Investment Q&A

Q: What is the best way to reduce the max drawdown in a long term growth investment portfolio that has increased a lot in value over the years? What are some strategies or things for investors to be cognizant of or do over time?

My investment strategy is to buy high quality compounders and hold them a long time. My top sectors by weight are tech, financials, industrials and cons. cyclical. My bottom ones are utilities, materials and communications with energy and staples in the middle.

It always seems like my portfolio takes the stairs up and the elevator down. I'm happy with the returns so far and hold high quality growth names. Are there strategies to reduce the downside while enjoying the max upside? : ) Such as raising cash or hedging (PSQ, SH) at certain times, although this is market timing which I tend to try to avoid. Your thoughts? Thank you!

Q: I would appreciate a sampling of hedges for the NASDAQ 100 & S&P 500 please.

Q: is there any ETF that is a short or an ultra short on various markets ?

Q: In order to protect my portfolio from further damage I am thinking about adding ETF which short indexes. How would you consider the above three as short play to recover loss and make some gains. Would you consider any other ETFs?

Q: Hi Team I have not invested in Bitcoin but I am interested in BITI as a hedge as I see Bitcoin falling off and suspect it may the winner on a race to the bottom. I placed a small order and was flagged that there may be MER charges. So 2 questions. Is an inverse Bitcoin pure speculation or a plausible hedge. Are MER charges on ETF's normal? I would also like your recommendations on hedges that may be soflen a downturn....up to 3 questions now!

Q: Recently I read John De Goey's Sept 2020 MoneySaver 'Portfolio Insurance' article. His custom-built inverse notes moderate risk by moving in the opposite direction of the market. He advises his clients to use them for up to 40% of their portfolio. Are there preferred Can and US ETFs that do the same thing, and what would your thoughts be about their use?

I have tried to moderate risk by building RRSP, TFSA and to a lesser extent, the unregistered accounts around all-in-one ETFs (VGRO, VBAL and VNCS) using specific growth or income stocks and bonds to augment the ETFs according to the type of account. The US side follow the same pattern but with themed ETFs (ARKK, ARKF, IHI, VIG, VDC, IWO, VHT, SPY). According to Port Analytics, I am sitting at approx 70% stock, 20% income, 8% cash and 2% diversified.

My thanks.

Q: Would you please recommend a couple of inverse etf's or bear funds to hedge the current market enthusiasm. Both Cdn and US pls. Thanks.

Q: If an investor is expecting a potential 10% market pullback in the coming weeks and they want to "partially" hedge their portfolio without selling or shorting their holdings, what percentage of an inverse ETF like PSQ would you recommend holding versus the value of their long position? In other words, in a $1,500,000 portfolio, what dollar amount would you hold in PSQ shares? Thank you!!

Q: Is there and could you recommend, any ETF or fund, that actively shorts ?
Specifically Tech Sector but any area that looks to be overbought.
Thanks

Q: I'm looking for ETFs that are the inverse of the S&P 500, the Dow, the QQQ's and the Russel 2000, that trade in Canadian dollars in our market. Can you make suggestions?

Q: I have a question related to inverse index ETFs and payments of dividends.

I hold 100 shares of the New York-traded ETF "PROSHARES SHORT QQQ", ticker PSQ, which behaves in an inverse way to the NASDAQ index. Last week I received a dividend of US$4.01. Although this is a modest amount, I am very surprised that I would receive any dividend at all ! How can this be with an inverse ETF? (If anything, I would expect to have deducted the dividends of the underlying shares, as is the case with a "short" of an individual stock.)

Thanks for any clarification you can provide!

Q: Could you suggest a way to short FAANG stocks with a 1 to 2 year time frame?
Thank you.

John