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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: Good morning,
Q1. Is it reasonable to assume that ZEB ETF's total return would be the same as that of holding each of the individual bank stocks in the exact same proportion as in the ZEB ETF minus the MER (0.60%) + or - the tracking error?
Q2. Given, that the relatively high MER (0.60%) of holding ZEB, would it be better over the long run to simply own 2 or three of the best big banks and if so which two or three banks would you recommend buying and holding for ever.
Read Answer Asked by Francesco on June 07, 2021
Q: If you had to sell all or some shares of one of the 5 big Canadian banks to generate some cash, which would you choose and why?

Thanks very much!
Read Answer Asked by Chris on June 01, 2021
Q: I'm heavy in financial stocks and would like to reduce the number of holdings. In what order from best to least would you rank these companies for a long term hold. I'd like to mention that this question function is a tremendous feature. Thanks for the excellent and speedy answers to my previous questions. I feel very supported.
Read Answer Asked by Robert on May 12, 2021
Q: Non-registered account with goal of primarily dividend income has done quite well, with all of the noted holdings nicely in positive territory. In hind sight MG and SYZ would have been in a registered account. SYZ is up 63%, MG 24%.
Overall account yield is currently 3.8%. Would prefer it closer to 5%
Need some help with this "good problem". Take capital gain now and move into yieldier positions, or let running stocks run and deal with bigger gain in future?
If I move out of some of the growthier stocks, which div payers minimum 3% yield to move into?
Overall portfolio diversification is pretty decent, and diversification within this account does not have to be perfect - dividend security within this account is more important.

Thanks,
Jim
Read Answer Asked by Jim on May 04, 2021
Q: Taking these 7 income oriented equities and looking to rank them for risk in a correction situation moving forward it seems that if we use the March 2020 correction as a guide FTS and BCE dropped the least (28%) followed by RY (33%) then TD,BNS, AQN (35-37%) with SLF trailing the pack at 46%. The reason behind any future correction could of course be different than a virus-induced shutdown of the economy. But still your ranking of safest to least safe is appreciated and if your answer would be different depending on the cause of the correction then your comment on that would be nice to have as well. Thank you for assisting me in trying to build the most secure portion of my income strategy. Any additional equities that fit in the lowest downside category that you might suggest would also be most welcome.
Read Answer Asked by Ken on May 03, 2021
Q: Retired, dividend-income investor. I am normally a buy-and-hold investor for the very long term (RBC = blue chip, hold forever; while in a higher risk and associated lower weighting category, I hold Alaris forever). I currently hold SLF but have been reviewing/comparing its performance with BMO. The 10 year, 5 year and 3 year charts favor Sunlife, but the 1 year and shorter duration charts favor BMO. There appears to be a significant inflection point starting in November 2020.

Can you explain what occurred around that time? Is it simply the reflation of the economy favoring BMO relative to SLF? Do you see this continuing for the next period of time or do you see SLF playing catch-up?

Thanks for your help...Steve
Read Answer Asked by Stephen on April 20, 2021
Q: For growth and potential dividend increases, would you please rank the six Canadian banks (the ‘big 5’ plus National) in order of preference to buy now?
Thanks!
Read Answer Asked by Heather on April 07, 2021
Q: Hello, I need to liquidate some of the stocks listed. Disregarding sector diversification, in what order should I do this? Thanks for your help.
Read Answer Asked by Keith on April 02, 2021
Q: I am retired and invest in primarily blue chip, dividend paying stock. In my regular investment account I hold the following Canadian bank stocks, RY,BNS,TD.
In my RRSP I hold all my US stock which includes JPM and C. I am considering selling my Citibank stock and using the proceeds to buy more JPM.
I am thinking JPM has better upside and is generally a better run company. Any thoughts?
Read Answer Asked by Ken on March 30, 2021
Q: Retired, dividend-income investor. A question earlier today has motivated me to finally ask this question....been thinking of it for quite a while. It had to do with potential rising interest rates and your response was that dividend investors should be prepared for a bumpy ride in the short term (my paraphrase of your answer).

I own the above securities and for the most part trim-add around core positions that I hold for the long term. Is it possible to divide the above securities into two camps....one that would be "ok" in a rising interest rate environment and the other that I should consider trimming a bit or maybe selling? I am ok riding things out for the long term and do not normally react to short term volatility.

Thanks for your help....Steve
Read Answer Asked by Stephen on March 20, 2021
Q: Ignoring risk, please rank these companies based on 5 year hold -potential for returns.
Read Answer Asked by Pradeep on March 16, 2021
Q: I am trying to maximize income In my LIRA before I convert it to a LIF. I hold a good weighting of ZEB from several years back when I was a novice investor. Now I am looking to shed the MER by going with the individual financial stocks. Would you please rank the above financials and others you think are worthy for a hold and forget steady income stream?


Thank you


Steve
Read Answer Asked by Stephen on March 15, 2021
Q: Good afternoon,

I am looking to investing into a bank for a long term hold. Which would be your favorite for long term growth

Thanks
Read Answer Asked by Bonnie on March 10, 2021
Q: Hi Peter/Ryan, I have XOM TRP ENB stocks in my TFSA, RSP Accounts. I was thinking of selling XOM and add some dividend stock .
pls give me some suggestions for long term hold . Thanks
Jacky
Read Answer Asked by liang on March 10, 2021
Q: For new money to top up my income portfolio holdings per above. How would you rank if buying today based on valuation and future growth (revenue, earnings,dividends)
Please also rank the sectors (banks, insurance, utilities, telecom ). Thank-you.
Read Answer Asked by Albert on March 08, 2021
Q: I am currently underweight in bank stocks... about 8 percent of my equity portfolio. I'd like to increase them... to what % do you recommend? I currently own RY, TD and SLF. Would you just add to these to bring them up to the new weighting or would you add other banks and if so what?
Read Answer Asked by Carla on March 03, 2021
Q: All the big banks have had very encouraging financial results. Is now a good time to add in preparation for big dividend increases once the regulatory hold comes off.

Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Dave on March 01, 2021
Q: I'm looking to reduce my portfolio weighting in Financials and Telecommunications.

The question for both adjustments is the same: for these stocks would you recommend eliminating one entirely or just reducing my holdings in both? I will be adding more exposure in the US industrial and defensive consumer sectors with the freed up cash. I should add that for all of these stocks I'm probably pushing my weighting a bit high, at 5-7%.

For financials: BMO and RY (assuming I would sell BMO over RY)
For telecom: T and BCE (assume I would sell BCE over T)

All of these are held in registered accounts, and I'm still 10+ years out from retirement. I currently hold 24 stocks across my registered accounts.
Read Answer Asked by Alex on February 16, 2021
Q: I have an unregistered cdn div payer account, which has about 20% financial sector weighting. This is probably a little high for this account, but overall portfolio diversification including other accounts levels this out much better.

I'm happy to stay with 20% financial in this account, and this is currently achieved via equal weights of BNS, RY and SLF. In pursuit of higher yield, I am considering replacing RY (4%) with FSZ (7%) and looking for your comments on this idea.

Account objective is retirement income for next 10 to 20.

Thanks,

Jim
Read Answer Asked by Jim on February 16, 2021