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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: I have roughly equal weights in NA, RY and BNS and a half position of TD in a TFSA. Even at the worst point of the decline (so far), I have stayed above water on on all but BNS.

As a retiree who loves his solid dividends, the banks are attractive to me and my total holdings are likely higher than you would recommend. I am wondering if I should use the correction to move out of NA and redistribute the funds into RY and BNS. (No room to add money to the TFSA.)

Your thoughts?
Read Answer Asked by Dave on April 24, 2020
Q: Morning ,
Relative to your recent comments on Canadian Banks and shorts , What % of shorts does it take to make a meaningful impact on the upside. Have benefited in shorts recently in Snap, Shop and ETSY . Cut my investing teeth in the Nortel, Rim , JDSU days and yet my banks have been my best long term move.
Thanks
Greg
Read Answer Asked by Greg on April 24, 2020
Q: How much of an influence do American investors have on the price of our banks? Many Canadian investors have bank stocks and rely on their dividends for income.

Steve Eisman of "The Big Short" was talking about how an interesting short he sees is Canadian banks and that he has been short for some time. He says the Canadian banks have not had a credit cycle in 30 years, they are extremely unprepared for it and will have real problems.

What is your opinion?

Thanks!
Read Answer Asked by Mary on April 24, 2020
Q: Can you please provide me your top 6 Canadian financials that you would buy at this time. Please rank:
Thank you
Read Answer Asked by Karim on April 23, 2020
Q: Regarding Gayle’s question today and reference to BOC backstopping the real estate market by purchasing mortgages,etc.

Question: Would knowing this give you more (i.e. me) more confidence in buying Canadian banks now given their current share prices and more importantly attractive dividends?

Call me a “worrier” but I have held off adding to my already losing positions in BNS and CM thinking that dividends might become vulnerable if mortgage defaults start to increase significantly.

Question: I am retired, income oriented and combing the market for yield. Bonds seem unattractive and preferreds have a number of inherent risks as I think you have pointed out. Or am I perceiving your opinion incorrectly.? Hence my looking at banks again.

Thank you in advance for your help with these decisions.
Read Answer Asked by Donald on April 22, 2020
Q: I would like your help putting together a yield portfolio of between 15 and 20 names.
This would be the entire investments for my wife and I. We are both retired and now live full-time in the U.S. And at some point I expect my Canadian newspaper pension to disappear, so I am looking to replace that money.
I would like your opinion of the above names with regard to safety of the income and overall diversification.
I would also appreciate some additional ideas and would like to know if I`m off base on any or all of these names.
I am currently only invested in CM, BNS and BMO and DIR.UN.
Please take 20 credits (or more).
Thank you in advance for your invaluable assistance.
Read Answer Asked by Kyle on April 21, 2020
Q: In a recent question asked by Andrew concerning the setting up of a dividend stream of safe and stable Canadian stocks, I was more surprised by some of the stocks you didn't name rather by the stocks you did include - namely bank stocks. The three major banks, for the most part, are paying higher dividends than the ones you included and you have stated in the past you consider them as secure as any. Was the reason for their omission a concern that these dividends are likely to stagnate for a while or is there some other reason(s)?

Appreciate your insight.

Paul F.
Read Answer Asked by Paul on April 21, 2020
Q: Hi. I see in many responses related to Canadian banks that when you reply that you prefer bank a, b, c over bank X, is the a, b, c in order of preference? Sometimes the order changes from different responses.
Would you be able to list the Canadian banks in order of preference for a 5-10 year hold. I understand that in 6 or 12 months the order may change, but I'm looking today what it would be. Thanks
Read Answer Asked by Marco on April 15, 2020
Q: How do you rank these stocks for an investor starting a position in Canadian banks (minimum 5 year horizon)? Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Ben on April 13, 2020
Q: If I am enrolled in a drip, is the stock purchased at a discounted rate or the market price of a stock. I own the listed companies; are any of those are eligible for a discounted drip purchase price? or do you need to buy them directly from the company to qualify for the discount.
Read Answer Asked by Thomas on April 13, 2020
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
Read Answer Asked by Stephen on April 08, 2020
Q: How would you rank the banks? Strongest to weakest in this environment.
I'm considering selling some far "out of the money" puts to get some income. And if I get assigned, so be it. I'll suffer with a few bank positions yielding close to 8%. Geez, we're talking about bank stocks! I figure if they get into trouble we're ALL in really really BIG trouble.
For example, TD at $40 would yield me 7.9% in dividends. That's like 10.2% in interest. Or RBC at $58 would yield me 7.4% in dividends.
So which Canadian banks would "crack" under pressure and which wouldn't.
Thanks and take care!
Read Answer Asked by Carlo on April 07, 2020
Q: I have just read that the European Banks are going to stop paying dividends and that the US banks are under a lot of pressure to follow suit. Do you think that The Canadian Banks will also suspend dividends?
Read Answer Asked by shirley on March 31, 2020
Q: hi, dear team
i just got some money for longterm investment. how about this list ?
can you tell me at which price i can buy?appreciate!
best regard
Jacky
Read Answer Asked by liang on March 30, 2020
Q: At what point do the banks become a screaming buy? If TD Waterhouse has correct numbers, several are now trading below book value. I have only seen this a couple of ties in my life and it has always worked out okay in the long run. Have I missed anything?
Read Answer Asked by Dave on March 24, 2020