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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: May I have your thoughts on GOT.V latest discovery? If I understand the press release correctly they have discovered additional mineralization where glaciers have retreated. They appear to be “grab samples” so they haven’t done any drilling to get any idea how deep is the mineralization. Risks are still high! Have insiders maintained or increased their positions since my January 2023 question? I note the stock is slightly higher than a year ago, probably mostly due to weaker interest rates! Any thoughts you have would be appreciated.
Regards,
Jim
Read Answer Asked by James on January 29, 2024
Q: Hi, Referencing the recent questions on GSY, here is some color from CIBC on the rationale for their Downgrade to Neutral. Please publish, at your discretion, with or without your comments.

"Downgrading Go Easy To Neutral"

"After reviewing draft regulations for the new interest rate cap, it has come to
our attention that a consultation process was recently completed examining a
further reduction to the rate cap. The timing of the consultation was much
earlier than expected, and we are left to wonder if it was scheduled
intentionally to conclude in advance of the 2024 Budget. We have no basis to
speculate on the outcome and no proprietary insight on the decision-making
process of the Finance Minister’s office. However, we fear that a political lens
might be more appropriate in assessing the probability of further action on the
interest rate cap than an academic one. There has clearly been some forward
progress on this file and it simply doesn’t feel prudent to maintain an
Outperformer rating on goeasy in advance of the Budget. We are
downgrading GSY to Neutral and maintain our $160 price target.

Our concern, however, is that decisions of this nature can sometimes be influenced by the desire to achieve political objectives rather than engage in a balanced assessment of a complicated issue. The considerations described above did not prevent the government from taking action on the initial reduction to the interest rate cap, and our concern is that it may not stop it from taking action to reduce the rate cap further.

We believe that the first sentence of the draft regulations may be somewhat revealing regarding the federal government’s sentiment towards instalment lenders:
“Predatory lenders take advantage of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities, including low-income Canadians, newcomers to Canada, and those with limited credit history—often by extending very high interest rate loans.” Describing instalment lenders as “predatory” sounds almost adversarial or outright hostile, in our view.

Bottom Line

In our view, the range of potential outcomes appears to be skewed asymmetrically negative. On the one hand, the federal government could elect to take no action and this would become a non-event to shares of goeasy. At the time of writing, we believe that this outcome is already priced into the stock. GSY shares have run up nearly 50% since late October (i.e., the same month that consultations were launched) and the P/E multiple has normalized back towards long-term averages (see the line chart in Exhibit 3). This suggests to us that there is little evidence that public market shareholders are bracing for an adverse outcome.
On the other hand, the federal government could take a heavy-handed approach and reduce the rate cap further. In this scenario, the magnitude of almost any reduction would likely be meaningful to the earnings power of GSY. "
Read Answer Asked by rajeev on January 29, 2024
Q: thinking of bottom fishing energy with bias to natgas , which producers
would you consider most undervalued.
thanks
Read Answer Asked by howard on January 29, 2024
Q: on Jan.24 I asked for a% by sector for a balanced portfolio and then on the 29th for a % by sector for a growth portfolio. You gave the same answer for both. Is this correct, I would have assumed tech for example would have gotten a higher % in the growth vs the balanced
Read Answer Asked by Ross on January 29, 2024
Q: Hi 5i
I could not find Maplebear inc in you r data base.... Could you provide any insight/opinion to the following comments by wolfe research and the possibility of a potential acquisition ....

" the stock has rallied 13% so far this year, aided in part by a Wolfe Research analyst call last week that suggested Instacart could be a good acquisition target for Uber. Instacart last week declined to comment on the rumor. "

Thx
Jim
Read Answer Asked by jim on January 29, 2024
Q: My only 2 TFSA holdings, held in equal amounts are WELL ( down) and EIF ( up ). I like EIF and hold it in greater amounts in my non registered account where I intend to keep it but expect it will be dead money for at least 6 months while Northern Mat recovers.
Am looking at selling EIF and along with my $7,000 contribution buying CALF , GLXY, and LMN in equal amounts, leaving WELL the largest holding at approximately 40% weighting ; the others at 20 % each. My TFSA is approximately 4 % of my total non registered and RRIF accounts and is not considered material so I wish to rebalance it towards stocks with more growth ( and risk ) potential.

I tend to go crazy with market timing : any advice on how to proceed on the sale and purchase of these? Any potential “ flashing red lights “ with this move ? Thanks. Derek
Read Answer Asked by Derek on January 29, 2024
Q: Dear 5i team.
I'm sure there is an answer to this in the archives, just not sure how to search. Maybe with AI, you folks can give us the option of searching like a google search? IE with a sentence vs needing to know ticker? (May put some of the folks out of work, so understand if this is not a high priority. :)

Can you tell me which US or Global ETF is focussed on building arms and munitions for military purpose? I'd like to take the aviation part out if possible, as I'd prefer to stay far away from Boeing for the time being.

Many thanks for your help.
Read Answer Asked by Arthur on January 29, 2024
Q: Hi, do you have a good site or reference where one can go to "compare current values to historical averages". I agree that is great info to see!
Read Answer Asked by Kel on January 29, 2024