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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 am looking to build a future income stream from a portfolio of 5-6 names that can be held for many years (decades) that will show sustainability and dividend growth. I am patient and would add to the names consistently for the next 20 years. If you had to pick 6 "forever" stocks that you could rely on, what would they be? (utilizing Buffett's theory of best time horizon for owning a stock is forever). I don't ever want to worry about a dividend cut and am comfortable holding through periods of extreme volatility as long as I know I am getting paid. Thanks in advance! (PS I am aware this could mean no exposure to commodity stocks)
Read Answer Asked by Kevin on November 01, 2016
Q: My portfolio is predominantly made up of 4 company's stocks. They are ATD.B, GIL, HCG and SJ. With the exception of SJ (bought it in 2006) I have owned them all since 2002. I have significant capital gains from them all and have been selling them off slowly over the past three years. In each of the past three years I paid significant taxes due to the sale of these shares. I have tried to offset some of the gains by selling some of my losers but the gains are much higher and selling my losers makes the imbalance in my portfolio greater. Do you have a suggestion on how I can help balance my portfolio and avoid paying significant capital gains taxes?
Read Answer Asked by Robert on October 28, 2016
Q: Hi Team,
Can you please provide an overview of Union Gas (UNG-C or UNG-P)? What is it's risk/reward profile? TD Waterhouse shows a tiny market cap of ~$7.5M with $1.8B revenue TTM. Is that correct? I don't understand the corporate structure (searches say it is a subsidiary of Spectra Energy with assets of more than $7B). Union Gas issues bonds in its own name though. Can you please shed some light on this?

Thank you, Michael
Read Answer Asked by Michael on October 28, 2016
Q: Hi,

I asked a question yesterday about fixed income investments. You recommended a couple of ETFs that I will look into.

My question is the merit of ETFs vs actual bonds. I understand that individual investors can't get the same diversification with bonds as with an ETFs, but ETFs never mature unlike actual bonds and you could end up with a loss. What are your thoughts?

Jason
Read Answer Asked by Jason on October 27, 2016
Q: Hi guys,

I recently read the intelligent investor and it gives several metrics by which Benjamin Graham would analyze stocks. Given that the book was written so long ago, are the metrics still relevant or have they evolved?

I'm specifically referring to a few, such as:

1- Current assets should be at 2 time Current liabilities

2 - Uninterrupted dividend payments for at least 20 years

3 - P/E Ratio of not more than 15 times when using last 3 year avg of earnings

4 - Long-term debt should not exceed working capital

While a lot of the information is helpful, it seems some of these criteria are nearly impossible to meet in the current low interest rate environment where companies are leveraging themselves to buy back shares or do other things. While we need to keep a close eye on long-term debt, net debt to EBITDA or net debt to total capitalization may be better tools to use?

Thanks,
Jason
Read Answer Asked by Jason on October 26, 2016
Q: Q: I plan to have a portfolio which is good for one year, five year and ten or more years. My objective is to have good growth, capital appreciation with moderate risk. Capital preservation over three years in spite of high short-term volatility will be fine. Please tell me what you think of a portfolio I am considering putting together consisting of V-N, UNH-N, WFC-N, NFI-T, FB-O, AMZN-O, GOOGL-O, KXS-T, ENB-T, CN-T, CJT-T, BYD.UN-T. Your thoughts on how this may compare to the BE portfolio performance, volatility, Saftey. Equal weights would be purchased. I invite you to make any changes, additions, deletions? I will appreciate if you place these stocks from high to low priority.
I apologize if I am asking too much. Thank you.

Read Answer Asked by KAM on October 26, 2016
Q: Regarding the question about selecting half of your balanced equity portfolio, you mention ‘confidence ‘ ‘over the long term’ for stock like TOY and CXI over much bigger BNS and T ..
I’m not certain to understand ..do you mean confidence in over-performance over a longer period..at the risk of higher volatilty/risk ? Is it much better to buy the complete portfolio ?
thanks for the good work !
Read Answer Asked by Martin on October 26, 2016
Q: Hi, I have shares in Peabody energy which filed chapter 11 earlier in the year. Once listed with the "Q" designation, the shares lingered in the $1.50 range for about six months until the past week where they sky rocketed to what it is currently at $13.50.

Do you have an idea what machinations cause a ch11 stock to go this high? Also should I take advantage of this pop and sell my existing shares?

I read that once a ch11 company climbs out of bankruptcy they can issue new shares making existing common shares worthless. Is it possible that peabody may not do this?

Sorry for the barrage of questions, I am very curious how bankruptcies work.

Thank You,
Andrew
Read Answer Asked by Andrew on October 24, 2016
Q: Hi Peter and Team, Ken asked about GIC's for a not-for-profit. He may be able to get a higher rate using a simple savings account at Tangerine Bank since they have some "specials" that expire at the end of the year. Different clients receive different rates; my wife is getting 3%, and I'm getting 2.5%. I've also found that they'll "match" an offer from a competitor if you call them. These rates may be higher than GICs.
Read Answer Asked by Jerry on October 24, 2016
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