates for me to do more research on. I'm looking for a starting point. I'm not even sure where to start, hence the request.

I'm looking for a Canadian (preferably) or USA company, potentially a take-out target, benefitting from the recovery of the economy. I lean towards the Value spectrum, as I inherently find it difficult to buy a stock that has already had a good run. If a dividend could be thrown in, that would be a bonus. Market cap and sector do not matter.

This is sort of a "kitchen sink" kind of question. If that results in zero candidates, then please use your discretion and drop various filters. As you can tell by my current holdings, they are for the most part, blue-chip companies. If we could identify something like an Enercare (that was taken out by Brookfield), that would be a homerun.....happy to hold it but ecstatic to have it taken out. But Enercare is just an example.

Please rank them from best candidate to least...maybe 3 Canadian and 3 USA companies or all 6 from Canada if possible.

If you can run this exercise, then I'll do some further research on your list. I know this is a crazy request...thanks in advance. Take as many credits as you need to throw some brain power at this....I'll never use all of the credits I currently have.

Much appreciated...Steve
Read Answer Asked by Stephen on December 19, 2020
Q: I have a full position in MX in my TFSA. Even after the recent rally, I'm still down about 15%. It seems to be having good momentum, so I'm a bit hesitant to sell, especially when I can't claim the tax loss. But a part of me just wants to just get out and buy something like WELL, XBC, or STC.

Any thoughts, or advice? Thank you for all that you do.
Read Answer Asked by Ed on December 18, 2020
Q: Hi
Can I have your opinion as the reason these two trading symbols on the same company are so dramatically different
I hold both and have done ok on one a very ok on the other I just don’t savvy the difference and it can’t all be tax related
Kind regards
Stan
Read Answer Asked by Stan on December 18, 2020
Q: According to Portfolio Analytics, I'm underweight in Industrial, Consumer Defensive, Utilities and Energy. Can you please give me three names to consider in each category? I'm also overweight in North America so, to the extent that there are good international names in these categories, please include them. I have a fairly long investment horizon: 5 years until my children hit post-secondary and 20-30 years before retirement.
Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Ben on December 15, 2020
Q: I was talking to a storekeeper in Uxbridge On.. I asked him " How's Business " He said he was having the best FALL ever. I asked "How Come ?" He said because the SNOW BIRDS are Staying Home. This will help my favorite stock DOLLARAMA Who else will benefit ? How many Snow Birds in Canada ? Dollarama Traffic has really picked up. I asked the Clerk why. Her answer is now we are selling food more people are coming in to shop. Please Comment
RAK
Read Answer Asked by bob on December 14, 2020
Q: I've owned both OSB and WFT since mid April, was very lucky with my timing. I had planned to hold both for a couple years due to the strong housing and retro markets. A month or so ago, as we all know, WFT (trading at +/- $72.00 at the time) took out OSB (trading at the time +/- $43.00) in an all stock offer which seemed at the time to be acceptable by large institutional shareholders (Pattison/Brookfield) as well as the two boards in general. The take out price for OSB was +/- $49.00. Being an all stock offer, I believe OSB shareholders were to get +/- 0.6 WFT shares for their OSB shares. In the time since the announcement, both WFT and OSB have continued to rise in value. As of late last week, WFT closed at $82.68 and OSB closed at $55.36. Can you please help me understand how this structured all stock take over might now pan out???? Will OSB shareholders only get the $49.00 offer upon closing or was the structured all stock take out offer based on a %, ie, will OSB shareholder still receive +/- 0.6 WFT shares. I need to decide what's best for my family accounts. I like $55 a lot more than $49, but it's a wash if it's 0.6 shares of WFT
Read Answer Asked by jeff on December 14, 2020
Q: Hi Team!

I have been picking away at Cargojet and Real Matters today and over the last few weeks. What would be a reasonable purchase price range going forward for these 2 stocks?

Based on some recent Q&A over the last month(s), you still seem to have a good opinion of them going into 2021 and beyond, once we get thru some potential tax loss selling.
Wrt CJ, e-commerce will potentially only strengthen post covid as people will have gotten used to purchasing online and thus deliverables is a necessity. In one answer you indicated CJ could/should increase EPS by 5x next year, thus my keen interest!
I have also owned DSG for years as a complimentary e-commerce play.

Wrt REAL, while their last quarter results may have disappointed a few, I'd prefer to take a longer term view out to 2022-2025. They have some interesting projects that should come to fruition by then and will likely have increased their market penetration as well. I also appreciate that they have been buying back shares the last several weeks as the stock drifted lower. Gives us a little bit more confidence that the recent quarter may have been a one time blip.

Cheers,
SteveMc
Read Answer Asked by Stephen on December 10, 2020
Q: My online account with iTrade when I prepare to place an order their analyzing team when I checked out PLTR and U are rated by Thomson Reuter as negative by CFRA as a strong sell and R.T. Research as a sell, myself I bought both stocks because I have noticed in the past some of their sells were some of the better performers out there. Is this the case with all these online online brokerage accounts?
MOGO and MGRO are on fire but I haven't looked at iTrade's analyzing team. It is late in the day. It probably will be negative with them. So I ask the #1 analyzing team in the country 5i Research this question and opinion of the two I have not checked yet.
Read Answer Asked by Dennis on December 10, 2020
Q: Can you please provide some recommendations on travel related stocks listed in Canada or the US. Am looking to hold for 3 to 5 years.

Thank you
Read Answer Asked by Vineet on December 10, 2020
Q: There was an article in the G&M yesterday from BMO Capital markets and Brian Belski about 2021 and their sectors to follow. It said Consumer discretionary, financials and industrials represent BMO’s overweight sectors.

Wondering if you could recommend your 2 top names for each sector mentioned above?

Thx

Cam


Read Answer Asked by Cam on December 10, 2020