Investment Q&A

Q: My bank is the Royal and, when I buy a GIC through Direct Investing, they list several institutions offering such fixed income at the rate those institutions currently offer. However, if I go directly into the website of these other institutions, I find the rates they offer are slightly higher than what is available through Direct Investing at the Royal. My question is this..... Is the Royal taking a "finders fee" or "management fee" when I purchase a GIC from another institution through their Direct Investing? I hope I have described this situation in a clear manner for your consideration. When I get my annual year-end tax reports from the Royal, they do list an obscure "management fee" against my GIC portfolio. Thanks!

Q: I will probably be purchasing ZIN shortly. Regarding the quarterly dividend, does it matter when I buy ZIN? I know the Ex div date is Dec 27, so I need to buy it before that, so it settles prior to or on Dec 26. And theoretically in an efficient market, the price of ZIN will drop the amount of the dividend ($0.13) on that date. What's your experience...does the ETF share price drop actually resemble the dividend amount?

Thanks...Steve

Q: Hello
I would appreciate a link for some info on growth, value and momentum strategies.
For a long time-frame investment with high-risk tolerance, which one is more suitable?

Q: When buying a thin trader such as FSV,
Do you recommend putting in a limit order rather than a market order?
Thanks
Karim

Q: Good morning Peter, Ryan & team. I've been seeing the term Repo market in the financial headlines of late and don't understand what part of the lending / debt process it serves. Can you enlighten Me in a couple of paragraphs as to why I should be concerned with This? Thanks david

Q: Along with iTrade, I have other accounts with another institution with a broker. With my RRSP it has been converted to a RRIF and this institution once it goes into a RRIF, if you sell a US security, it is converted to Canadian dollars and then when you want to buy another US security, you have to convert Canadian dollars back to US dollars. Is this common practice? My wife being a few years younger than me, I was thinking of taking her US securities out of her RRSP at the same institution and transferring them to her TFSA at iTrade. If I were to take $25,000.00 US out for example, could I replace it later with Canadian dollars? Would I be able to transfer it from this institution to where my iTrade account is or would I have to open a TFSA where the RRSP is? Thank you. It is nice to have this type of advice. Well worth it. Thanks Dennis

Q: Thank you for posting the model portfolios. I had to comment. Sometimes customers will complain about a stock pick or two, such as COV or, more recently, NFI. But with the income portfolio up 15%, growth up almost 31% and balanced up more than 20% this year, I really do not know what they are complaining about. Keep up the good work.

Q: A bit of info re: Alex's question about selling Canadian gold coins. Current 1 oz coins are .9999 percent gold and the banks will buy them. The coin will marked with its purity. Older coins were minted to only .999 percent purity and some banks (at least TD) will not accept them. Those need to be sold at a "cash for gold" place, in which case, definitely shop around for pricing.

Q: I have quite a bit of money to invest but I am in no hurry, maybe even in January as there are a lot of problems in the world just now.
impeachment, British Vote,,Brexit, Trumps antics, upset world
What are your thoughts or suggestions

Ernie

Q: I was thinking of putting $1,000 in 10 small caps before year end for total returns. My picks are Sangoma, Trican, Royal Nickel, Savaria, Aphria, Martello, The score, Questor, Photon and Well Health. I know you don’t give financial advice but is this a smart thing to do? Or would a big gain in one just offset all the potential losses? And are there any of these 10 companies you would not invest in and I know timeframe needs to be longer than a month! Lol

Q: How did gold perform during 2008 financial crisis?

Thanks.
Liping

Q: I find it curious to read this and realize that a senior officer at SHOP owns so few shares of the company he works for. He owns less than I do.

If I'm correct he's the COO.
"Shopify Inc (TSE:SHOP) Senior Officer Harley Michael Finkelstein sold 416 shares of the business's stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, November 25th. The shares were sold at an average price of C$413.77, for a total value of C$172,126.94. Following the completion of the sale, the insider now directly owns 517 shares of the company's stock, valued at approximately C$213,917.37. "

So my question is why would you guess would the COO of a fast growing company like SHOP own so little stock. Doesn't show a lot of confidence in the company to me.

Sheldon

Q: Do you know of a site that lists preferred shares? If not could you recommend 5 to 10 preferred shares to purchase at this time. Thanks

Q: Good morning- I have canadian gold dollar one ounce coins. Can you suggest where I can sell them for an appropriate price? Thank you.

Q: So what happens to my shares of quarterhill that I bought on the nasdaq exchange in US dollars. Do they get convert to Canadian dollars.
My shares are held in a US cash account.

Q: A trading education question - today (Dec.5) WCP opened at $4.25, high of day was $4.36 and at 4pm closed at $4.29. Volume weighted average trade price for the day was $4.2918

On the TMX site more trades were listed at 4:10pm. Six trades printed, all done at $4.68
Selling brokers included brokerges with numbers 85,62,25,68 & 80. The TMX Member Firm Directory details those brokerages.

https://www.tsx.com/trading/accessing-our-markets/member-firm-directory

Question relates to the buying broker for all 6 of the 4:10pm EST trade prints - brokerage #100. Total volume printed for the 6 trades was 407,000 shares. Not mom or pop trading in their pajamas.

Who is brokerage #100 & what would be the probable reason for why the 6 shown trades were done at over a 9% premium to the day's volume weighted average trade price (ie. $4.68 vs $4.29)?

I'm assuming it's somehow related to institutional trading given individual trade volume sizes (250,000 on one print) but I would be interested to know a better answer. Ideas?

Thanks for insights and opinions.

Richard in PG

Q: According to the efficient markets theory, a stock should reflect all publicly known information about a company. Given the advances in AI, technical analysis, computerized trading, etc., under what circumstances do you see individual investors being able to beat the markets, or more specifically, being able to beat the computers?

Are there specific types of stocks, or specific market conditions or circumstances, where individual investors have an advantage over computers? Under what circumstances is it better for an individual to hold a diversified basket of ETFs as opposed to individual stocks?

Are you aware of any research in this regard?

Many thanks for your excellent advice, and for this wonderful service!

Q: I also have to reduce my weighting in SHOP, but what I am doing is donating the shares to a charity and adding the cash that I was going to donate to my portfolio.

Q: Hi,
I was looking through past questions that you have answered on PTQ and note the following comment.
"It is a US company listed in Canada, which can raise some red flags..."
Could you explain what the red flags would be? Thanks.

Q: Once again I have to contemplate reducing my weight in SHOP as it is again at a 10% weight. (Okay I understand this is a good problem to have.) I reduced shop before a few months ago and I find myself regretting it. A couple of years ago I reduced my CSU weight by 75% at $700 in order to stick to a lower risk portfolio theme and have a proper weighting, and yes I really regret that (now that it basks in the $1,400 range). Both these stocks I have a really strong belief in, as I know you do. I guess my question is, should not balancing be tempered by the confidence in the stock? I mean one of the reasons I go diy is because I believe no advisor can take a big risk on my behalf in good conscience yet it might be one that I would be willing to take for myself, hence no advisor. As you say, any stock can go down 50% (in a day even), but really, CSU and SHOP? My total portfolio is otherwise pretty well diversified. Am I being completely reckless here by not divesting some of SHOP or do you think that this falls under your concept of one's personal preference realm? Again, thank you for all your help.