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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: Hello 5i
About a month in and wanted to say great service and looking forward to the future. In looking at the companies you cover it seems like your B and higher ratings have been very successful while protecting and growing capital. Curious to know if you have a report on the total returns based on ratings. For example all B rated reports have returned x%, C x% etc.?For me screening by ratings of B and better will be the starting point of my investment selections to be further investigated

Thanks
Sal
Read Answer Asked by Sal on February 28, 2017
Q: Greetings Team:

Greg Bonnel on BNN was wondering if the TSE would show a gain or loss for Monday on the Close and when he turned around the TSE lost about 70 points in a manner of seconds. Looking at my own portfolios I noticed that the banks and insurance companies had all dropped suddenly. Computers to blame, I reckon. Would you please comment on this.
Read Answer Asked by james on February 27, 2017
Q: You suggest that a well-diversified portfolio is one that holds investments in the 11 sectors of the TSX. Pat McKeough of TSI, who is also a believer in portfolios that include all sectors, uses more broadly-based criteria. He breaks the TSX down into five components - Mfg and Industry, Resources, Consumer, Finance and Utilities. I don't see this a radically different than 5i's approach other than in the Consumer area where McKeough does not differentiate between discretionary and non-discretionary consumer companies.

I would appreciate your comments on these two approaches and specifically, do the two consumer sectors tend to be uncorrelated?

Appreciate your insight?

Paul F.
Read Answer Asked by Paul on February 27, 2017
Q: I read on the FAQ's of an ETF Website the following question:
"Are an ETF's Assets Under Management and Trading Volume good indicators of liquidity".
The answer they gave was: "No. The most important aspect related to the liquidity of any ETF is that while the liquidity of the ETF itself (the ETF’s own trading volume on the exchange) may be deemed poor or limited, the key gauge of that ETF’s liquidity is the liquidity of its underlying exposure.
With the mechanism of creation and redemption of ETFs, a designated broker (DB) is responsible for ensuring that market prices track the ETFs’ net asset value (NAVs). If the underlying securities can be easily bought and sold, a tight fit between price and NAV is easily maintained.
Hence, an ETF with small AUM and little trading volume can still be highly liquid if its underlying basket of securities is liquid."
Is this essentially correct, and if it is I'm still not sure how this would work? I have avoided many ETF's for what appears to be poor liquidity and trading volume. If I want to sell an ETF and level 2 quotes show a large spread to sell for example 1000 shares, will additional shares in the ETF somehow be created to get a fair market price based on the underlying stocks held in that ETF if I put a Sell order in on what appears to be a low volume ETF? What I am getting at basically is - is there any way of knowing what the price spread will be on the sale if additional ETF units that are created "on the fly" by the DB? I may not be interpreting the answer given above so please try to expand and clarify their explanation.
Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Alan on February 27, 2017
Q: Good morning Peter and Team,

You have said that you prefer to "sell the losers". What criteria would you suggest to decide what to sell, and when
to sell it? Specifically, in a balanced portfolio, I am frustrated with HLF as it's down 28%. Your recent answer to Lee
in which you expressed disappointment in their earnings release has caused me to question continuing to hold HLF.

In the Consumer Staples sector, we hold ADW.A, ATD.B, ECI, HLF, PBH, and SAP. We also have a small amount of XST for re-balancing as it's a commission-free ETF in our iTrade account. (I happily note that XST is a top-performing ETF in the Canadian Money Saver).

If we were to dump HLF, what would you suggest we add to among our existing holdings in this sector? My feeling is that there are better opportunities elsewhere, but as always, I appreciate your insight and advice.
Read Answer Asked by Jerry on February 27, 2017
Q: 11:31 AM 2/23/2017
Hi Peter:

I don't quite understand your rationale for owning gold bullion, gold streamers or gold miner shares as insurance. Today you said : "The key for 'insurance' such as gold is to own it when you need it, not after." It seems to me that this implies selling your gold at a crisis time since insurance only pays off if the house burns down.

Does this mean you advise actually selling gold positions if the market plunges? Golds get hammered too in crisis situations so may not be winners either. Holding golds through a crisis is almost pointless since if you don't sell you just ride the price up and back down again and almost all golds have trivial dividends, so no meaningful income from them while holding. I just don't see the point. Much better to own BCE or RY or TRP! Would you agree?

