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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: My income is much lower this year. I own 40 Costco shares with an ~$4500 gain. I’m wondering about selling them post dividend to solidify the capital gain. Do I then need to wait 30 days before re-purchasing? If you sell a stock and re-buy within 30 days, then you can’t claim the capital gain or loss? What is your opinion of this strategy?
Read Answer Asked by Steven on November 30, 2020
Q: Hi, looking to adjust my financial sector exposure, currently holding SLF, V, JPM, GSY, and BAM. I hold ZBK, JPM and GSY at a low weighting in my portfolio and could top up any of these right now. Thinking of selling ZBK and buying more JPM for US financial exposure. Currently don't own any Cdn banks, except through broad Cdn ETF. Should I add more to my JPM position or buy one of the Cdn banks (was thinking of TD) or add to GSY? I see you added to BNS, quickly, why do you favor BNS over TD? Looking for growth 10+ yrs. Thanks!
Read Answer Asked by Keith on November 30, 2020
Q: Hi,
My kids are all about 30 years old and have most of their retirement investments in equities with some bonds, e.g. VGRO.
Given the poor expectations for bonds, is it reasonable to move to all equities?
If so, which ETFs would you recommended? I was thinking VEQT or XAW?
Thanks
Read Answer Asked by Camille on November 30, 2020
Q: When looking up price and volume information for some ETFs on the TMX website I noticed that for each symbol there are to other listings ending in :APH and :PUR. E.g. in addition to XEI, there is XEI:APH and XEI:PUR. Prices are almost the same but volumes differ. What do :APH and :PUR represent?
Read Answer Asked by Heinz on November 30, 2020
Q: This company is looking IPO. Your thoughts on whether it would be a buy?
Read Answer Asked by Shelley on November 30, 2020
Q: This is a question regarding your answer to my previous question regarding taxes for options. Thank you very much for your perspective, by the way.

But, my question was not on taxes on premiums. I know they are taxed. It was about when one buys back a stock which one has previously sold a a covered call option on. Is the underlying stock considered to have been sold?
thanks
Read Answer Asked by joseph on November 30, 2020
Q: Here is what Taxtips.ca gives as a reason for not selling options:
We traded options for about a decade, and in the end finally decided to quit, because

bullet there was too much record keeping to be done
bullet we always had to keep on top of whether the stocks were close to exercise price
bullet when we used a full-service broker, it seemed we would be warned before anything was exercised and that we could have some input, but once we used a discount brokerage options would be exercised without warning, and we would find out after the fact.
bullet it was impossible to quantify true gains and losses, and it certainly didn't seem worth all the effort we put into it
They undoubtedly know more than I do but I find their analysis a little extreme. Wondering what you think of it.

I was looking at their site in order to get an idea about paying taxes on options. wasn't really clear to me. My question is whether you pay capital gains on the stock, not the option premium, but the stock capital gain, when you buy back a call option?
thanks
Read Answer Asked by joseph on November 30, 2020