Investment Q&A

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.

Q: Hello:

Doing a little cleanup and wondering if NA, BCE, SJR.B or HPQ are worth holding. For sure I have plenty of Canadian financial exposure without NA. I also hold Telus but wondering about dropping Shaw and/or BCE. HP seems to be on the upswing with COVID but is it a long-term keeper?

And then, if you think some can go, what might I substitute? NVDA for HPQ? Would US telcom companies be attractive?

These are held in RRSP, 20 year horizon.

Thanks for your excellent service.

Q: I own bce in my rrsp account. I know it has a good dividend but the stock has been flat for the last few years. I was wondering if you could recommend another dividend stock that was relatively safe but would have a bit more growth potential.

Q: Hello 5i

Could you please let me which option below you’d select and what would be your favorite dividend grower with stock appreciation to add new money to? BCE is yielding 6% and is either

1. A great gic as it pays a solid 6% return but business is flat and will not grow.

2. A shrinking business and will lower in value going forward.

3. A growth and income stock that provides a great yield, continues to increase that yield and will growth the business business (worst days behind it)

Q: If you already held Telus and were looking for more telecom, would you lean to BCE or the new Telus International?

Thanks.

Q: I am looking at putting together a portfolio of set-&-forget Canadian dividend-paying stocks, in what will be my only unregistered account, making up about 30% of our overall portfolio. The registered accounts (70% of portfolio) are now all in mixes of VGRO, VBAL and XAW.
My emphasis is on stable large cap companies, with a sprinkling of smaller cap, low beta, decent and growing dividends. I expect to draw down the capital at 6 - 7% per year (in addition to the dividends). Beyond the drawdown, capital preservation is secondary to the income.
What are your thoughts on the following mix? Additions/deletions?
Communication: BCE, T
Consumer Discretionary: CTC.A, LNF
Consumer Staples: NWC, PBH
Financials: BNS, TD, SLF
Industrials: SIS
Materials: SJ
Real Estate: CRT.UN
Energy & Utilities: ENB, AQN, FTS, ACO.X, BEP.UN (or BEPC)
My other thought is 100% CDZ but I'm not very impressed with the historical returns and the (relatively) high MER.
Thanks. Lotar.

Q: I have a significant holding in BCE and a smaller amount of T. I am wondering if I should continue to hold them or move on to something else. BCE has been performing poorly but has a nice dividend. I think that BCE has been hurt in its media division by the pandemic so might improve particularly with sporting events coming back. T has performed better but its dividend is not quite as good. Perhaps the most important driver will be 5G. When do you think this will become important and how significant do you think it will be?
Thanks, as always, for your insight.
Ian

Q: Hi, purely in terms of relative dividend security could you please rank the above blue chips companies over the next 5-10 years.Thanks.

Q: Hi, I feel my Tech. Sector 30+% is getting too big, in case a correction is in the future.
T- 3.5 - Kxs- 5 - Lspd- 4.4 -Pho -4.3 - Real -4.1
Csu- 3.5 - Syz - 3.4 - Stc- 2.1 -Bce - 3.4%
Would you consider all these Tech. Stock? I like to keep my sector allocation to 9 or 10 sectors for simplicity ,but I do know there are sub- groups.
Would you sell any of these positions ,or trim all or some? Thinking a 18-22% sector weight, would you agree?
Thanks

Q: I am looking to "trim the fat" from my TFSA, which currently holds 20 stocks: ATD, BCE, BMO, BNS, CCO, CM, ENB, FFH, PDYPF, INO.UN, LAS, NXE, NWC, NA, NTR, PEY, PZA, MJJ, TRP, WELL. Are there any positions that raise red flags with you? In addition, could you suggest 3 or 4 value picks suitable for a long-term hold (20 years plus)?
Thank you!

Q: Good Day,

My fiancé has recently begun investing. Currently she has:
254 shares of VBAL
16 shares in Royal Bank
27 shares of BCE

She has $1300 available to invest in her TFSA and $500.00 to invest in her RRSP. She is a conservative investor.

We are wondering:
What would you suggest for next steps in terms of shares/etf to purchase in this small portfolio? Or should we just buy more VBAL?

