Investment Q&A

Q: Can you recommend a sort of Rip van Winkle portfolio for an 84 year old lady who just sold her house? We're talking in the neighbourhood of $400,000. She has little need for the money right now and is not worried much about volatility. She has an pension which helps too cover the need for bonds.

Q: I am looking to finally replace the following mutual funds held in a self admin RSP account, to equivalent ETFs.
FID269 - Fid Monthly Inc;
FID5973 - Fid Global Innovation;
FID207 - Fid Global Concentrated Equity;
RBC460 - Sel Bal Ptf
TDB2760 - Td Retirement Balance
TDB652 - Td Global Entertainment & communication
TDB976 - Td Health Science
TDB2580 Td Tactical Monthly Inc
My goal is to replace these mutual funds with long term, high yielding where possible, low MER, CDN or US $ equivalent ETFs. Please provide 2 or 3 suggestions for each. Please deduct as many credit s as need.
Thank you for all the invaluable investment help you provide.

Q: I have cash for a new full position. I run an mix of your balanced and income portfolio for my cad exposure. Of the above names which would you add a full position right now. I am also considering just batting for the average with SPY or XEF. balanced shifting to income follower, 5 year window looking for good entry point into one of the names above.

Q: Hi 5i Team

When investing monies into a diversified ETF, such as SPY or QQQ, which investment approach provides the best risk-return profile? More specifically, how would you rank the following investment approaches: lump-sum, dollar cost averaging, (DCA) and augmented DCA?

Augmented DCA is a modified version of DCA where the investment strategy is more aggressive if the economy is expanding and more conservative if the economy is contracting. Macroeconomic factors are employed to determine if the economy is expanding or contracting (e.g., market volatility, unemployment rate, and capacity utilization).

If an investor chooses DCA or augmented DCA, over what investment period would be reasonable? Is it 6 months? 9 months? 12 months? 15 months?

Thanks

George

Q: Hi
in regards to the Balanced ETF model portfolio, which ETFs that trade in USD would you recommend in place of VGG and ZSP?
I assume that both of these ETFs provide dividends and would best be held in an RRSP - is that right?
thanks

Q: Hi 5iTeam,

I wish to setup a long-term equity portfolio for my child consisting of the following:

QQQ - 30%
SPY - 30%
XIC - 10%
VEA - 30%

Rebalancing will be done annually.

Do you have any suggestions on how to improve the risk-return profile of this portfolio? For example, should additional ETFs be added to incorporate "value", "small-cap", "emerging markets" and "frontier markets"?

Your comments are most appreciated.

George

Q: Good morning,

I recently started selling puts and put credit spreads in SPY, QQQ, IWM and AAPL, these being among the most liquid underlyings with very tight bid-ask spreads. Things have worked out well, so far, as the market has been moving higher and higher.

I'm told that my positions are highly correlated and should consider underlyings that are not as correlated to the broad markets. Could you suggest some underlyings that I can consider? I prefer liquid underlyings so that I can exit them quickly in the event the trade goes against me.

Thank you

Q: My husband and I are in our early 60’s. We do not have a company income. The bulk of our assets are in my RRSP and LIRA accounts.
We are converting his RRSP to a RRIF and my LIRA to a LIF this year and waiting until I am 65 to convert my RRSP so we can take advantage of pension splitting.
We are conservative investors and just want to keep up with inflation.
Would you please suggest a few ETF’s for diversification and a few income ETF’s for our LIF, RRIF and my RRSP accounts. If there are stocks you would would like to include that would be appreciated. Thank you.

Q: My 31 year old daughter has $50,000 cash in her US TFSA account. What investments would you recommend for a mid to long term hold.

Thanks

Q: I am looking to invest in an ETF for a period of 5 to 10 years and have a medium to high risk tolerance. Can you suggest 5 to 10 ETFs that should be considered? Thank you very much

Q: My question has to do with technical indicators that may signal bearishness. In particular, I'm looking at the "unusual short interest" in the mentioned ETFs. Some popular "influencers" indicate they hedge when a market turns downwards by shorting these ETFs. This, the logic goes, is a way to protect the downside without liquidating high growth holdings.

Right now, my intution is that there is a "de-risking" going on in the markets (away from high growth and speculative cyclicals to blue chips and large cap tech).

My questions: Do you see unusual short activity going on in these ETFs, is it a fair indicator of broader bearishness, and do you think the strategy of hedging by temporarily shorting these ETFs is sound?

Q: Please recommend 4 index etf's Canadian for my TFSA and 4 US for my RRSP. If you recommend Bonds make it number 5 Looking at 15-20 year DRIP and hold.
Thanks
Cec

Q: A bit of USD cash to deploy in an unregistered account. Hit for the average with SPY, pick the safer large cap div payers with VIG or growth is the next big thing with IWO. Not a large sum so just topping up one of my 3 USA focused etfs I already hold. Which is the best buy right now, +5 year hold.

Q: I have balanced stocks in RRSP (mainly from your BE portfolio) and growth companies in TFSA (mostly our picks). Its very well diversified in different sectors. Thank you for your help

I still have ~50 K Cash (from recent clean up) in RRSP which I would be investing in this summer. Since majority of my stocks are Canadian, to balance out I am looking to add mostly US ETFs.

These are the ETFs have got my attentions from your questions answers. I am looking for maximum growth and also a hold and forget for 10 + years. This question applies to RRSP

Please provide me with 3-5 suggestions from below. Would you add anything else here or suggest otherwise?

IWO, IWM, VB, VUG, VFV, VGRO, QQQ, ARKK, ARKG,SPY

Thank you for your excellent service!

Q: I am looking for a US etf with long term growth. This in order to balance out the over-weighted Canadian portfolio of blue chip dividend stocks. This investment is long term, no short term plans for this allocation and do not want dividends for tax efficiency. This question applies to both RRSP and non registered accounts. Could you provide me with 3 suggestions please.

Q: SPY, QQQ, and IWM HAve what seem to be historically (and ridiculously) attenuated charts especially viewed from a 20 year perspective. Short of using trailing stop loss orders with each of my largely dividend-oriented equity positions, what would you recommend as a defensive strategy? E.G. gradually adding to a laddered IWM put and/or LEAP put position(s)?

Q: Am I missing any major sectors with these stock investments?
Where should I focus if I would like to ensure a diverse portfolio?
Are there any stocks that I should dump?

Q: Hi all @ 5i,

I recently change job and I need to transfer my work/pension (200K$) into myself manage account. I have been self-trading for 1+ year now and manage to make 22% on my stock YOY on a small investment(TFSA 20k$). I am looking to put 100K$ in the 5i GROWTH portfolio but wonder how to organize my purchase of stock to get the best results possible. (I will be keeping this for 15+ years in my RRSP so my investment perspective is long term). Should I simply split 100k in the number of stocks in the GROWTH portfolio and round up to the next numbers of share or looking to a more dynamic approach since some of those stocks are more matures since inceptions…

For the second half of my investment, I was looking into putting them in to EFT and was wondering if you had favorite from a US perspective (since I can get the pulse on the Canadian one here already)

Any help and guidance would be appreciated,

Thanks

Fred

Q: I'm looking for suggestions for an RESP account for an eight month child. Much appreciated guys.
Dave

Q: Can you recommend your top one or two ETFs for S&P500 exposure. Do you recommend CAD-hedged or unhedged?