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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: Hi Peter and team, I'm looking for some input as to where to deploy a recent RRSP contribution. I'm an aggressive investor with a 20+ year time horizon, and I tend to hold a focused portfolio. Currently holding QSR, XTC, PBH, SIS, TD, DH, WSP, CSU, SJ, and ENGH in roughly even allocations. I have broad exposure to US, Canadian, and International markets through my group RRSP at work, so am not overly concerned with diversifying the mix above. What are two or three companies you would suggest adding to the above for a long-term hold in an RRSP? By long-term I mean 5+ years, so the companies would likely be in dominant market positions.

Many thanks,

Alex
Read Answer Asked by Alexander on February 28, 2017
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
Read Answer Asked by Sal on February 28, 2017
Q: Greetings Team:

Greg Bonnel on BNN was wondering if the TSE would show a gain or loss for Monday on the Close and when he turned around the TSE lost about 70 points in a manner of seconds. Looking at my own portfolios I noticed that the banks and insurance companies had all dropped suddenly. Computers to blame, I reckon. Would you please comment on this.
Read Answer Asked by james on February 27, 2017
Q: You suggest that a well-diversified portfolio is one that holds investments in the 11 sectors of the TSX. Pat McKeough of TSI, who is also a believer in portfolios that include all sectors, uses more broadly-based criteria. He breaks the TSX down into five components - Mfg and Industry, Resources, Consumer, Finance and Utilities. I don't see this a radically different than 5i's approach other than in the Consumer area where McKeough does not differentiate between discretionary and non-discretionary consumer companies.

I would appreciate your comments on these two approaches and specifically, do the two consumer sectors tend to be uncorrelated?

Appreciate your insight?

Paul F.
Read Answer Asked by Paul on February 27, 2017
Q: I read on the FAQ's of an ETF Website the following question:
"Are an ETF's Assets Under Management and Trading Volume good indicators of liquidity".
The answer they gave was: "No. The most important aspect related to the liquidity of any ETF is that while the liquidity of the ETF itself (the ETF’s own trading volume on the exchange) may be deemed poor or limited, the key gauge of that ETF’s liquidity is the liquidity of its underlying exposure.
With the mechanism of creation and redemption of ETFs, a designated broker (DB) is responsible for ensuring that market prices track the ETFs’ net asset value (NAVs). If the underlying securities can be easily bought and sold, a tight fit between price and NAV is easily maintained.
Hence, an ETF with small AUM and little trading volume can still be highly liquid if its underlying basket of securities is liquid."
Is this essentially correct, and if it is I'm still not sure how this would work? I have avoided many ETF's for what appears to be poor liquidity and trading volume. If I want to sell an ETF and level 2 quotes show a large spread to sell for example 1000 shares, will additional shares in the ETF somehow be created to get a fair market price based on the underlying stocks held in that ETF if I put a Sell order in on what appears to be a low volume ETF? What I am getting at basically is - is there any way of knowing what the price spread will be on the sale if additional ETF units that are created "on the fly" by the DB? I may not be interpreting the answer given above so please try to expand and clarify their explanation.
Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Alan on February 27, 2017
Q: I subscribe to StockCharts.com Do you know of any similar type of charting service or website where it is possible to chart Canadian MARKET CAPITALIZATION changes over time?

Thanks for what you are doing in the small cap niche. Interesting too how trading volumes react as various market cap thresholds are achieved.

I know you mentioned on one of your previous webcasts but could you indicate again what market cap value thresholds are significant when it comes to potential formal institutional coverage as well as fund purchase eligibility.
Read Answer Asked by Richard on February 27, 2017
Q: Peter, can you kindly suggest five investments that typically pay no dividend or other distribution (tax minimization). This would ideally be for a 5-10 year+ holding. My risk tolerance is medium-to-high (but just short of 'stupid'). If one or two of these suggestions were US companies (other than Alphabet; already owned), that would be fine. Thanks as always!
Read Answer Asked by James on February 27, 2017
Q: This note is for the team member who answered my question about ALA.R:

My good Sir, you have a fan for life. I asked my question in the middle of the night (by my calculation it would have been about 5.30am Eastern) and, after I sent it, I clicked back to the Q&A section - and there was my answer!!!! Speechless hardly describes my admiration for your work ethic.
Again, thank you for everything.
Read Answer Asked by Molly on February 27, 2017
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