In addition, would it be best to wait a little to see if there is a ‘better deal’ in a few months?

Please take as many of my questions as you see fit.

Regards,

Ryan

Q: I currently own $10K in each of these companies,,, looking to invest another $10k into possibly SLF or BCE. I look at 1 year at a time and then judge after. My aim is growth. Would you change anything?

Q: BCE oversold here? Does price reflect slower growth versus T (fwd PE 16.6 versus 21 for T) or could price drift lower still in your opinion?
Telus trading well above its historical PE and PEG levels,
T is higher growth but based on valuation , BCE seems to be the better buy.

Q: No rush to answer. Retired, dividend-income investor. I am a position "light" in the Communications sector. I already have a full position in BCE....looking to add one of Telus, Shaw, Cogeco, Rogers or another name you might suggest.

When I look at the various metrics (P/E, P/BV, P/CF, P/S, ROE) I filtered out Telus, leaving SJR and CCA and RCI. Reading past questions, some quite dated, I am wondering if time has changed your opinions on these three.

Shaw has a nice (5.4%) but slow-growing dividend. ROE 10%. It's chart looks good from a value point of view, but is it a value trap? Very poor momentum.

Cogeco has a lower (2.6%) but faster growing dividend. ROE 16%. It's chart shows better momentum. I also wonder whether a new takeover offer might be in the future?

Rogers is just ok across the board.

I'm leaning towards Cogeco, but wanted your advice first. What odds would you place on a take-over happening? Please rank all three in order of your preference to buy.

Thanks...Steve

Rogers

Q: Thanks for your very helpful and informative service. I have the following stocks in an RESP for three young grandchildren. Could you kindly suggest any of them that I should sell or add to along with three other names in order of preference which I could buy with new money. THX.

Q: In our investment accounts, reg and non-reg combined, we have: PSLV @ 3.5%, PHYS @ 3.5%, BCE @ 9.72%, BNS @ 6.6%, KEY @ 3.5% VSC @ 5.7% and ENB @ 6.6%. I have a significant cash balance which is available for the right opportunity. Thus far nothing jumps out as “buy me now”.
We have smaller allocations [2% to 3%] to FTS, MFC, ALA, KEY, SU each and a number at less than 2%.
Given we are retired I’m wondering about increasing some of these allocations on any market general pullback? I usually focus on liquidity and free cash flow as two of my selection criteria as well as comments you make to questions asked of 5i.
Thanks for an advice you can provide.

Q: I own CU at a loss and am thinking of selling and buying BCE. Is this trade worth doing? Both are down and BCE does pay more or am I selling at the bottom on CU. THANKYOU

Q: Hi,
What is your general opinion of investing in segregated funds? I understand that there are some great benefits for estate planning purposes as you get older, i.e. bypassing probate/estate fees, quick transfer of funds to beneficiaries, guaranteed death benefit, etc... but are the high MER fees (>2%) really worth it? I was helping my mom who is retired look into some of her investments in her TFSA and her advisor has her in invested in these two Manulife products, MPS4959 and MPS4980. Thoughts on these two funds? Do these two funds pay dividends or have a distribution yield? Could not find it.
Aside from the benefits I mentioned above where you only get with Seg funds, and looking at just the pure investment return/structure of the funds, could you suggest 4-5 other attractive ETF's that she could invest in that would outperform these over the next 10-20 years? I would like to switch her into some low cost ETF's or an all in one fund that are either comparable(balanced fund) or better than these two expensive products. She is close to 70, won't need to draw any of this money to live on (she has other sources of income) and looking for some steady and stable growth assuming life expectancy for another 15-25 years. Thanks!

Q: hello 5i:
You were recently asked a question about which stock would be your first purchase if you were a fund manager and you chose CRWD. A different type of question: you are now the fund manager of a Canadian Income fund: what would be your first purchase? If the answer is different, what would be your first purchase for a stock that would act more like a GIC, but with a better yield?
Paul L

Q: I am looking at reducing the number of holdings that I currently have. Please rate the sell order you would have for the above companies