Investment Q&A

Q: What source do you use to assign a "Sector" label to a specific company? Do you group similar sectors under your labels? Can you elaborate on the process you use in your portfolios?

I attempt to apply sector labels to individual companies in order to track sector weightings and maintain an awareness of the level of diversification I am achieving.
Keeping the number of sectors to a reasonable number (10?) requires grouping of stocks.

Currently I am using ; Consumer C/NC (10%), Finance (20%), Health Care (10%), Energy (10%), Industrials (10%), Technology (20%), Telecom's (10%), Utilities (10%). Industrial's and Consumer C/NC usually get a mix of companies thrown in there. The weightings are my loose guidelines, and I do vary from them quite a bit. i.e. Energy is currently at 3%, Tech at 40%.

I have a struggle controlling the Tech weighting due to positive returns of my holdings and the fact that so many innovative companies use technology in conducting their business and thereby are classified into the Tech Sector. (E.g. REAL is within the real estate industry however is placed in the Tech Sector.)

Any thoughts you can offer to provide me with a healthy perspective are appreciated. Thanks.

Q: On November 10, Patrice asked about a list of dividend paying stocks; your answer provided a link to a list you had prepared. Is this list available on the website? If so, how do I access it - I looked and cannot find it. Is there other kinds of info that is available to your members and if so, how can it be accessed?
thanks

Q: BEP-UN was in the mid 75$ range when they announced a 3 for2 split.Should a new share be worth 50$ or will continued buying keep it much higher than that ?

Q: My apologies for the barrage of questions today but I’ve been saving them up meaning to get to them over the past few weeks. This is the last one (for now). In evaluating a growth company in the small to mid cap range what would the most important metrics to use. Thank you.

Q: Do you provide a listing of companies you currently have reports on (70 companies)? I have looked on your website and cannot seem to find such a listing. I could search by specific companies or by rankings, but would like a overall quick reference of what companies you have reports issued on. (preferably printable)

Perhaps it is already there and I have missed it?

Q: Hello 5i,
Where can I find a list of companies that have just started paying dividends? This has been spoken of before that one should keep an eye out for these companies but I am unable to find a stock screener that offers this option. I am only interested in Canadian exchanges traded companies.

Thanks
Pat

Q: If you assess the following Canadian sectors: financials (the big five banks, insurance companies), electric utilities (EMA, FTS, CU) , pipelines (ENB, TRP), telcos (T, BCE, RCI) and rail (CNR, CP) ... how would you assess each sector for dividend sustainability and growth?

Q: Just a general question as to what your thoughts are on the tech sector right now. It's obviously been extremely hot. How do you see the sector fairing in the short term (1 year) with the potential of covid passing. Do you see any need to reposition part of the portfolio away from tech and move to some value areas such as banks and energy? The reason I ask about the short term is because I think tech is only going to get bigger in the long term (5,10,20 years)

Q: Could you give a brief explanation of how price per cash flow is calculated. Also what ratio of price/cash flow would be concerning and what would be considered good. Thank you.

Q: Hello,
I am not sure I understand premium/discount when buying ETFs..Is this a parameter I should consider when purchasing ETFs..Lets say the ARKG or ARKK etf? Are there any particular days for me to purchase etfs? How do I know if an ETF is selling at a premium or dicsount on a particular day is it shown somewhere? Thanks.

Regards,

Shyam

Q: Im considering selling my entire portfolio - its close to 2 mill, was over 3 but too much Cnd oil and covid fixed that. Thinking, hearing of a potential sharp downturn. Another 20% drop is too much to bear. I'm retired, living on $100k per year is fine. I'm 61.
Is there a safe place to park money until a vaccine arrives? And is it possible to earn close to 4% safely? IF so - how?? I do worry that this second wave will pound my stock portfolio back to where it went in March

Q: With the West’s pullback from Huawei products what are the chances of China banning Apple ( or other firms ) citing security issues ?
How do you factor something like this when analyzing a company?

Q: I want to sell shares of BBD, NFI, SU. Do you suggest that I sell at market or should I put a price limit?
Same question for 32 shares of DXC and 43 shares of MFGP.
And can I sell those shares even if the lots are irregular?

Q: I've owned since the new year. Going to sell to realize the loss. If I sell before the next ex-dividend date which is November 10, will I lose this quarters dividend, payable on December 10? Meaning , do you have to hold the stock on or after the ex dividend date to get paid?
Thanks
Jeff

Q: What are your thoughts on treasury bonds?
Who sells them?

Q: Retired, dividend-income investor. I focus a lot on asset allocation...by sector and by security. I break out my ETFs into their various sectors (ex. ZLB, ZRE, ZWC, XIT, CDZ, LIFE) and then add in my individual securities (ex. AQN, BCE, NWC, NTR, PBH, PLC, RY, TRP, WSP, etc). Up until now I have lumped Telecoms, Utilities and Pipelines into one category and Energy is a stand-alone sector. The only "adjustment" I make is for TRP. I would normally assign it to Utilities, but because it seems to trade more like the Energy sector I assign it 50-50 to Utilities-Energy.

Fast forward to now with the increasing amount of "Renewable Energy". When researching individual companies for potential inclusion into my portfolio, they seem to all come up "Utilities" (ex. BEP, BIP, NPI). It appears Renewable Energy is not a subset of Energy.

So my question is...how do we deal with the asset allocation? Is Renewable Energy assigned to Utilities or Energy or is it a Hybrid?

Thanks...Steve

Q: Hi, I follow your BE portfolio and I am curious your thoughts on how to construct my families portfolio. My spouse and I each have RRSPs AND TFSAs. Would we be better off buying the portfolio of stocks for each account (so replicating the BE portfolio in each account), or divide the BE portfolio into 4 and putting a 1/4 of of the portfolio into each account. I hope my question makes sense. One way i would save on stock purchase fees but chance that the accounts won't grow evenly. What are your thoughts? Thanks

Q: Hi ,

Many thanks for your instant reply.

Can you now explain the difference between "capped" and "equal weight" ?

I wish you could have a place one could go to to understand the meaning of technical terms of the investing universe.

Merci encore,

Jacques

Q: Hi.
Would you please clarify what is meant by a “sell side” analyst? What is the difference to a “buy side” analyst, if that even is a expression?
Are the analysts with, say, Scotia iTrade considered to be “sell side”? Can you provide an example of a “buy side” analysts (if such exist). In what category would you classify 5i’s analysis?
Thanks!

Q: For Jacques
Investopedia,the free dictionary of financial terms does a good job explaining a lot of economics and financials terms.
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