Investment Q&A

Q: Gentlemen Good Morning,
In response to Eric concerning the CSU dividends.
At National Bank Direct Broker the told me ''The dividend is paid in Canadian dollars by our Security Guard, so there would be double conversion in the U.S.''
Its the same for OTEX, Brookefield family, FNV.
But for MX & MG NBDB paid in US but the they must in US account.

Q: Greetings 5i Team,

I am currently in the process of transition our holding from growth focused to income focused. This has been a much more painful exercise than i had every anticipated: 1. As a long time growth investor i have not paid much attention to the income market and the learning curve is big. 2. I struggle with maintaining diversification across industries as i look toward dividend growth and high yield stocks. 3. i am having trouble giving up my growth bend but knowing that we will need the income from our large portfolio starting in 6 months. 4. Don't have a good sense of what the makeup of my portfolio s/b going forward. right now i am about 10% Bond, 15% preferreds and the rest in dividend payers (some growth some high yield) I have yet to find a resource or web site that provides independent advice on how to make the transition. i am also having a difficult time assessing risk of some of the income plays (for example MDIV) Anything you can recommend. I expect i am not alone out there.

Thanks as always

Q: Hi Everyone at 5i! I was notified that I can participate in a class action lawsuit against Concordia. Is all the palaver worth it in your opinion? Cheers, Tamara

Q: how do I access Peter's webinar of March 6th, 2019 on SmallCap Power?

Thanks
Scott

Q: Hi 5i team,
Some time ago, I bought CSU shares (thanks to 5i) on the Canadian exchange. I transferred them not so long ago to my usd account in order to receive their usd dividend in usd. To my surprise, I still receive it in $cad. My understanding is that I am getting slammed twice by the bid-ask conversion exchange rate.
I contacted my broker who answered: that it was either a CSU ou compensation chamber’s decision to pay the dividend in $cad to CSU’s shareholders, and that they were converting the amount in usd because the shares were in my usd account. I then contacted CSU: who promptly responded (thank you) that they were paying their dividend in usd out of their usd, and also that they had nothing to do with the american listing (pink sheets)(Is that the problem?). I understand that there are many/several large TSX listed companies paying usd dividend (algonquin, brookfield among others). So my case or CSU’s case is probably not unique. My question is: what should I do in order to receive CSU’s dividend in usd? I would appreciate to get an answer specific to my situation, not a generic answer. I understand that getting to the bottom of this might take time/effort. There is no hurry, my timeline is: several days before the next dividend payment in April in order to have the shares in the right account for the next regular and special dividends.
Thank you for your collaboration,
Eric

Q: When selling and wanting to retain dividends for the next future dividend payment, should I sell on the 'ex-dividend' date or on the 'record' date?

Q: A two part question relating to reading financial statements.
1. I'm looking for annual Free Cash Flow. For some companies (US) this is stated explicitly as a line item on the Cash Flow statement. For others it's less obvious. BAM, for example provides Net Cash - Beginning Balance, Net Cash - End Balance but also Cash from Financing Activities. Is one of these meant to be Free cash flow? If so, which one?

2. My second question is more about financial statements differing depending on the source (RBC/SA/amigo - [https://amigobulls.com/stocks/BAM/income-statement/annual?t=ibc]), again BAM will be my example using equity differences from 2018.

I've found some differences in results of equity estimates between RBC and amigo and am not sure why, as I presume BAM files once and everyone uses the same data.

As an example using 2018 data:
RBC amigo
EQUITY 29,815 97,150

Why would the be so different, and which is correct?

Thanks,

Cam

Q: Hi 5i team,
You recently answered a question (from Angus, feb 6th) about a list of large Canadian (TRI, CSU, ATD.B, SHOP, ONEX and BYD.UN and usa) companies that could be long term holds based on their management (past and current accomplishments). My question is: what would be a generic maximum weighting for such companies (one weighting for every one of them) if portfolio is invested for a very long period (no need to withdraw money)? Or another way to ask the question: how many different companies would be needed?
Thank you for your collaboration,
Eric

Q: Hi Gang, good news is I sold most of the above with gains except for COV and KXS, looking closer if I did not the losses would put me in big trouble, over 40% for most of them from the high, I know that 2018 was not a stellar year but I'm 65 years old and can't wait 5 years for these stocks to come back, do you have any thoughts on how to get out before a stock takes a 40% haircut, is a 8% or 10% stop rule help or perhaps farther out. Thanks Anthony

Q: Hi,
Steve asked about accessing info on stocks hitting a new high. The Canaccord Genuity morning coffee news letter often lists stocks hitting new 52 week highs and lows. It’s free and is e-mailed and daily.
Thanks,
Kerri

Q: Just a comment based on Darcy’s question on March 7.

