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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: Hello
Could you please rank your top 10 companies from the list above. Ones that you would be happy to own at a full position. Thank you!
Read Answer Asked by Cory on November 08, 2021
Q: Good morning. Would like your thoughts on this company and if at all it would be a stock to add to a portfolio

Read Answer Asked by Marla on October 26, 2021
Q: Good morning again, I just sent the beginning of a question and inadvertently sent it before I finished!
Here it is , hopefully in its entirety,
I am building a long term portfolio, 10 plus years, and would like to add 2 or 3 Large US Technology stocks. I am looking at AAPL , GOOG AMZN and MSFT , I already have NVDA and are not interested in FB. Any thoughts on the above, which order would you suggest buying them in, and are there any others I should consider? Also can you explain the difference between GOOG and GOOGL Thank you
Read Answer Asked by Fredrick on October 25, 2021
Q: My 28yr old son is looking to build a diversified ETF portfolio with 100% equity exposure with a bent towards growth given his long investment horizon.  These will be spread across his TFSA, RRSP and Non-Registered accounts.  Since he will be contributing smaller amounts on a regular basis a zero commission platform such as Wealthsimple is appealing.  However, they charge 1.5% fee for all currency conversions making it only practical to hold Canadian traded ETF's.  As a result he is considering the following:

ZSP 40%
XIC 25%
TEC 20%
VIU 10%
VEE 5%

ZSP + XIC + VIU + VEE together create a mix of ETFs that are globally diversified and very similar to the structure of XEQT/VEQT.  Versus XEQT/VEQT This portfolio has a slightly lower weighted-average MER at 0.16% and also has 20% in TEC (in place of something like QQQ) which is more growth oriented. Here are how the sectors would be weighted with this portfolio:

Info 31%
Financial 15%
Cons Disc 11%
Industrial 9%
Healthcare 8%
Communica 7%
Cons Staples 5%
Energy 5%
Materials 4%
Utilities 2%
Real Estate 2%

These would be the top 10 holdings with this portfolio and these top 10 would account for 24% of holdings in this portfolio:

AAPL5.1% MSFT4.9% AMZN3.2% GOOGL1.8% FB1.7% GOOG1.7% TSLA1.5% SHOP1.4% RY1.2% NVDA1.2%

If this was you at 28, can you please comment on
- are the 5 ETFs he has chosen ones you would go with given his objectives, if not, what changes/substitutes would you make along with recommended % allocations?
- is his % allocation across the 5 appropriate or would you make changes? For example I thought there might be too much overlap between ZSP and TEC as they are both highly invested in AAPL, MSFT, AMZ and FB and he is looking at 60% going into these 2 ETF's. That may well be what you want at his age but  I wonder if he is better served by reducing ZSP to 25% -30% and TEC to 15% and add  the remaining 15-20% to CDZ or VGG (or something else?)
- given he will be making contributions to his TFSA, RRSP and Non-registered, which ETF would be best in which account and why? 

Thanks for all your help, 
Scott
Read Answer Asked by Scott on October 22, 2021
Q: Hi!

Could you rank these 3 companies as far as valuation, growth going forward and safety? Amazon has been in a range for months, but it’s P/E still seems like it is higher than Googl. All 3 are important players in autonomous vehicles and where technology may be heading in the future.

Thanks,
Jason
Read Answer Asked by Jason on October 04, 2021
Q: Hi 5i,

In regards to AMZN, MSFT and GOOGL.
At a high level why are rising interest less desirable than having low interest rates. It seems the market gets spooked if it believes interest will rise. I hope you can explain the overall thinking.
Read Answer Asked by Ian on September 28, 2021
Q: Please rank the US and Canadian stocks listed above for growth with a 5 yr +
time-frame.
Thanks
Read Answer Asked by Ben on August 31, 2021
Q: Good morning 5i
In my RRSP I have GOOGL and VOX, I thinking of selling them to buy GSY and TTD, would you be ok with this move for a 2-3 years horizon. Any suggestions or adjustments you would make
As always grateful !
Read Answer Asked by Fernando on August 11, 2021
Q: Hello,
I am looking to purchase a stock for my RRIF. I would like to have something fairly safe.
With Amazon/Google being so expensive I would only be able to purchase a small number of shares but with Amazon having recently pulled back is now a good time to start a position? Where it is a RRIF would the dividend of IBM be a better choice or TOI for growth?
Thanks very much.
Read Answer Asked by Leah on August 06, 2021
Q: With recent earnings releases for the above companies completed did anything specifically surprise you or excite you about their futures more so then before? Specifically Microsoft PayPal visa and Facebook.

For Google, it’s revenue growth was massive (68%) for a company it’s size and YouTube contributing almost the same revenue this quarter as Netflix was crazy to me. With ads growth via search not going away and cloud being a big focus for them I don’t see many things stopping it…
What do you see as the biggest risk for it specifically other then the big scary Antitrust breakup?
Read Answer Asked by Michael on August 04, 2021
Q: I hate to sound ungrateful to Mr. or Mrs. Google, as I have done very well with my purchase of their GOOGL (the Class A) shares about 6 years ago. HOWEVER, I paid a premium of a few dollars to acquire the voting shares (GOOGL) instead of the non-voting GOOG. Now, perversely, the GOOGL are trading over $100 LESS THAN the GOOG - even though they represent the same economic interest PLUS have voting rights (which are often worth 'something' or 'a fair bit' but never, to my knowledge, NEGATIVE value). This discount is a 20% hit on my original investment. Can you explain this bizarre situation? Would you expect this anomaly to right itself at some point? And if you have an address for me to complain to Mrs. Google, please let me know!
Read Answer Asked by James on June 28, 2021
Q: Do you have any concerns about the antitrust chatter and the new FTC appointment? Specifically for google Facebook Amazon and Apple. Breaking up Big Tech seems unlikely and would potentially unlock more value by selling off pieces of the companies (how much would Instagram be worth or AWS or YouTube)… but can any laws get passed that will really change the trajectory of these businesses the runway ahead of them still seems to be massive.

They all have so much cash and so much information about their customers and surely have the ability to pivot and skirt the new “rules”. I still view them as safe as any ETF out there with much better growth potential.
Read Answer Asked by Michael on June 17, 2021
Q: Could you please rank these US stocks in terms of expected growth and safety for both the short term (1-2 years) and the long term (5-10 years)
Read Answer Asked by arnold on May 27, 2021
Q: What are your Top 3 cad and top 3 US stocks regardless of sectors /risk. please provide brief explanation as why you like them Thanks for your recommendations they are much appreciated
Read Answer Asked by Terence on April 20, 2021
Q: hi group if you could only own one which would you choose between GOOGL and SHOP I already own MSFT, AMZN. CSU. NVDA, APPL, DSG, LSPD TOI
Read Answer Asked by Terence on April 02, 2021
Q: Hello Peter, with Alphabet's huge cash hoard and pressure on the company to control expenses, do you expect they might institute a dividend soon? Should they? Would the market reward that decision with a price increase, do you think?
Also, despite paying a premium of several extra dollars when I bought GOOGL (not GOOG) several years ago, I'm chagrined to see that my GOOGL shares now trade at several dollars less. Given that the GOOGL shares have voting rights that the GOOGs don't, I'm a bit puzzled. Do you think the old premium will return at some point?
Read Answer Asked by James on February 04, 2021