Investment Q&A

Q: You are right when you say preferred shares are not bonds, they fall fast in a bad market.

Would it be wise to add a modest amount of ZPR or CPD during this period and take the dividend for a while? This would be in an RRSP

Q: My current portfolio is somewhat similar to your BE portfolio but with a small (15%) portion of foreign holdings (more if you consider BEP which I also hold, as foreign since it has a lot of foreign investments). Foreign is far too small in my estimation. I have some cash to deploy which would bring it up to about 30%.
I currently hold VEE, DXG and DXU, an awful lot of US. Do you have any suggestions of ETFs I could or should add? I have held ZDM in the past.

Q: I am buying European exposure via one of 2 ETF's, either XEH or XEU. As a CDN resident, how might the Cdn Hedged ETF ( XEH) help or hinder my future ROR ?

Q: Can I please get your opinion of this new ETF. Larry Berman was talking about it yeterday on BNN. He seems to like it a lot in this current environment, paying a 6% dividend yield.

Thanks

Dave

Q: You don't hear often about this one, but it was a solid performer over the years. Equal weigh and reballancing appeal to me .
Any comment'd be appreciated.

Q: Greetings 5i,

What a week! Looking to sort through the rubble next week and start picking away at a few hammerd down blue chips. I have a question regarding ZDY and its dividend as I have 3 different postings for it.
TD states its $1.29/year = 4.32%
5i show its $0.20/month which should = $2.40 or 8% and yet states its 3.743%.
To make it more confusing Morning Star states 3.25%.

Hmmm.. everyone can't be correct? What are the true numbers here?

Cheers!

Q: Can you please tell my if 100% of ZWC monthly income received is eligible for the dividend tax credit?
Thanks!!

Q: If I want to buy ZTL, I have this message: "purchase this security online, a limit price must be entered. If you wish to submit this buy order at Market, please contact a representative ": I don't get why you can't buy at the market price ...Thanks. Martin.

Q: I am a long time subscriber and an avid reader of the Q&A. Even with all I have learned, I am still having a difficult time understanding how to invest the fixed income portion of my portfolio. I want fixed income to provide portfolio stability by protecting on the downside while offering the possibility of capital gains along with some income.

I am a buy and hold investor on the equity side and I am comfortable deciding when to sell a company. However, the fixed income side seems to demand a more active approach - or does it? For example, you have been suggesting that interest rates seem likely to decline in the coming months so that would favour long term bonds. But for stability, or as an offset in case I am wrong, should I also hold short term notes? Should my fixed income portion be split 1/3, 1/3, 1/3 among cash, short term and long term and just left at that or is it necessary to continually monitor and adjust these weightings? Or is there one fund that does all that already?

Appreciate your insight.

Paul F.

Q: Can you explain why gold has dropped sharply today? My expectation is that through times of uncertainty, gold should usually go up?

Q: Could you review the situation with covered call ETFs during this type of market where everything is dropping?
Do you buy covered call ETFs to obtain income?
Do you sell your covered call ETFs?
Do you wait until the market moves upward before buying a covered call ETF?
Do you simply stay away when the market turns and buy the individual security?

Thanks....

Q: Once the current rout in the market bottoms, please suggest the best ETF's listed on the TSX to ride the market back up, purely for capital gains, covering both the TSX and the Dow. These would be short-term investments during the recovery mode.

Q: Hi 5i team,
Are there US treasury long term bonds etfs traded on TSX that you will recommend? Are these unhedged with similar return to those traded on US exchanges? Thanks.

Q: Hi 5iTeam, would you please recommend one or more ETFs that are primarily focused on airlines (any airlines regardless of countries in which they are based).
Cheers,

Q: Hi 5i Team,
I am looking for a recommendation of an ETF to invest in US dividends for a non registered account, trading on the TSX. I would like a combination of dividend growers and some higher dividend names in the fund

Thank you!

Q: HI 5i team,
I want to purchase ETF that has Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple as its largest holdings. What's the best choice that you will recommend for Canadian listed etf and for US listed etf? Many thanks.

Q: I'm going to retire next year and have recently received a inheritance. I have this money in a non registered account. PA is telling me that I need more US and international exposure. I'm looking at ETF's with dividends but being non Canadian holding I will not get the tax credit. Should I still look at dividend ETF's and not worry about the tax? I have a low to median risk for these non Canadian ETF's. I have a diversified group of large cap Canadian stocks to take advantage of the dividend tax credit. Can you give me some names to look at buying?
Thanks Greg

Q: Hi Team, My friend was convinced to buy this fund. What can you tell me about its performance, distribution, cost on closing the position & management fee. What better alternative can she consider as first time investor? Exchange traded funds?
Thank you

Q: Good morning - I have owned VUS (CAD hedged US Total Market ETF) for many years in a taxable account. I would like to switch to VTI (the un-hedged version of the same ETF) but would realize a large capital gain. Is there any way an individual could synthetically gain the same USD exposure via a swap or option contract? I would obviously like to avoid high fees to do this. Thanks

Q: North American markets have had a great run the past two years and now it looks like we are in for a prolonged period of selling, especially given that the corvid 19 virus is not a "one off" event but a protracted worry and uncertainty exacerbated by disinformation on social media. The markets were long overdue for such a correction. For the meantime, I have gone to cash in registered and non-registered accounts and bought inverse etfs like HQD (2X Nasdaq bear), HXD (2X SPX60), and HUV (volatility index) to continue making modest gains during the downturn (instead of losing money!). Are there any other defensive (inverse) etfs you could recommend?