Investment Q&A

Q: Howdy 5i,

My small business has a corporate investment account with funds sitting in cash that I'd like to invest for the next 1 to 3 years. GICs are not an option as I need liquidity if/when recession arrives. Do you have recommendations for relatively stable ETFs/SPDRs with high dividends?

Regards,
Garth

Q: I am a retired income investor who derives all his income from investments. For obvious reasons I am a fan of covered calls and own the various ZWs and HDIV. I also own the canadian banks and ENB. Most of these have held up fairly well in the turmoil. My question is do the covered call ETF administrators try to keep the return % approx level as the ETF value changes. I note that the RBC quoted return for HDIV is noeth of 10% but ZWC is approx 7% which is not much change from where it was in April. Other ZWs are similar. It would seem that BMO manage the return whereas Harvest do not.

Q: Hello 5i
I hold the above covdered call ETF's as well as at least two individual companies from each (from before I bought these). also have over 10 ETF's that are not cover call. I have 51 positions with 49 stocks. These have performed well during this period of unrest. No they do not hit the high notes but not even close to bottom notes either but steadil;y increase in value aside from the dividends. My question is: with these new covered call ETF's at 12% of my investing portfolio (not including GIC's) might this be considered too much? Each is between 1.5% and 2% of the portfolio as are most of my holdings. The dividends are great and have kept up for the last three months. These also hold great companies that I would hold if I had room (and funds to buy them!) as a value investor. Please take as many credits as required.
Thank you
Stanley

Q: Hello 5i,
I am a DIY invesor with ove $1000,000 trading portfolio over 15 years and am up 25% not including dividends on a mix of ETF;s and equities. My expense ratio is ,05% costing $1608. The one standout is HDIV with a cost of 0.65% and an mer of 2.05% probably due to the underlying holdings. Also many of the ETF's are BMO covered calls. I enjoy the monthly dividends. Is all of this reasonable? If not, please suggest improvements.
Thank you
Stanley

Q: A while ago I asked 5I to run the numbers on HCAL as an example of one of Hamilton's new leveraged ETF's comparing both a covered call and similar market ETF and speculate on the return of their other ones ...... Below in quotations is the answer I got .....

" HCAL 1 month 1.7%, three months 0.85%, YTD 34.9%

ZWB 0.9%, 1.65%, 23.7%

ZEB 1.05%, 1.72%, 29.9%

The difference is likely very closely related to the leverage impact. We would not expect HDIV to be different. " .....

Clearly the Hamilton product out performed both the covered call and regular banking market ETF's

Please clarify the following answer given to Craig this morning ? .....

" For a long-term hold, we would side with either VUN or ZWH, as HYLD would cap long-term capital gains due ot the coverd call strategy. We would be fine with the prospects of both ZWH and VUN but side with VUN for a broader exposure to higher growth areas. "

Q: Hi, could you please compare the relative attractiveness of the above 2 ETfs, understanding HDIF is new but the underlying ETFs are not. Is there much difference? I believe the underlying HDIF ETFs are all U.S. whereas some of the HDIV are Cdn which I believe would reduce USD FX exposure? Any advantage of one fund manager over the other (Harvest vs Hamilton)? Thank you.

Q: HYLD will be starting to trade Feb 7 on the TSX and they are planning to offer a huge 10% yield. It will use a similar strategy to HDIV which invests in an equal weight of covered call ETFs and levered 25%. Any thoughts on both for income?

Q: For a consistent and reliable distribution, and some growth, HCAL or HDIV or some of both?

Q: For safety ZWC or HDIV? THX. JAMES

Q: I'm intrigued by these new slightly leveraged ETF's HCAL and HDIV . HDIV has only been around for a few months but HCAL has a year under it's belt going from $15 to $23 . Could 5I give me the percentage of return for each in that time period of HCAL, ZWB, and ZEB { dividend plus capital gain } ? So I can do a little comparing ....And would it be safe to assume any deviation would indicate the effect of the leverage used ? And can I assume that the construction of HDIV { I'm a sucker for high yield } will react similarly ? I am considering what for me would be large positions { 5%-7% } as part of the relatively safe equity income part of my portfolio ? Would you endorse my thesis that they are relatively safe among their unleveraged peers ?

Q: Can I have your thoughts on this new ETF. Would you consider it a good buy, if not, what would be a comparable ETF?