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: In the preferred share space I own both cpd and Ecn.pr.a. I am down a fair amount on both. Does the market really affect prefs that much. I bought because of the reset feature . Assuming higher interest rates the reset rate would be higher. No indication yet of falling rates in which case I would sell CPD and take my losses. On the other hand minimum rate reset preferred guarantees a specific rate protection on falling interest rates while at the same time having a possible increase in the reset rate if interest rates rise. Looks to me the best of both worlds. My investment is for income. Final question , will price go back to par on reset date.
Can one expect the the closer to reset the closer the value will be to par.
Read Answer Asked by Roy on November 26, 2018
Q: Lots of questions to 5i on prefs lately. Some possible are explanations are in a recent article by John Heinzl: "Why preferred shares plunged."
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/education/article-why-prefs-plunged-and-the-acbs-of-the-loblaw-deal/
You can add indiscriminate dumping of issues by CPD,ZPR, and HPR on high volume days as they struggle to keep up with net redemptions. The bid/ask spread on these ETFs is far less than most individual issues, so investors look to them for liquidity.
Read Answer Asked by Jeff on November 26, 2018
Q: Can you tell me why preferred shares are getting slammed? I notice that companies like Brookfield with attractive yields, protected by a floor in the 5% range, are down double digits. Also, ZPR is down 7% in the past month. Typically prefs don't get caught up in a correction. They didn't between February-March anyway. Your thoughts would be appreciated. I think there are a number of excellent buying opportunities. In particular BPO.I has a nearly 6% yield at these levels.
Read Answer Asked by Cory on November 23, 2018
Q: Good morning,
In your response to Marilyn on Friday you replied that you "have no concens seeing it (CPD) as part of an income allocation" and "one needs to decide how it fits in"
My recent experience is that any so-called fixed income that I purchase loses money even including distributions. My current cash allocation is therefor 20% earning nothing, with another 20% in CBO, CPD, XBB, XHY, and a few preferred issues. I can look for a DIS account but could you expand on "how it fits in" and perhaps suggest the ETFs we should currently be using in this environment and a possible allocation range for each. Thank you for the ongoing excellent service in a difficult environment.
Ted
Read Answer Asked by Ted on November 12, 2018
Q: I own CPD in an OPEN account. I am still trying to understand Preferred Shares, even after watching Ryan's very good presentation about it. I am still trying to figure out why the fluctuations in CPD, outside of bond yields, and interest rate fluctuations i.e. should I sell these now for Tax loss selling or keep and buy more perhaps. It might be helpful for me to understand how I can buy an individual preferred share in my TDInvestor account, then I could see the difference in share price to common? A few questions here....
Thanks
Marilyn
Read Answer Asked by Marilyn on November 09, 2018
Q: Hi All at 5i! I am working at establishing a more stable portion to my portfolio in the form of bond and preferred ETFs. I require four that pay me a dividend and have so far chosen CPD, XHY and CBO and would welcome a fourth ( or more) suggestion. Could you please help me with this. Cheers, Tamara
Read Answer Asked by Tamara on October 15, 2018
Q: Hi Guys.

I have a question about Rate Reset preferred shares. Where do you think the cutoff point is for a company not to extend their preferred share?

The call will affect my yield to maturity calculation.

As examples, TD Bank has a preferred share with a reset of GOC 5 year plus 1.68% (TD.PR.Y) and another at 4.66% (TD.PF.G). I would assume TD won’t call the 1.68% and will call the 4.66% at maturity.

I will ask the same question in the forums under “preferred shares” to get additional opinions from any member wanting to help another member.

Thanks for your insight.
John
Read Answer Asked by John on October 09, 2018
Q: I own the following in a non-registered account. (I own growth stocks in my TFSA, and US/international equities and Canadian bonds in my RRSP). The goal is to DRIP the following stocks in my non-registered account until I retire and then use the income only to cover some monthly expenses.
CPD; BNS; SLF; FTS; ENB; ALA; BCE; CHP.UN; NWH.UN; VET; NWC; and EIF.
Do you have any concerns with any of these companies long term?

Read Answer Asked by Pamela on October 04, 2018
Q: CPD Normally price of prefs will go down when rates go up. The lower price increasing the rate of return to compete in the market.
I’ve been trying to get my head around the newer minimum rate reset prefs. What would be the effect on such prefs of rising and/lower interest rates.
For example let’s say the current 5 yr bond is1.75%,
What would be the effect of the rate at reset if the rate is 2% vs say 1,50%
Use ECN.PR.A for your explanation.
Correct my assumptions if I’m wrong.
Thank you,
Roy


Read Answer Asked by Roy on August 20, 2018
Q: We will be putting 50,000 in my wife TFSA inNovember. we are looking for relatively safe investments with decent return.We think perhaps 10 investments @5000 each.Can you suggest other names I could look into.We have RRSP maxed out with varied portfolio.Deduct as many credits required. Tks 5i
Read Answer Asked by Guy on August 13, 2018
Q: Hello 5i team,
I'm thinking in investing in Preferred shares; to that end and for starters, I examined the CPD chart from 2008 to date.
I noticed that the share value dropped by 25% in the 2008-09 recession; I can understand that. But it also dropped by 25% in 2015; could you please enlighten me as to why?
Could you please explain the pros & cons of investing in a preferred ETF versus in particular preferred shares?
Thanks,
Antoine
Read Answer Asked by Antoine on July 25, 2018
Looking for more? Sign up for a FREE 14 day trial! No credit card required

We invite you to sign up for a 14 day free trial of 5i Research!
Experience all the benefits and tools we have to offer; stock research, model portfolios, Q&A with our experts, and so much more. Join a community of like-minded investors today!