Thank you.... Paul K
Read Answer Asked by Paul on February 23, 2017
Q: The markets have had quite a run and I am considering the manner in which I can protect the bulk of those gains. Although I acknowledge and understand that market timing doesn't work, intuitively given the extent of the market run, the odds of a pullback must be greater and therefor are not some hedging strategies prudent at this juncture? How can I hedge those gains in a self directed account with a mix of registered and taxable accounts, the bulk being in taxables which have in certain securities significant gains? Thx
Read Answer Asked by Patrick on February 23, 2017
Q: Hi 5i team. The bulk of our savings is managed professionally and is balanced and diversified (I hope).My spouse and I manage our own TFSA. We would like the TFSAs to have a high growth potential. Currently my porfolio has 15% cash, 8.14% BAD, 5.82% CGX, 4.52% DRT, 4.89% INP, 6.92% GUD, 4.41% MDA, 5.18% NXPI, 17.53% PPL, 7.14% TC and 18.66% BYD
My husband has 24.35% cash, 9.24% ALA, 6.76% CXI, 20.54% CSU, 8.88% GSY, 18.78% KXS and 10.97% WCN.
We would like to have a balanced asset allocation and still keep it high growth.
Please suggest what we should keep, sell and any buy recommendations.
Please deduct as many credits as appropriate.

Also, could you advise how often I should check on my porfolio and rebalance it?
Read Answer Asked by Teresa on February 23, 2017
Q: I am cleaning up my portfolio and have to deal with a $35k loss on Terra Energy (TTRHF) .. what is the best way to do this? I was sent a form to sign by my online broker (Letter of Authorization - Direction to Remove and Assign Securities (Delisted)) .. is this a good idea? And what about the case of a stock that is still listed (e.g. Knighthawk - KHA) at 2 cents?
Your advice is much appreciated in dealing with these matters.
Read Answer Asked by Patrik on February 23, 2017
Q: I am helping my sister with her work RRSP in which she has to choose which funds to invest in and just want to know if you were to increase a fund from 2.5% to 5% (Real Estate) and sell some units in another fund that is 24% (Income Growth)of her total holding would you sell 2.5% all at once or best to sell over a period of time? She has 10 years before retiring.

Thanks
Dolores
Read Answer Asked on February 17, 2017
Q: Hi i5
My wife and I are 59 years old and semiretired
Are pension income is enough to fund are day to day life , we have some investment
Income that is used for travel and any extras that come up.
In that investment we have about 25 % in bond funds (pmmo005) 20 % cash
And the balance in Canadian and American equities .
On Bnn market call many analysts are saying bonds are not the best investment in
today's market of raising interest rates . Would you recommend selling or reducing the bond portion of portfolio .
Thanks for the help
Sam
Market
Read Answer Asked by Sam on February 16, 2017
Q: I'm not sure if this has been previously asked.I have 4 accounts with Scotia itrade. In their acct. summaries they don't have a field for current allocation percentages. I'd like to set up a similar format to your Balanced,Income and Growth portfolios reports.I assume your program is propitiatory.Are you aware of other similar programs available to avoid doing it manually?.
Read Answer Asked by Henry on February 16, 2017
Q: this is a general question on options but could pertain to my holding of a fair number of $20 mar 17 call options on DH corp. So what happens when a companies shares are halted and remain halted thru an option expiry date? I assume there would also be no trading in the options either. what options would an option holder have in say a case like this with my holding of dh calls well into the money. In this case I would assume it would be halted due to an offer but also in a different case it could be a bad situation which could cause the stock to drop. would the option expiry date be moved forward to date when the halt was removed?
thanks Tom your article on ala was timely as I was just about to buy it and bought the ala.r instead, thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Tom on February 16, 2017
Q: Hello 5i Team, I would like your views on averaging up on stocks. I was reading in your blog the article about Averaging up on a stock. Yet I hear many professional say to take some off the table when you have some winners. Why not keep your winners and avg up instead? I like to wait for a 10% gain from my last purchase price and see some momentum before I avg up. Can I get your criteria or trigger point before you avg up on stock. Is your criteria different for a blue chip such as a bank than a growth stock such as a tech company?
Thanks for your service
Read Answer Asked by pietro on February 16, 2017