Investment Q&A

Q: In each our TFSAs we have ZLB and CDZ plus cash. We understand that we should diversify our TFSA investments with a minimum of 5 different ETFs or mutual funds in each TFSA. Should we also consider having different investments in each TFSA?
Thank you Bradley Kempston

Q: Hi
In my cash account I want to replace part of my CDZ holding by 4% and increase my US and International by 2% each. I also want to capture the CDZ capital loss. In addition I like the 5.23% dividend.

Would you have any suggestions I was looking at ZSP and VEE as possible replacements and am willing to replace some dividend loss for gains.

I thank you for your time.

Mike

Q: I am well past retirement and trying to consolidate my stock holdings into ETFs. I. may not last long enough to complete this transition, but I'm moving in that direction! My latest thought on this is to divide my Canadian equity between ZLB and CDZ the first for stability, the 2nd for dividends, and for US equity ZSP. I'm staying away from other International stocks at this stage. Does this seem reasonable?

thanks

Q: Hello 5i, I’ve invested a portion of my grandmother’s TFSA in CDZ looking for a decent diversified relatively low risk dividend (to be reinvested) payer, which I’ve seen recommended on here a few times. I was on morning star and I came across those two funds which seems to have outperformed despite their similarities and higher MER. Could you please explain the fundamental differences between the three and rank them from best to worst for a 5 year horizon according to your opinion? I wasn’t able to access the complete funds’ holding details. Thank you!!

Q: My son has asked my advice on how best to invest ~$13K he holds in GICs in registered accounts. He has a very young family and wants to begin investing on the right foot with this initial investment while adding to it over time, funds permitting. My personal investing approach has been to invest in high quality, primarily Canadian, dividend paying equities but for him, just starting out and with many investing years ahead of him, EFTs seem a far more appropriate and safer choice.

Would you consider 60% CDZ and 40% ZDY a good suggestion for him or would you recommend other EFTs that better track the indexes like XIU and ZSP? Do you consider just two EFTs sufficient diversification until his portfolio grows larger? What about the percentage Canada/U.S. split? Does 60/40 seem OK? Many thanks for your thoughts on the matter.

Q: I am 72 and retired. I have been building a part of my portfolio (58.4%) for the last three years with ETFs. Current holdings are (% weight of portfolio in brackets): zwh (10.5), zwu (9.1), zwc (8.5), mft (5.9), xtr (5.3), xhy (5.2), zwe (4.7), cdz (3.2), zdh (3.2) & zre (2.9). With 24.2% cash, I plan on slowly adding to these etfs. How would you do this? The remainder of my portfolio is in dividend paying Canadian large caps.
Thanks, Jim

Q: Hello 5i team. I am starting an investment accounts for my daughter who has started working. She & I are interested in, for her TFSA, co's such as Google, Apple, Microsoft and other tech consumer names. Is there a Cdn dollar ETF with distributions, that invests in this space. I am additionally considering ZWH & CDZ to round off as a starting base.

Q: Could you please recommend a couple of funds in Canadian dollars. Interested in yield not particular about growth. Thanks

Q: Hey 5i,
Despite the downturn and possibly another.
Dividends have been cut and some more are possible. Oil potentially being the longer rebound.
Is their a recommended best "overall" US Dividend ETF.
Overall taking into account Yield. Growth. MER. Somewhat balanced exposure and or limited oil holdings.

Great work as always. Thank you!

Q: Would you please recommend a couple of dividends ETFs issued in Canadian dollars - containing Cdn and or US stocks. The objective is yield more than growth with medium or lower risk. Thanks

Q: Since this ETF holds companies that have been increasing their dividends for 5 years, I am concerned that they will have to sell a bunch of their holdings at a low price if they do not increase their dividends this year. How does this work and should I be concerned?

Q: Hi Peter: When I sit back and take a look at the big picture and review how my portfolio performed during COVID-19 (so far), I try to see what lessons I can learn, then turn to how to apply those lessons to make my portfolio stronger.

I am a retired, dividend-income investor. I am a huge believer in asset allocation and have designed a portfolio, in my opinion, to be reasonably well diversified, although heavy to Canada. It WAS roughly 70% equities (including 32% foreign content) and 30% fixed income (roughly 15% insured annuities, 15% Fisgard Capital...both averaging in the 5-6% pre-tax range and minor cash). My equities are mostly blue chip, dividend payers, as you can see above. The 3 mutual funds are a very minor part of my portfolio, especially Eric's Energy Fund (<2%). I also receive a company pension and CPP-OAS which, when included, drops my equities to roughly 32%.

I use various metrics to monitor my portfolio, such as P/E, P/BV, P/CF, P/S, Beta, ROE, Div growth, Payout%, technical indicators like 200 mda. I am normally a buy-and-hold investor who trims/adds around a core position.

Periodically I measure how "at risk" my portfolio is relative to the overall market. I do this by prorating my portfolio using Beta. Based on equities only, I averaged 0.68 and for my entire portfolio I averaged 0.44. So, one would think that if the overall market (TSX) was to drop 30%, then I would have thought my portfolio would drop 44% to 68% of that, being in the range of 13% (overall) to 20% (equities only).

In actual fact, my entire portfolio dropped 27% from peak to trough vs the expected 13%...over double! I understand that EVERYTHING was sold off...almost no exceptions. So what do we learn from this and what changes should we consider? Do we accept that "sxxt happens" once in a while...you can't predict every event, accept it and move on? Should we consider increasing the cash component as a buffer? Or...is there something else to be learned here?

Thanks for you help...much appreciated...Steve

Q: What are your thoughts on these two etfs for retirement income going forward ?

Q: Can you please recommend what you believe is currently the best Canadian dividend ETF for monthly income and relative stability in this unstable market. You have recommended XEI in the past, but it has about about 11% more Energy stocks compared to ZDV, although XEI does have 5% less financials. I am looking for a long term hold for income in retirement. Thanks, Grant

Q: you recently ranked XEI more highly than CDZ. Could you offer a comparison between the 2? I have read elsewhere that CDZ, which I own, holds too many high yield/high risk
stocks. Would substituting XEI address that, or would it create its own issues?

Thanks

Q: I recently sold CDZ, XEI and ZDV for a tax loss and would like to re-purchased equivalent ETF's. Can you recommend appropriate replacements?

Q: Given the number of companies either suspending or eliminating dividends , would you say the outlook for this fund to be rather weak, for the time being?

Q: Please rank the above ETFs in order of preference for income and safety. Thanks.

Q: Retired dividend-income investor. I'm sitting on 15% cash that I created by taking profits and harvesting some losses. I have mapped out how to redeploy this cash to hit my asset allocation targets, both by sector as well as by individual holding. I had originally designed the re-entry on spreading the purchases over 6 months. Given that we now have information on different countries indicating that they MIGHT be showing signs of COVID slowly recovering and that the stock market is forward looking, would you adjust the 6 months time frame to 4 months? What's your crystal ball tell you...redeploy a little faster?

Also, the above equities are those that are candidates for topping up. Which would you hit up first?

Thanks for your help...Steve

Q: Given that the CDZ ETF holds companies with a 5 year record of raising dividends, I am wondering if there are going to be very many left after this crisis. Best case scenario I think for most companies would be to hold their dividend due to the uncertainty. That leaves a small universe of possible companies to hold and may lead to concentration in Banks and Telcos, maybe pipelines. Any comment?