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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: Please comment on STC's update after close today. 2)GC closed $9m overallotment option of $180m unsecured debenture.What's the impact if any. 3)Gud stated that there will be a delay in filing its Q1,2020 due to covid-19.Please comment. Txs for u usual great services & views
Read Answer Asked by Peter on May 04, 2020
Q: Hi 5i
Looking over your dividend update page I find I've been affected by some cuts and suspensions (and happily some increases). These cuts would not have been necessary but considering the current circumstances it is understandable.
When things turn around would you expect dividends to be reinstated to where they were previously ? I know what this question sounds like but I can't use the word "normally" in it - ie. normally a company cuts a dividends and goes forward from there but for example and picking one at random CAE suspends dividends - when they reinstate the dividend one day would you think they will start from scratch at some new dividend amount or go back to "where it was" ?

Opinions?

Thanks
Mike
Read Answer Asked by mike on May 04, 2020
Q: Hello
Have you ever considered limiting the words in a question to something reasonable? Perhaps something like 100 words. Some questions are sooooooo long that it takes the fun away from reading them. Just a suggestion. :)
Read Answer Asked by Carlo on May 04, 2020
Q: Greetings 5i Team,
on 24 Mar, I SOLD these 4 companies for tax loss capture and am considering buying them back now. I note that FSZ and EIF have recovered more quickly than AD and NFI. Also, they are all still selling below what I had originally paid.
In what order would you buy these back? Is there a company(s) among them that you would not buy back at this time?

Thank you for this excellent service.
Steve
Read Answer Asked by Steve on May 04, 2020
Q: Hi Team,
I have holdings of 800 SU and 1000 CNQ at a deep loss and would like to sell them to realize the capital losses and buy them back after 30 days. Using the sold proceeds to buy canadian energy ETF to stay in the sector. Upon 30 days later sell the ETF and buy back the SU and CNQ. Do you see this is workable and since the commision is only $7.00 per trade, so it is nothing to consider.
Your suggestion of the canadian energy ETF is appreciated !!
Thanks as always,
Tak
Read Answer Asked by Tak on May 04, 2020
Q: Good Morning
I currently have 37 positions spread over 3 accounts(RRSP,TFSA,INVEST). Most if not all are or at one time been in 5i’s model portfolios. Many of these are currently at 1.5% or less and although I believe they all have varying levels of potential their current weighting in my overall portfolio will have little impact unless they all go up. I believe I should consolidate the listed group, do you agree and if so which ones would you keep? Proceeds would be added to the remaining names.
Thank you for your continued advice and guidance.
As a side note you advice regarding non action in turbulent times is proof positive. Aside from harvesting some tax losses and buying proxies for a handful of names, my portfolio is now bordering on even for the year.
Publish if you wish
Read Answer Asked by Marty on May 04, 2020
Q: Hi Peter: When I sit back and take a look at the big picture and review how my portfolio performed during COVID-19 (so far), I try to see what lessons I can learn, then turn to how to apply those lessons to make my portfolio stronger.

I am a retired, dividend-income investor. I am a huge believer in asset allocation and have designed a portfolio, in my opinion, to be reasonably well diversified, although heavy to Canada. It WAS roughly 70% equities (including 32% foreign content) and 30% fixed income (roughly 15% insured annuities, 15% Fisgard Capital...both averaging in the 5-6% pre-tax range and minor cash). My equities are mostly blue chip, dividend payers, as you can see above. The 3 mutual funds are a very minor part of my portfolio, especially Eric's Energy Fund (<2%). I also receive a company pension and CPP-OAS which, when included, drops my equities to roughly 32%.

I use various metrics to monitor my portfolio, such as P/E, P/BV, P/CF, P/S, Beta, ROE, Div growth, Payout%, technical indicators like 200 mda. I am normally a buy-and-hold investor who trims/adds around a core position.

Periodically I measure how "at risk" my portfolio is relative to the overall market. I do this by prorating my portfolio using Beta. Based on equities only, I averaged 0.68 and for my entire portfolio I averaged 0.44. So, one would think that if the overall market (TSX) was to drop 30%, then I would have thought my portfolio would drop 44% to 68% of that, being in the range of 13% (overall) to 20% (equities only).

In actual fact, my entire portfolio dropped 27% from peak to trough vs the expected 13%...over double! I understand that EVERYTHING was sold off...almost no exceptions. So what do we learn from this and what changes should we consider? Do we accept that "sxxt happens" once in a while...you can't predict every event, accept it and move on? Should we consider increasing the cash component as a buffer? Or...is there something else to be learned here?

Thanks for you help...much appreciated...Steve
Read Answer Asked by Stephen on May 04, 2020
Q: While at home these past weeks, I notice a strange phenomenon that maybe you could explain. The Dow futures right before market open give a fairly good indication of the direction of the market for the day. So I thought, well hey, if you know the market is going to go down, would it be possible to sell early? Using MPC as an example, however, you can see that there in an IMMEDIATE 2 dollar drop in the share price at open. How is this possible? Why would an owner of the stock at 32 dollars one moment be willing to accept a bid of 29.91 with no intermediate prices at a large volume? Unless that seller was trying to move the market? Would like to hear your thoughts.
Read Answer Asked by Rick on May 01, 2020
Q: Could you please suggest few a) good fixed income high yield ETFs b) least volatile ETFs with some income ?
Thanks
Read Answer Asked by Dineth on May 01, 2020
Q: International ETF overlap query. I have the first four above now (more or less equal amounts) constituting 9.72% of total portfolio. Considering adding some more international exposure for geographic and currency diversification objectives, i.e. either VXUS or VIGI but wondering about the overlap with current holdings or should I just increase current holdings. Generally attempting to increase sector holdings in USA (fdn, ihi, hack, fivg, ipay, vbk), under-represented in Canada and more international geographic exposure. All are/will be in CDN & USD non registered accounts. Views?Suggestions?
Read Answer Asked by William Ross on May 01, 2020
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