While anyone who is invested in stocks based on the balanced equity portfolio, which I suspect is plenty, my own experience is to recommend patience.

Remember when GC was recommenced and then shortly thereafter the news came out about the money laundering. Stock tanks and the natural reaction was panick. Thanks to 5I I held firm and am looking at 60% gain.

I buy the dips, and for the most part, am very pleased, with the BEP.

Thanks team!

Q: Good Morning
Pat McKeough's TS1 Network issues and sells a number of investment letters such as "The Successful Investor". Which one would you recommend for a conservative dividend investor?
Thanks

Q: When answering Scott's question about the lightspeed IPO you said Shopify is 10X sales. On the 5i's website under companies it says SHOP is 55X sales and on Yahoo finance it says 25X sales on the TSX and 19X in the US.

Can you tell me where these discrepancies come from? It makes it difficult to compare companies. Is it best just to do the math yourself?

Thanks.

Q: Should I sell now or wait for takeover is there much of a difference

Q: Reading through 5i answers to questions regarding Cdn. coys that pay dividends in USD made me wonder if there is a way to increase my cash holdings in my USD account without incurring FX charges and being eligible for the foreign tax credit.

I currently have AQN and HOT.UN in my TFSA that pay dividends in USD that are converted to CDN$ with the extra wrinkle of HOT deducting withholding taxes that are not eligible for the foreign tax credit because it is held in TFSA. Also hold BAM.A and BEP.UN and BIP.UN in Cdn. cash trading account that also pay dividends and interest in USD$ and are converted to CDN$ when paid.

Can I as owner 1) TRANSFER my AQN (up about 150%) and HOT.UN (down 25%) shares this year from my TFSA to my USD cash trading account to get dividends/interest in USD and 2) do the same with BAM, BEP and BIP from Cdn. cash trading account to USD cash account to capture and keep the USD payments and avoid FX conversion fees and build my USD cash reserves in USD cash account without incurring any fees and charges from my online broker? Or do brokers and CRA have rules against clients benefiting from structuring dividend/interest transactions in a manner like this?

Obviously this would open up SOME space for extra contributions to my TFSA in early 2020 above and beyond the TFS $6000 contribution limit to provide for increased flexibility for sector rebalancing and re-allocation opportunities. Also this would make the USA withholding tax payment on the HOT.UN dividends eligible for the foreign tax credit when filing my tax return to CRA?

Comments?

Q: My question revolves around Peter's webinar and the thought we should know when to sell our losers. I bought the above just before the decline last year. All outpaced (negatively)the market decline considerably. During the recent market rally 2 have not participated with the market, the others have basically market performed. Leaving the value at this point -23%. There have been some misses in the last reports for these companies. As an investor what am I looking for now to continue to hold these positions or be a seller.
Thank you,
Mike

Q: For the last eight years my portfolio has been almost exclusively US large capilization stocks. My rate of return has been great, significantly above the averages. I do not intend to change my portfolio away from the US markets for the foreseeable future. Am I making a mistake?
Clayton

Q: What is a better investment in the long term - real estate (as a hard asset) or the S&P 500?

Q: This is a question that could apply to the above companies based on recent results but many others throughout a year. When a company you guys like misses earnings but has a reasonable explanation and the release/conf call doesn't turn up anything wild to be concerned about does it ever not make sense to buy or top up when the market overreacts? GC yesterday was another great example. Your thoughts please on when you would and would not be active buyers following a miss by a company you consider to be of high quality.

Q: I have considerable taxable gains that will be realized this year. I will earn less than 20k in self employment income this year (semi-retired). I am considering buying 3000 shares of STLC before the special dividend recognizing the share price will drop after ex-dividend. I will sell the shares shortly after ex-dividend date. I will receive $3690 in dividends and have a similar capital loss (which I will use to reduce my capital gains). Do you consider this a tax efficient strategy? Am I missing something? Thanks for your advice. Rob