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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 am retired with no pension. I invest primarily in Canadian Dividend stocks and have in effect created my own "pension income" that is taxed at a "low rate" thanks to the Dividend Tax Credit. With our current Federal Government's massive deficit spending and their recent plan to implement "tax fairness" measures directed at private corporations I am very worried that there next tax grab will include elimination or reduction of the DTC despite the fact that the DTC compensates for taxes paid by the corporation and that dividends are paid out of retained after tax profits. If this were to happen, I think there would be a significant negative market reaction since I think the DTC creates considerable demand for Canadian dividend payers. Do you agree and if so which sectors or type of companies do you think would be most impacted? Thanks
Read Answer Asked by Gary on September 25, 2017
Q: For a portfolio in excess of $1 million, can you articulate any general principles for when you would opt for diversification within a sector rather than a single, concentrated holding? I tend to gravitate towards diversification in most instances, but as a result I have considerably more holdings than any of your model portfolios, and would like to reduce my positions and be more strategic in my approach to diversification.
Read Answer Asked by Peter on September 25, 2017
Q: hi peter my question is a general about buying a inter listed company say buy td in Canadian exchange in Canadian dollars and sell in new York exchange in usa dollars and that way you you can convert you Canadian dollar into usa dollars without paying bank exchange commission
is that alloyed or is that is possible
Read Answer Asked by parmjit on September 25, 2017
Q: I refer Richard's question of Sept.19th
Would this work for a RRSP as well, combined my wife I have $877,000. Sell our stocks and buy equal amounts of these etf'e.
This would give us a nice income should we take it out.
Also have a larger amount in cash and TSFA based on your portfolios.
We are 60 and also have pensions and no debt
Thank you and have a great weekend.
Mike
Read Answer Asked by Mike on September 22, 2017
Q: I am amazed at how closely the D.J.I.A. and the SP 500 track each other.
The stocks in the Dow are picked by editors of the Wall Street Journal and are share price weighted so Proctor & Gamble has 4 times the weighting of GE.
The SP 500 is market cap weighted so Amazon which never makes money has 5 times the weight of Morgan Stanley which made $6 billion last year.
How can you explain this? Thanks
Derek

Read Answer Asked by Derek on September 21, 2017
Q: I would like to deploy cash held in my Canadian $ brokerage account on the basis that the Canadian dollar will decline in value in relation to the US dollar. I am considering the purchase of ZTS BMO Short Term US Treasury Bond Index. My premise is that this ETF should be very stable in the value of its holdings but will directly reflect changes in the CDN/US $ ratio. Is this correct?

Other than paying the high bank exchange spread or deploying a Norbert’s Gambit transaction, is there a better way to institute this idea? Is ZTS a suitable ETF for this purpose?
Thanks
David
Read Answer Asked by David on September 20, 2017
Q: Hello 5i team,
In a recent response to Stanley you said you would consider a pension as fixed income. Tha is not new. But, i was wondering whether you could give a rough approximation of the value of a pension, say arbitrarily, a pension of $30,000 per year, in terms of a percentage of fixed income. Say in a portfolio of one million, if that helps to clarify my question.
All the best
Read Answer Asked by joseph on September 19, 2017
Q: Peter and His Wonder Team
I am trying to get a better understanding idea of "normal-average market fluctuations".
So for example...Lets say your portfolio hits a high for the year in April and a low in September with just normal conditions and no catastrophic events. So here is the question...What might the percentage difference be...10% 15% or 20%? Please give a number for a momentum-FANG portfolio vs a conservative VALUE portfolio vs a small cap CONTRARIAN portfolio. I think knowing what is normal may reduce the anxiety for us retail investors.
Thanks as usual...
Dr.Ernest Rivait
Read Answer Asked by Ernest on September 18, 2017
Q: Hi the great team, short term volatility seems to related to actual quarterly earning vs its estimated. In your portfolios, which stocks have good record of beating estimates most of the time and which stocks don't. thanks.
Read Answer Asked by victor on September 18, 2017
Q: I've been unsuccessful picking my own stocks thus far but have roughly 15k sitting in cash (afraid to lose it). What/How would you suggest investing this amount to return consistently over a long period.

Thank you
Read Answer Asked by Kevin on September 18, 2017
Q: Please advise on methodology for new members entering into 5I research model portfolios. Do you ease in with multiple steps based on 5I recommendations of new positions or jump into the entire portfolio? Presently the TSX is in a downtrend and I would probably wait for 10 period exponential crossover of a 50 period simple moving average prior to entry.
Thank You,
George
Read Answer Asked by George on September 18, 2017