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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 need to reduce my tech holdings, especially over the top with SHOP, but not complaining. Would you please give me your best momentum stocks, Canadian or US in any sector other than tech? I can tolerate some risk. Many thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Elaine or Gerry on May 01, 2019
Q: Top 4 stocks for my 18 year old son just starting to invest with a long time horizon
Thanks Terry
Read Answer Asked by Terry on April 30, 2019
Q: Hi guys, thanks for the excellent service and continued improvements. I find the new Portfolio Analytics section very helpful. Long winded question here so please deduct as many credits as you see fit.

I am overweight in tech, at 40% overall. I have 40% tech in both my RRSP and TFSA.

The biggest names I have are AAPL 9%, TEAM 6%, and NVDA 6%. All of those are held in the US side of my RRSP.

I have a mix of 15 stocks in my TFSA, roughly equal weighting. The tech holdings in there are PHO, KXS, CSU, SYZ, SHOP. Each comprises about 6% of the TFSA but just over 1% of overall holdings.

I am 7-8% underweight in:
consumer defensive,
communication services,
industrials,
utilities.

I feel I should trim back or sell at least one of AAPL, TEAM or NVDA but hard to given they have all been growing and have potential to grow further. Are there any obvious choices to cut or pull back here? Can you please suggest at least one name from each of the following sectors:
consumer defensive,
communication services,
industrials,
utilities.

thanks !
Mark
Read Answer Asked by Mark on April 18, 2019
Q: Hi,
Looking to decrease the number of holdings in the above listed stocks. Which 2 would you sell?
Thank you,
Brent
Read Answer Asked by Brent on April 18, 2019
Q: I own several Canadian stocks in my TFSA that pay dividends in USD. Are the dividends eligible for the Canadian dividend tax credit?
Read Answer Asked by Camille on April 17, 2019
Q: I was wondering if you could recommend some stocks that trade on the tsx that pay dividends in US money. I believe pif does, could you name some others.
Read Answer Asked by Anthony on April 09, 2019
Q: In talking to RBC Direct Investing regarding receiving the dividends in USD, I was told it is as easy as moving my 20 shares from my CDN holdings over to US, couple minutes on the phone and all done. All good except my converted shares are now CNSWF trading on the OTC Pink Exchange where daily average volume is 780 shares, any cause for concern here do you think?
Read Answer Asked by Charles on April 04, 2019
Q: Out of the techs mentioned above, which would you sell first to free up some cash in case of a downturn.
Read Answer Asked by Gigi on April 03, 2019
Q: Gentlemen Good Morning
Your answer today about dividends in US$
"Holding US-dollar dividend companies inside a US account saves this fee, and we would prefer to see them held in a US dollar account"
Not always thru unfortunately.
At NBDB, if you have CSU, FNV, OTEX, NTR in US account the fees fx/x conversion are double, because NBDB said it receive dividends in Ca$ from their agent (or custodian). I will complain to the Ombudsman.
At Scotia-ITrade they said the dividends are in Canadian by default because its a Canadian corporation, but they deny that dividends are payed in US$. The agents don't understand (or not competent)
At BMO said they dividends as paid in US$ if the stock is in US account, I feel some uncertainty on this answer but maybe true
VB said "This will only happen for two reasons at Virtual Brokers. First, if you do not have an U.S. side open in your account. Second, if the company trades on Canadian exchanges and pays the dividends in U.S. dollars we convert it to Canadian". Its clear. The G&M gives to VB best discount broker.
Best Regards.
Read Answer Asked by Djamel on March 26, 2019
Q: I just read Phil Town's "Rule #1" where he argues, amongst other things that return on equity (aka book value), sales growth, EPS growth, Cash flow and ROIC are the strongest indicators for long term growth. He argues that, ideally we'd invest in companies that have at least 10% growth in each category for each of the past 10 years - a lofty goal to be sure.

Generally, how do you feel about the aforementioned metrics to assess the quality of an invesment. Would you keep them in the same order of priority and would you add any to the mix?

For the record, the only stock I can find that comes close to meeting the 10% increase per year threshold is CSU so maybe there's something to it!

Cam.
Read Answer Asked by Cameron on March 19, 2019
Q: I hold the following technology companies for a 31.66% weighting in my portfolio. I need to reduce this to a maximum weighting of 20%. Given the holdings are long term, and I wish a balance between stability and aggressive growth in this sector, which of the above companies would you cut down or eliminate to achieve this goal? Current individual weights are; CSU 4.88%, GOOGL 4.94%, AAPL 4.8%,GIB.A 3.2%, SHOP 2.57%, PHO 2.56%,MU 3.27%, NVDA 3.22%, KXS 2.21%.
Read Answer Asked by Terry on March 18, 2019
Q: Could I suggest questioners avoid (or explain) unusual acronyms if possible? When I read the recent question about CSU I thought it odd that the chief operating officer would suffer from Anti Social Personality Disorder!!
Thanks for your very valuable advice.
Chris
PS It took me a while to discover that ASPD really stands for Automatic Share Purchase and Disposition agreement.
Read Answer Asked by CHRISTOPHER on March 14, 2019
Q: Hi, Constellation's COO Mr Miller also announced an ASPD agreement for acuisition/disposal of his company shares but at a much larger scale of 10,000 shares a week for price range above $1,000 and below $800. It could be some sort of management plan approved for its top executives/large holders to generate personal liquidity. But, how do you view it from investors' perspective ? There could by as well more of these disclosures in the future. Would such initiatives not put a pressure/cap on stock price ? Thanks
Read Answer Asked by rajeev on March 14, 2019
Q: What are you top 5 ideas at current time, amongst all three of the portfolios ?
Thank you
Read Answer Asked by Karim on March 13, 2019