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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: I've recently sold my ZRE position and am looking for some suggestions on what to consider purchasing with the extra funds on the fixed income side of my portfolio. My equity portfolio is balanced; I am about 8 years from retirement, and am conservative in my approach. I am about 30% in laddered GICs, 5% individual bonds, 3% CPD and 5% in cash. I don't have any bond ETFs (and am concerned about the principal in a rising interest rate environment). What to do with the extra cash? More CPD? Or an international REIT? Or a bond ETF, Canadian or International? Or something else?
Read Answer Asked by Brenda on July 24, 2017
Q: Want to refine my pipeline/processor holdings consisting of ALA,ENB,ENF,IPL,KEY,PPL,VSN.
Looking for yield plus growth of ~7%. Have held all for over three years and some seem range bound,Not sure which have the most castalyst for growth.
Your thoughts on best to own and which to drop. Would likely convert the proceeds of disposed ones into more of the holds to maintain same total $ position in the group.
Read Answer Asked by Peter on July 24, 2017
Q: My overall portfolio is down 3% the last 6-8 weeks which I justify as the downside of having equities in the portfolio. I am 40% in cash so the drawdown could have been worse. My concern is that the 3% drawdown is just over $20000 and that is a lot of money. We are 70 with defined benefit pensions and really don't need any more capital; just want to preserve what we have. You preach the downside of market timing, but I see $ 20000 worth of paper gains slipping through our fingers. Short of investing 100% in gic's should someone with my profile be more of a trader ie use tight downside tolerances and sell when a predetermined gain or loss is met rather than buy and hold. Please comment as I very much value your opinion. Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Richard on July 24, 2017
Q: BMO ETF ZWH is seriously underperforming YTD, in a strong US market. According to BMO website it is negative YTD whereas ZWA is up over 7% in the same timeframe. Is there some reason for this ? Longer term ZWH outperforms ZWA. Thanks for your insight.

Ted
Read Answer Asked by Ted on July 24, 2017
Q: Hi team,
I am aware that you are positive about this company,s outlook and management ability ,but over the last two weeks,even as the price of gold has gone up 50$ BTO,s stock price has been week.WIth it,s Fekola mine in Mali to start producing on Oct.1 and the overall gold production doubling to 950,000 ounces in fiscal 2018,would now be an opportunity to accumulate shares or is the jump in production already factored in the share price?
Many thanks,
Jean
Read Answer Asked by Jean on July 24, 2017
Q: I just read this from a respected member of an American investment service and would like to know your thoughts. Do you agree with his reason that the fund industry does their tax loss selling in September? If so, is this the case in Canada also?

"If anyone out there expects to do tax loss selling this year, I have a few words of wisdom for you.
September is the worst month of the year for the market historically. Look it up, you'll see. The reason September is such a poor performing month is that the fund industry does their tax loss selling in September because that's the end of their fiscal year. They don't operate on calendar year.
The reason we usually get a Santa Claus rally is because wash rules have been exhausted, cash has been raised, and cash goes back to work because fund charters stipulate they can't hold over a certain percentage of cash.
So, if you are going to sell something for tax losses, and want to buy the company back a little later and establish a lower cost basis, the time to do your selling is in August, prior to the funds doing their selling. You'll have time for the wash rules to play out so that you can reinvest in time for the Santa Claus rally."
Read Answer Asked by Curtis on July 24, 2017
Q: I find the negative news seems to always carry more weight than the positive. So on the flipside of the TD downgrade this week here is the positive news on CRH.RBC upgrades CRH to outperform today and on Monday Canaccord restated buy ratings stating the correction for the reimbursement change is over done.I'll also mention the analyst from TD that downgraded CRH is ranked as having a 37% success rate and is ranked 4026 out of 4601 analysts.It is crazy to me that a downgrade from an analyst with such a spotty record would impact the stock so much but I know its due to the current negative sentiment with reimbursement changes. This is just an fyi for those bothered by CRH's recent losses.
Read Answer Asked by Adam on July 24, 2017
Q: Good morning.

I'm not a fan of short sellers but, with EIF, they may have a point on the cash flow. Looking back at the last 5 years (Morningstar.ca), it does seem that they are consistently showing negative free cash flow and this seems to be primarily due to investing in PP&E rather than acquisitions. If it was for acquisitions, I would view it more positively but for PP&E, every year, not so much. What is your opinion?
Read Answer Asked by Peter on July 24, 2017