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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: What's your advice for a younger investor with regards to TFSAs and RRSPs versus non-registered accounts? Should we direct all our savings to registered accounts until we max out our contributions and then direct excess to non-registered accounts? Is there a case to be made for the tax-loss advantages of non-registered accounts before looking at RRSPs? I see TFSAs as a more liquid savings account and an RRSP as much less so. Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Jordan on October 11, 2016
Q: I have about 10% cash right now. Normally I prefer to be fully invested because I like the steady dividends. My investing style is somewhere between your income portfolio & balanced portfolio and the portfolio is reasonable balanced. I don't need to take anything from my investments now but I will in a couple of years.

It "feels" like sitting on a bit of cash makes sense right now in the short term and maybe take advantage of tax loss season or other buying opportunities (seems like a lot of those recently).

Your thoughts?
Read Answer Asked by Gordon on October 11, 2016
Q: Hello & Happy Thanksgiving to all.

I’m considering lending my 18-year old daughter some money at 3% so that she can invest in securities that yield 6-7% (preferreds, etc). The favourable dividend tax credit, and other tax credits (personal exemption, tuition etc) should keep her tax bill close to zero.
Would you suggest an etf, like CPD, or would you pick a basket of individual names like ENB, BCE, NPI prefs?
At this stage in the cycle, would you go Rate Rest or Perpetual?

Any website you can suggest that rates the various preferreds? The TD monthly Preferred Report is the only one I know of.

Thank you
Read Answer Asked by Carlo on October 11, 2016
Q: There is something I'd like to share with your members. I've been tracking 3 portfolios in detail for the last 18 months. One of them is a "couch potato" self-directed account, one is a mutual fund account while the third is an RBC "wealth management" account. The top performer believe it or not is the self-directed account!
It would seem that the outrageously high portfolio management fees in Canada are indeed not justifiable (based on my limited findings at least).
I am writing this message to add my simple voice to the growing chorus of individuals managing their own financial affairs. It works! I hope this simple message will encourage your members to keep on the path that they're on.
Now for my question - in another response you mentioned that brokers add to their revenue stream by "lending clients equities held in brokerage accounts" to short sellers. What percentage of a typical brokerage firms's revenue would be derived this way?
Read Answer Asked by DAVE on October 06, 2016
Q: From Oct. 3 : Q: A headline article in Globe and mail " Why it feels like another financial crisis ----" gives a current p/e for the tsx of 23.6 Your macroeconomic report has it at 17. Is this a difference between trailing and forward earnings or am I missing something?/
5i Research Answer:
There is a difference between current and forward earnings multiples. For example, based on data from Thomson Reuters, the current P/E for the TSX is 17.2x and the forward P/E shows 16.7x. Some publishings do not distinguish between forward and current when reporting P/E so one may see differences from time to time. However, the P/E quoted by the Globe looks to be high regardless of the timing perspective. Different services also seem to use different sources of estimates; we do see 23X on some other services, but simply defaulted to Thomson here.

It seems to me that the difference between 17 and 23 is a significant distinction and would indicate the TSX is in overbought territory if the latter is true. A subsequent article in ROB on Oct 4 produced a chart (source Bloomberg) showing the PE ratio for the TSX "Composite" at 23.5 and the highest in 14 years with the widest gap with the US since 2009. Is it possible 5i Research data from Thomson Reuters is utilizing the smaller sample from the TSX "60" or another index to arrive at 17X?
How to know what the true number is for sure?
Read Answer Asked by Jeff on October 06, 2016