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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: Just a comment on the changes to the ex-dividend date due to T+2 settlement in Canada and USA from September 5, 2017. Your members may find it useful.

Starting September 5, the ex-dividend date will move one day ahead (only one day before record date). So for instance in the month of August - record date is Aug 31 - ex dividend date is Aug 29.

In September for record date Sept 29 (Since 30 is a Saturday), the ex-dividend date will be Sept 28.

From the CCMA website:

(Added February 22, 2017) Will there be any T+2 impact on record and payable dates?

In Canada, the ex date on declared events such as dividends or other distributions will become one business day prior to record date instead of two business days prior. The exchange on which a security is listed provides the exdate to CDS, and CDS populates the date into its system. In the U.S., there will likewise be a one-day change.


If you want to read up more there is documentation and Qs at the following websites:

US T+2: http://www.ust2.com/questions/

Canada T+2: http://ccma-acmc.ca/en/faq/
Read Answer Asked by Mayur on August 29, 2017
Q: When you buy an action with a dividende at a given rate, does the dividend payment you receive stay the same indepently from the variations in the price of the action ?
And, when you buy the same action again, but at a different price and at a different dividend rate, how do you calculate the actual dividend you are to receive ? For exemple,if I bought bip.un at 44. with a dividend rate of 4.40% and I buy it again at 54. with a dividend rate of 4.%, what is the effective combined dividend rate after the second purchase ?

Thank you for your kind attention,

Jacques
Read Answer Asked by Jacques on August 29, 2017
Q: John Mauldin wrote a piece this weekend on how to avoid large draw downs in equity investments. He advises to buy and stay invested when a security is above its 200 simple MDA and sell when the security falls below its 200 MDA. I may get whip sawed sometimes, but I will avoid the large draw downs. I am 70 and I don't like losing capital. 50% of my RRIF is a dividend portfolio set up to cover my required minimum withdrawals for the first 5 years. If you agree with the opening strategy would you also agree it could possibly not apply to the RRIF. I am very interested in what you think about this strategy.
Read Answer Asked by Richard on August 28, 2017
Q: Dear 5i
I look at the chart of the TSX and see that its been trending downward over the last 6 months or so while the S&P and DOW have been trending upwards over the same time period . My thought is that it might be a good time to invest in the TSX now as that downward trend is most likely to start to reverse upward and not invest in the DOW or S&P as that trend is likely to reverse downward . On the other hand 5i generally advocates investing into strength meaning investing the opposite to what i`m suggesting . The other thought of course is to invest equally amongst them all so diversified across the board . I know predicting the market is impossible but i still like to invest to some degree on probabilities .
Appreciate your thoughts .
Thanks
Bill C.
Read Answer Asked by Bill on August 28, 2017
Q: I've recently read that FAANG stocks should be avoided because they make up a large portion of the Dow Jones Industrial Index and the S&P 500 Index, meaning every ETF owns them. What you usually end up
with is a reversion to the mean. The more shares that must be bought with each investor purchase of an index fund, the more the performance tends to follow an “average” return. I would appreciate your thoughts on this statement, thank you.

Read Answer Asked by glen on August 28, 2017
Q: Hi Peter
Just went through my portfolio and these are my asset mix results.
Tech - 19.8 %
Basic materials - 17.9%
Consumer Cyclical. - 11.7 %
Consumer Non Cyclical - 9.4 %
Energy - 9.0 %
Financial - 8.0 %
Reits - 4.5 %
Health - 3.4 %
Telecom - 3.8 %
What do you think of my sector waiting? Any thoughts on sector performance going forward... Should I be shifting my percentage on any of the above sectors going forward from here?
Appreciate your advice always!!
Read Answer Asked by Mike on August 25, 2017
Q: Buy the dip. I hear this all the time. I understand and accept the concept of buying a stock which is down temporarily. But as a conservative investor, I look at the long lists of stocks on my watch lists and in a sea of red, my eyes are drawn to the green, to the stocks which keep chugging forward even on a day when the markets are way down. Unless there is some immediate news driving that stock, my inclination is to think "This is a stock with strong demand, and whose owners don't want to sell. I should buy that, not the ones which are dropping like rocks." What do you think?
Read Answer Asked by John on August 23, 2017