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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: Everyone, I don’t trade very much, I am a buy and hold person. Keep the best of the best stocks. But I regularly look at charts to see were the stocks is at certain times. The 50, 100 and 200 MVA. Also RSI. I know you use financial metrics but do the charts have a benefit to individual investors? Or should they be used in combination with finial metrics? Which is more important? Clayton
Read Answer Asked by Clayton on March 24, 2025
Q: Hi 5i Team - Price per Earnings and forward P/E is often used as a measure of valuation for a stock. Also I am assuming that when someone talks of a company trading at 20 times earnings they are referring to this ratio. However I have never been completely sure about what this means. Does earnings mean EBITA. Could you elaborate on the exact meaning of earnings.

Secondly is this the best measure of a company's success, at least for investment purposes, or is there another metric (or more) that gives a better insight into the valuation of a company.

I've never seen a price per profit ratio so here's the third part of this question. Does something like this exist or is there a similar ratio that would help in evaluating a company's performance.

Thank you.


Read Answer Asked by Rob on March 19, 2025
Q: I was overthinking diversification all night long and got to wondering about purchasing foreign stocks. There are 4 solid Australian stocks that are their "aristocrats".

It seems strange that US/CDN markets are interchangeable yet I can't find how to even buy something listed on the .ASX ( not so simple for Wealthsimple)

Given diversification is so important, do you purchase foreign stocks directly? How so?

I understand that tax treaties and commissions may make the issue pointless. But money is money. Even if it's EUROS or Aussie dollars. Curious about your experiences.

Thanks for all you do
Read Answer Asked by Jeff on March 17, 2025
Q: Dear Peter et al:

Market is going through the long awaited correction, Not pancking...yet! I review my own portfolio once in a few weeks and see if I can tweek it. I contructed an asymmetrical barbell with mainly Vanguard's ETFs (SAFE) and small/mid sized allocation for growthy stocks. I also have a basket for non-corelated stock. I had posed questions here at 5i Rearch in September 2023 and slowly constructed these "baskets"!

My quesion is this: How come VPU Vanguard's utilities ETF and almost all of my Private equity stocks including your all time favourite BN plus BLK/BX and most notably KKR are all down?!! They are supposed to act as a buffer, no? Because I have been buying them slowly, I am still in the positive territory, except VPU. But the fact that the non-correlation isn't taking place, makes me wonder if I have to tweek my percentage of allocation. I know it is personal. But this is more a conceptual question.

Would you add to Utilites and Private equity here or keep this framework and stay the course?

BTW my Canadian Utilities like EMA/H/FTS have withstood this correction and indeed have shown the anticipated non-correlation!

Sorry for this longish question.

Look forward to your answer.
Read Answer Asked by Savalai on March 11, 2025
Q: Is it concerning that NVDA had really good results (but not good enough) and the market is selling off? When all the good news is baked into prices and there's nothing stock earnings can do to impress the markets, is it time to get defensive? Is it more tariff and recession related? The 10 yr is down to 4.3% so you would think it's good for equities that rates are coming down, but if the reason for the decline is because we are expecting a recession, it's not good. I'm not really panicking but portfolio is mainly growth oriented and there are signs that the market is rolling over due to excessive valuation and a whole lot of other worries. Any advice on how we should be positioning or getting more defensive? Thanks!
Read Answer Asked by Keith on March 03, 2025
Q: 5i core principles

Can you clarify what you mean with this statement?
Avoid Concentrated Risks
"Don’t make a portfolio reliant on a single stock."
This is staight forward. But how many do you recommend?
"no matter how well you know a company or how confident you are in it, it can still go down."
How do you mitigate risk? It would seem that having a method of getting out of non or under performing stocks would be prudent.
"Having too many eggs in one basket can cause a lot of problems that are hard to bounce back from."
Are you suggesting having many baskets or having one basket with a few eggs that you carefully monitor?
I will post this under Avoid Concentrated Risks in the forums section if anyone wants to comment.
Read Answer Asked by Rob on February 26, 2025
Q: Is there a book or online resources on how to manage your portfolio during retirement (or close to retirement) that you can recommend?
I have read a lot about long term investing, the economical cycles, and related weightings during wealth maximization stage when one has many years before retirement. I recently started asking myself about how that could change when a person approaches retirement and then actually retires. I still have many years before I retire but I would like to plan early.
Your advice is greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Read Answer Asked by Ahmed on February 20, 2025
Q: Good Morning 5i Team,

Retired income investor. Current funds generated keep my wife and I comfortable.
Will be inheriting a large sum in very near future. With ongoing Trump issues should I hold monies in reserve; dollar cost average or go all in.. Are we going to see a major downturn which would provide buying opportunities Your thoughts and insights on how to proceed would be most appreciated.
Read Answer Asked by Dave on February 19, 2025
Q: For now, investors seem to have decided to fade the chaos of Trumpenomics. However, one has to wonder how long the massive contradictions will be ignored.
Scott Bessent (Treasury), the man who wrote the report that identified the contradictions in the UK economy that made George Soros $billions, certainly must see the dangers, and yet, he is the source of one of the major contradictions, when he says the Fed shouldn’t lower rates while Trump demands the opposite.

Is Fed independence under attack and how will investors read this?

Are tariffs, as claimed, for revenue or to reduce imports? They can’t be both.
But if the tax cuts are to be permanent, $3 trillion in revenue has to be found somewhere.

Will Trump let a gnat like the Parliamentarian, or the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, stand in his way?

If, at some point, investors focus on the issues around tariffs-as-revenue, or threats to Fed independence they may begin to worry, and decide to sell equities.

The cost to hedge against such an event would be prohibitively expense given one wouldn’t know whether or when it would occur.

I’m sure 5i is considering these issues, but here is what I am pondering. How does an investor with a large equity portfolio manage this kind of risk? Would growth stocks be hardest hit? Are etfs better than individual stocks? What defensive stocks are likely least affected? Are there equities that would do well in such a scenario? How would bonds perform?
Read Answer Asked by michael on February 18, 2025
Q: Hello 5I, I am in my late 30s and have been a contractor my entire working life. Seeing as I have no pension, my business account is essentially my retirement fund. If you could pick 10 stocks (doesn’t matter if they are Canadian, American, or international), as potential retirement stocks (some combination of capital appreciation and yield), to potentially live off of 15 years down the road, what would they be? I do have a TFSA and RRSPs invested more aggressively.

Thanks
Read Answer Asked by Mackenzie on February 18, 2025
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