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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: If a new investor had a $100, 000 to invest in Canadian & US Equities what would be the TOP 10 Stocks to invest today for the next 3 to 5 years.

Thanks Valter
Read Answer Asked by Valter on May 20, 2020
Q: Hi Peter: When I sit back and take a look at the big picture and review how my portfolio performed during COVID-19 (so far), I try to see what lessons I can learn, then turn to how to apply those lessons to make my portfolio stronger.

I am a retired, dividend-income investor. I am a huge believer in asset allocation and have designed a portfolio, in my opinion, to be reasonably well diversified, although heavy to Canada. It WAS roughly 70% equities (including 32% foreign content) and 30% fixed income (roughly 15% insured annuities, 15% Fisgard Capital...both averaging in the 5-6% pre-tax range and minor cash). My equities are mostly blue chip, dividend payers, as you can see above. The 3 mutual funds are a very minor part of my portfolio, especially Eric's Energy Fund (<2%). I also receive a company pension and CPP-OAS which, when included, drops my equities to roughly 32%.

I use various metrics to monitor my portfolio, such as P/E, P/BV, P/CF, P/S, Beta, ROE, Div growth, Payout%, technical indicators like 200 mda. I am normally a buy-and-hold investor who trims/adds around a core position.

Periodically I measure how "at risk" my portfolio is relative to the overall market. I do this by prorating my portfolio using Beta. Based on equities only, I averaged 0.68 and for my entire portfolio I averaged 0.44. So, one would think that if the overall market (TSX) was to drop 30%, then I would have thought my portfolio would drop 44% to 68% of that, being in the range of 13% (overall) to 20% (equities only).

In actual fact, my entire portfolio dropped 27% from peak to trough vs the expected 13%...over double! I understand that EVERYTHING was sold off...almost no exceptions. So what do we learn from this and what changes should we consider? Do we accept that "sxxt happens" once in a while...you can't predict every event, accept it and move on? Should we consider increasing the cash component as a buffer? Or...is there something else to be learned here?

Thanks for you help...much appreciated...Steve
Read Answer Asked by Stephen on May 04, 2020
Q: Hi Ryan and Peter.
The gov'ts are talking about reopening Economy soon. A lot of stocks (except for the high techs) are still 50% less than the recent highs. Which industries or companies do you think will benefit from the reopening? Can you please provide 2-3 names in the US and Canada? I would like to move some money into my TFSA.

Thank you,
Yiwen
Read Answer Asked by Yiwen on April 29, 2020
Q: Morning:
I own equal weightings of these equities in my TFSA. I have some cash to invest, which one of these would you buy more of at their current market valuations? Looking for capital appreciation over the next 8 to 10 years. Thanks!
Read Answer Asked by Greg on April 23, 2020
Q: Thanks for your flash report. Much appreciated.
Without doing a full review, which of the above would risk being downgraded if you were to do a full review? Thanks. Your service is great!
Read Answer Asked by Marco on April 15, 2020
Q: Hi Team:

I think the market would be changing or, already changing due to the virus problem. People will value things in life differently. so, what sector would you recommend, and what 3 companies you would buy either in Canada or USA?

Thank you.

Louisa
Read Answer Asked by LOUISA on April 14, 2020
Q: Hi, first I wanted to thank you for this amazing service, I am so glad I discovered 5i!
I recently sold my business and have 10+ years before retirement. I now want to deploy this cash to build my retirement portfolio, I don't need any income from this portfolio for 10 years.
I carefully reviewed your Balanced and Income portfolios. With much improved valuations for many stocks in these portfolios, what are your suggestions for 10 best (in terms of possible appreciation) individual stocks or ETFs for a non-registered portfolio. Either from your sample portfolios or not, US or CDN.
Thanks again!
Read Answer Asked by Laura on April 09, 2020
Q: please list your 5 favourite Canadian moat stocks with strong balance sheets list your preferences in order of one to five thanks Richard
Read Answer Asked by richard on April 08, 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: Hi Guys, looking to buy some partial positions on the following stocks, I own banks and telecoms plus SHOP and LSPD and a few others, would like your opinion with this 10 pack and do you see any issues with any these companies going forward.
Thanks for your great service
Anthony
Read Answer Asked by Anthony on April 03, 2020
Q: If we have yet to reach the worst of the virus threat and if the current question mark regarding the direction the price of oil will take in the future poses a problem, I think we have yet to see the lowest prices for these companies. The question is how much further down their prices can go. If my theory is correct, at what price would you take an initial position in these companies?
Read Answer Asked by Les on March 25, 2020