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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 understand your negative opinion of (most) mutual funds due to
high fees and human factors. I've found a few actively-managed funds that appear to "earn" their high fees by delivering superior returns over time periods up to 10 years.

Two examples: Fidelity Special Situations-FID1298 and Sentry Small/Mid-Cap Income-NCE721. Morningstar gives both 5 stars.

Comments please on these two funds and on the broader idea of willingly paying higher fees for higher returns.

Cheers, IslandJohn
Read Answer Asked by John on March 02, 2017
Q: Hello, there - I currently own all the names in the Balanced Equity portfolio and a full position in Shopify. I will be adding a little bit of new money into my portfolio this month and am looking to either purchase another full position or 2 half positions. What would be your first and second top ideas with a growth tilt (excluding names from the BE portfolio and Shopify). Thanks!
Read Answer Asked by Michael on March 02, 2017
Q: The prospect of some kind of a border adjustment tax remains in the US, and while the market seems to like the other tax proposals, it does not seem to be responding to this risk. I would appreciate your thoughts on what such would mean for the markets, and the best way to defend a portfolio. Certainly Canadian exporters would be at risk, but I would suspect the damage would be much more widespread than that. It would seem to me that it would be highly inflationary, as well as likely to cause various trade wars.
Whether it will or even could happen depends upon which media one reads, but the risk is not zero.
Thanks for your thoughts. Patrick.
Read Answer Asked by Patrick on March 01, 2017
Q: Good morning Peter and Team,

I track my portfolio in real-time using Google Sheets, which has the ability to "fetch" a price of a stock or ETF, but not if it's listed on the new Aequitas NEO Exchange. I was surprised when CLU.C started showing up as an error on my spreadsheet, since I didn't realize that iShares moved this ETF from the TSX to the NEO exchange. I contacted the NEO exchange and have copied their answer below in case other members could benefit from this information.

Jerry,

Thank you for reaching out to NEO with respect to market data on Google. Please accept my apologies for the tardy reply. Your email only just came to my attention today.

NEO has been reaching out to Google for many months with respect to making NEO market data available within their platform, but they have been less than responsive. There are no NEO fees for them to incorporate our data, but they have indicated that is not a priority for them. I encourage you to get in touch with them directly to let them know of your experience. We do have real-time data available for you on our Website and are currently reviewing what we can make available with respect to Excel functionality. Here is the link:

https://aequitasneoexchange.com/en/security-detail?q=CLU.C

Hope this helps. Please feel free to reach out with any further questions. We are expecting momentum to build with more NEO listings, so hopefully Google will get things moving soon.

It would appear that there's no real way at this time to automatically "fetch" a price for a stock/ETF that's traded on the NEO exchange. I will email Google and perhaps if others do this as well, the NEO data will soon be added to the Google platform.

Hope this information is of assistance.
Read Answer Asked by Jerry on March 01, 2017
Q: Comment on this question:
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February 28, 2017 - Asked by Sal

Q: Hello 5i
About a month in and wanted to say great service and looking forward to the future. In looking at the companies you cover it seems like your B and higher ratings have been very successful while protecting and growing capital. Curious to know if you have a report on the total returns based on ratings. For example all B rated reports have returned x%, C x% etc.?For me screening by ratings of B and better will be the starting point of my investment selections to be further investigated

Thanks
Sal

5i Research Answer:
We have not done this screening, and historically it may be difficult because of course some ratings will have changed over time, which would mess up the data set.
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Very interesting idea! It should not really mater if your rating for a stock changed. 'Just' calculate the return from your rating date to when the rating changed (or to now if the rating has not changed). Monthly.

I believe the dataset could be normalized in some fashion (statistician?) to account for the number and age of ratings in each category, etc.
Read Answer Asked by J Carl on February 28, 2017
Q: Greetings, Peter & Co.
It is just as well that I inadvertently indicated that my last question was private as it was very badly worded.
Would you please recommend 2 or 3 stocks (Canadian and/or US) in the sectors: Consumer Staples, Energy, Health Care and Materials. I am looking for a good level of safety with some growth and, preferably, some income. Please feel free to charge me for more than one question.
With great appreciation for your exceptional service to retail investors.
Ed
Read Answer Asked by Ed on February 28, 2017
Q: Hello, 5i team! Thinking about additional investment in material sector + dividend part. Already own about 500 shares of POT in RRSP, now thinking is it good time to add say 100 shares of AGU before merger? I consider potash as a reliable area of long-term investment but would be glad to think about the alternatives as well... Your comments are highly appreciated! Thank you!
Read Answer Asked by Galina on February 28, 2017
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