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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: Good morning team
Can you steer me in the direction of some very good articles on Reverse mortgages please? I'm thinking of major upgades/renovations to my home. I spoke to an appraiser and he pointed out to me that if we hit a 10 year ish stretch of decline or no growth in realestate that it could be a very bad idea if I chose to sell??
Thanks for keeping me on track. All is going very well at this juncture.!
Read Answer Asked by El-ann on January 21, 2020
Q: You noted a couple of days ago that you (almost) always put a limit price in place when buying/selling. The few times that I have done this I find it to be very cumbersome because I then often have to wait or even check back an hour or two later to find out if I was able to purchase the stock at my chosen price. I have even missed out on a purchase because I went in too low. While it is nice to get the lowest price I am a bit confused as to your comments because you often state that it is best to purchase a stock without trying to time it too carefully because in the long run (and I am a long term holder) a few cents here or there isn't going to be material. So when do you suggest we place a limit on the buy - always, only with small caps, only when it is a lightly traded stock or just when the bid-ask is rather large? And if using a limit, how do you know what price to go in at?

Appreciate your insight.

Paul F.
Read Answer Asked by Paul on January 20, 2020
Q: Often one hears an investment advisor (especially those with a long-term buy-and-hold style) say: “if you had bought $10,000 worth of company X in 1990, you would have $1,000,000 (or whatever) now. Yet, these same advisors (and this would include 5i) usually also advocate regular “trimming back” if any one security becomes overweight in a portfolio. But you can’t have it both ways!!—if you are lucky enough to get a 20-bagger, or 40-bagger, or (in my more extreme example above) a 100-bagger, you won’t get the aforementioned immense absolute $$ gain if you constantly trim back the winner(s). My own style typically is to just keep adding new $$ to my other (lower-weight) holdings, and thereby avoid selling my winners: e.g., I’ve had CP, ENB, NA, TRP, CAE, TD, QSR [via predecessors WEN and THI], etc., for >20 years, and have hardly ever sold any shares (and have often regretted those times I did sell a few shares for “trimming” (rebalancing) purposes. The only time I was hurt by not rebalancing was when AIG became 15% of my portfolio, and it subsequently imploded during the 2008-2009 financial crisis. But, otherwise, my general reluctance to sell high-quality securities has paid off. I am curious what comments 5i might have.....

Ted
Read Answer Asked by Ted on January 16, 2020
Q: Hi 5i team,

During the fall, I saw several questions on stock metrics, so I thought I would follow up before earnings season starts again, as I notice differences between business sites, depending on assumptions. I tend to defer to the Companies section as that is what you use in your answers, I believe.

In the Companies data, are the PE ratios and the various Price to Comparisons TTM or forward looking? I use Price to Sales all the time for those tech stocks that do not show any earnings. Would you view around 10X as getting expensive or under which offers relative “value”, if I can use that term for tech stocks? I notice in a recent question, you mentioned LSPD, one of your favourites, but that trades over 30 times. I really don’t use the Price to Cash Flow or Free Cash Flow ratios. They seem to be all over the map, with wide variances, so I have trouble interpreting their significance. Which one do you prefer and what would be a general threshold for getting expensive?

Thanks again for the insight.
Dave
Read Answer Asked by Dave on January 16, 2020
Q: I am helping my son pick mutual funds for his work RRSP as he now has more funds that he can choose from. My question is that he can select a pure US mutual fund
( better return than the one he currently owned) and a Pure international fund but the international fund has a lower return over 1,3, 5, 10 years than the one he currently invested in over the same time period which is a combination of US and International holdings. If he invest in the pure US fund his US Allocation will go up and international will go down. He has many years before retiring so would it be best to invest in the pure US and pure International to keep weight more balanced? He has also some in the Canadian mutual fund. All funds are managed by Blackrock.
Thanks
Read Answer Asked on January 15, 2020
Q: In trying to decide which ETF’s to buy, I am concerned with the credit duration of some.
Ex: XTR 3.78 yrs. ZMI 3.77 yrs. VCNS 7.82 yrs
What is the significance of these in view of the current business cycle mainly interest rates.
Also, at this time would you favour an ETF more or less exposed to bonds currently. Is a fund manager able to quickly sell his bond holdings quickly when interest rates rise, what is their strategy ?
Thank you so much.
Read Answer Asked by Luc on January 08, 2020
Q: Hi Peter and all 5i, Happy new year to all of you, and thanks for providing this wonderful service. I'm starting my RRIF withdrawals this year, and wanted to ask if you think my assumption for return on my portfolio is reasonable. The calculators that are online, require a percentage return, for each year. Presently, my RRIF is producing 4% in dividends, so I entered 6% in the return of the total portfolio. Portfolio is similar to your "Balanced". Do you think I'm being too conservative? Thanks
Read Answer Asked by Keith on January 07, 2020
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