Investment Q&A

Q: H Peter,

I've owned 2 funds for near a decade and both are down approx 50%. One is Sprott Canadian Equity and the other is AGF PRECIOUS METALS FUND (333)
AGF333

I've been patient and because I know that you know more about these than I do, I am asking you what would you do if you held both of these funds. Would you hold or sell?

Please advise

Thank you

Q: I am looking for some income products to diversify my portfolio. Royal Bank offers what they call Managed Payout Solution products, symbols RBF581, RBF582 and RBF578. While the yield is high for each, the MERs are very high. Also, it is not clear that there are no other hidden fees such as trailers, or front or rear end loading. I would appreciate your opinion of these products.

Q: Would you characterize holdings in RBC Emerging Markets Foreign Exchange Fund as part of the equity or fixed income portion of a portfolio? What correlation might this fund have with the movement of the Canadian or US stock exchanges? Is it beneficial for diversifying a portfolio?
Thanks
David

Q: My company will contribute 50% of what I contribute to the RRSP, however I can only invest with Manulife Mutual Funds.
What's your suggestion ? My time horizon is 18-20 years and I am an aggressive investor. The have a product called Assett Allocation that seems to invest a little bit in all of their funds.

Q: How can you tell if this fund is currency hedged or not?

Tnx for the great work.

Q: Hi
Is there a Canadian small cap fund your team likes?
I tried purchasing the Mawer New Canada Fund, but it's now closed and unavailable to the public.
Any favourites you can suggest?

Thanks

Q: Just my thoughts on the Cho 100 fund question. Post at your discretion:

Although I'm not a holder of this fund and do also strongly recommend Mawer, from a management perspective, I believe Chou is one of the best in the industry:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/investment-ideas/strategy-lab/value-investing/a-fund-manager-who-refunds-fees-meet-francis-chou/article18405672/?service=mobile

Francis Chou has even refunded fees in the past for poor performing funds, and his value strategies usually take many years to pan out. A large cash balance is likely due to not finding many value stocks in current market conditions. This also provides the ability for the fund to 'pounce' when opportunities do come up.

Q: What is your opinion of the Cho 100 fund? I have held for a number of years and have capital gains to pay if I sell. However seems to be underperforming the last couple of years. What would you consider as a reasonable alternative for a world growth vehicle. I own predominantly stocks and etfs with a light sprinkling of mutual funds.

Many Thanks

Q: Any thoughts on this fixed income fund? There is also a US version and an Investment Version.
Thanks!

Q: I would like to add international stocks to my portfolio for diversity. My current mix is 90% Canadian stocks and 10% US. I know I should not be so heavily weighted towards Canada therefore I am considering 50% Canada, 30% US and 20% International. Many of my Canadian companies have US and global business. My US exposure is through two low cost ETFs with Vanguard, namely VFV and VUN. Although VFV is comprised of US companies, more than half of those companies have international exposure. Although I am hesitant to buy mutual funds because of their high fees, I note that Mawer funds have lower fees than others plus their performance is much better than passive ETFs. I would appreciate your comments on my goals for diversification, and any other mutual fund companies or actively managed ETFs that you would recommend for international exposure.

Q: This is my only mutual fund, purchased because I could not find a Canadian based ETF with this mix, and because it seemed to be ranked so high on a longer termed basis. With a MER of 1.82 it is not as expensive as most Canadian based mutual funds. Because of its performance compared to almost all my other investments I would like to increase my stake, but would like your opinion. Do you know of an Canadian ETF with this general mix, and would you agree the Mer expenses are "okay" if the performance seems to be above average. My assumption is that it is ok to "overweight" an ETF or Mutal fund as they are already well diversified. Thanks

Q: Good morning,
A general question regarding etf's versus mutual funds. It is commonly accepted that except for rare occassions it is better to own etf's as oppossed to mutual funds. This because of the high mer's and relatively poor performance of mutual funds. In checking this thesis out for a friend,though, i find that his funds see. To have vastly outperformed the tsx. In the case i am showing you it is Franklin Bisset Canadian Equity. I checked it out on Morningstar. Am i missing something here? I imagine it is because the mer fee comes around every year and even though the fund beats the index over say a five year or ten year period, those fees dig deep. Having trouble understanding how you would calculate this.
Thanks claire

1 Yr 3 Yr * 5 Yr * 10 Yr *
Growth of 10,000 9,495 10,463 9,564 12,900 14,032 16,826
Fund -5.05 4.63 -4.36 8.86 7.01 5.34
+/- S&P/TSX Composite TR -0.78 2.03 -2.18 2.37 2.83 -0.11
+/- Category -2.28 0.98 -3.51 0.78 2.09 0.69
% Rank in Cat 77 30 86 40 17 26
# of Funds in Cat 427 476 425 308 228 97
* Annualized returns.
Data as of 04/11/2015. Currency is displayed in CAD.

Q: I am a retired, mostly conservative dividend-income investor with a pension, CPP and annuities. My asset mix is 65% equities and 35% fixed income. My holdings include AD, ALA, AQN, BNS, BCE, CGX, CPG, PBH, RY, SLF, WCP, WEF, WSP, ZLB, XIT and Sentry Cdn Income, Sentry REIT, TD Health, RBC Cdn Equity Income.

Within my equity portfolio, my tech exposure is 8% with 3/4 of that being XIT. Seasonality is in its favor right now.

Within my equity portfolio, my healthcare exposure is 4%, with 3/4 of that being TD Health. Bad current news environment and bad seasonality, but beaten down.

I am interested in topping up either XIT or TDB976. Which one is more conservative, could use the topping up and has the most upside?

Thanks,
Steve

Q: I am down somewhat on this Bond fund ... should I bail and try to recover some losses on a forecasted year end surge.Thanks as always.

Q: Can you please explain what the difference is between the Mawer Balanced (104) and the Mawer Balanced Tax Effective (105) and if one would be more suited to a registered vs non registered account. Thank you.

Q: My advisor recommended Fidelity Northstar Fund for some international exposure in my RSP account. Although it does not distribute a dividend, it has shown good growth for 5 (17.19%) and 10 (8.55%) years. I am not sure if you have to hold it for a minimum period of time. Your thoughts please. I am not sure if the net costs to me are worthy of holding this fund in my RSP and I also wonder if you advise foreign content in a CDN RSP

Q: I would suggest that Canoe got the better of this deal.Your comments please

Q: Doing a bit of portfolio clean up, what would be your recommendation (keep, replace with) regarding the following mutual funds in a well diversified portfolio. They represent about 8% of the portfolio.
DYN435 up 40%, DYN9405 up 18%, TML1013 down 6.5%, TML 1018 up 12%, AIM1651 up 9%
Please deduct credits as necessary.Thank you.
Carlos

Q: Good Morning,
I hold many of the stocks in the 5i Model Equity Portfolio. I would like to diversify my holdings beyond Canada so was thinking of starting a position in MAW150. It has performed well over the past couple of years. What do you think of this fund going forward? Are there others of this genre that you would recommend instead?
Thanks for all your help.

Q: I am a proxy for a friends account, his advisor was charging him 1 per cent, but in the account were some stocks and 2 mutual funds with a fee of between 1.5 and 2.5 per cent on top of the 1 per cent of money under management not to mention maybe a trailer fee for putting the money in the fund. since you are independent what do you think of this practice and how pervasive is it.dave