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Investment Q&A

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

Q: I own both of these in my TFSA. I think of them as different because ATD is international with a focus on gas sales while PKI is Canadian and has propane distribution along with its gas. However, given your comments on BNN last night, should I consider them more as similar companies and combine my investments when calculating my portfolio exposure?

Appreciate your insight.

Paul F.
Read Answer Asked by Paul on August 04, 2016
Q: My question concerns fuel pricing and specifically, profit margins. Prior to ATD.B's last quarter results, concerns were raised about a potential decline in profit margins from gas sales. However, I thought retail gas price margins were quite stable and that it was the underlying price of oil that caused gas prices to gyrate. In fact, I thought retailers were helped by fluctuating oil prices because they are quick to raise prices when oil goes up (thus selling lower priced inventories gas at a higher price) but slow to lower them when oil drops. Is this thesis correct? If I am at least somewhat correct, it would therefore seem that overall sales is not that important a metric for these companies.

How much do gasoline profits contribute to these companies over all profits? Or are in store sales more important?

Appreciate your insight.

Paul F.
Read Answer Asked by Paul on July 25, 2016
Q: Thank you 5i for your excellent service!!!

I have divided up my portfolio into thirds.
One third is a diverse group of ETFs.
One third is cash and a group fluid group of stocks made up primarily from stocks you recommend. SJ, CCL, SIS, KXS... etc.
One third is made up of the seven stocks listed above. Do you have any concerns about any of these being a long term hold. I know Magna is cyclical but is that a concern?
Cheers,
Bryan
Read Answer Asked by Bryan on July 19, 2016
Q: Question 1:Pki has a 5% yield while atd.b is minimal, would atd.b grow significantly enough to overcome the yield difference. If you had to choose one over the other which one would it be? Do you think atd.b will have to do a financing soon?
Question 2: Have you heard of BUS-X Grande West transportation, if so what are your thought on this company, is it likely to be a baby nfi?
Thank you
Lynda
Read Answer Asked by Lynda on June 21, 2016
Q: Portfolio weighting a aside. For a young investor if you were topping up two of these, which two would you choose? Cheers
Read Answer Asked by Josh on June 20, 2016
Q: I have some money that I will be putting into an RESP for my children: while it is roughly 0.5%-0.75% of my actual total investment portfolio, I would prefer to avoid more volatile companies in this particular account. I do have a long time horizon (about 6 years before I start to have any demand for the money), but have been burnt before in this particular portfolio by trying to "hit a home run" with an investment play, and am looking for slow, steady growth.

I have listed three companies above, with ATD.B as my first pick as I only have roughly a 2% overall exposure (between all of my collective accounts) to the Consumer Staples group (I assume that ATD.B would be under Staples rather than Discretionary). If you would recommend something else in this space, or another sector, rather than the companies I have mentioned, I would be most grateful for the suggestion. In any event, I look forward to your thoughts. Thanks so much!
Read Answer Asked by Domenic on June 10, 2016
Q: you seem to get a question on couche tard everytime it declines, and i know it is one of your favorites.
so is the recent decline due to sector rotation, cdn dollar strength, margins on gas etc or what.
i would think with the recent purchse of esso stations in mtl, possible bidding on valero and loblaws stations the stock would be rising, also most targets are in the 70 dollar range. dave
Read Answer Asked by david on June 08, 2016
Q: When I look at the last 10 years of Cineplex data, I see a plodding yearly price increase without any particularly exciting price swings, a continuous series of modest quarterly profits with few exceptions, a series of fairly regular dividend increases - in a word DULL!

Do you think that they'll continue to be similarly dull? Can you point me to 4 or 5 companies that might be similarly dull over the next 3 to 5 years? I could use some dull (other than financials, where I'm a bit over-weight) to add to my portfolio.

Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Gordon on June 03, 2016
Q: Hi
If you could only buy five out of the six above listed stocks at today's prices (for the long term), which stock would you NOT purchase?
Read Answer Asked by Mike on June 02, 2016