Investment Q&A

Q: Hi Folks, have been wanting to put some of my investments into US funds.
Recently read an article by John Heinzel in the Globe and Mail stating that the best way to invest in US funds is through an RRSP or RRIF which seemed to make sense from a tax point of view.
When I contacted my broker, Scotia iTrade, I was told that only Canadian dollars not US dollars could be in my RRIF account.
Could you please give me your opinion as to which is correct and if Heinzel is correct, how is it done?
Many, many, thanks for all you do. I certainly would not have done as well over the last few years, as I have being a member of 5I. I pass your name onto all my investor friends.
Congrats to your team.

Hal

Q: A headline article in Globe and mail " Why it feels like another financial crisis ----" gives a current p/e for the tsx of 23.6 Your macroeconomic report has it at 17. Is this a difference between trailing and forward earnings or am I missing something?/

Q: The news release was buy ICG on Sept. 19th, and yes I believe you are right, they are re-ferring to zones. Is there a book would recommend for reading up on mining.

Q: I feel considerable empathy for the person who's throwing in the towel on HCG, as I have watched my holding plunge by 10, 20, 30, 40 and now 50%. i have decided to take the advice of the poster suggesting ignoring the day to day noise; I've gone a step farther and decided to treat it as "lost" money now that it's become a fairly insignificant portion of my portfolio. I'm not at a stage in my life where I can wait for a seriously long term recovery, but thanks to you, I'm sufficiently diversified that I do't need to.

On another note: an earlier poster was looking for an ETF with a lower financial holding. At 23%, I think CDZ is lower than most.

Q: I just barely caught a commercial in which you are recommending a trading platform. Wold you be able to confirm the company so I can do some research. Also if you don't mind, why did you select this particular platform. Thanks in advance, Mike

Q: My friends who invest in the housing I.e rental apartments/townhouses seem to be making outsize returns...I personally feel this is because their purchases are highly leveraged. They require only a 20 to 25% down payment to buy a rental property. I personally think it is much safer and easier using a diversified groups of stocks.. especially with the great advise from 5i.but to make outsized returns one needs to borrow money..Banks give preferential rates for home purchases.whereas equity purchases are treated as riskier investments.What are your thoughts on this? I would also like it if your members weigh in on this subject.

Q: Can you please recommend where I can put some US dollars which will earn some income at little risk? Maybe some US dollar low risk etf or something similar? Thanks

Q: Thanks for info on charts. Can you tell me how you generate your monthly chart on the balanced equity portfolio. Maybe I could do the same. As well I am sure some of the members might be interested.
Thanks again as always for your invaluable service to Canadian investors!

Michael

Q: When calculating sector distribution I include all equities, both foreign and domestic. Have I missed the point, since sector correlation will be different overseas relative to US/Canada, except for cases such as commodities that are global in nature. With that in mind, how should I break down the analysis? 1. Domestic, US and international each separately, 2. combine US/domestic and treat international separately, 3. don't bother tracking international sector allocation (mostly market ETFs). I tend to use US companies to fill sector gaps where Canada is weak (e.g. health care).I also wonder how to treat the US megacap multinationals.

Q: Hi, are the 5i growth, income, and balanced portfolios better suited for non-registered or registered (RRSP and TFSA) accounts or a combination thereof? I currently only have registered investments which, today, are a combination of CDN & US stocks and ETFs. Thanks!

Q: Terence says he is due to convert RRSP to RRIF, and wonders about choosing a lower minimum payout. Note that this is a minimum payout, and Terence can override that amount by taking out more, any time he wishes to do so.

Q: does AEM fall under material for a sector as yesterday you listed the allocations for each sector but wondered if precious metal fall under materials?

Thanks
Dolores

Q: Now with 11 sectors in the TSX, what would be a good sector to sector % breakdown to have a balance portfolio?

Q: Hello Peter and team:

You may want to perhaps address this question through your Blog or answer it here. Whatever you think is appropriate is fine with me.

What do think of the article in the Globe, Report on Business section, Saturday September 24 2016 edition by David Milstead on Big companies using non GAAP methods to report their earnings, profit, write downs and such. Except Imperial Oil, all the companies fail GAAP standards his article claims.
Many of the companies that you recommend don't fare well in the analysis by Veritas. For example Agnico, Manu Life, Magna, Interpipline etc., In fact 4 out of 5 companies negatively highlighted by the Globe are your favourites! Interestingly all the banks fare reasonably well which surprised me! The same bankers who "forced" the Govt to enact "opt in" measure come out as "reasonable"?
I went through the table provided by Veritas very carefully. I find that the following companies seem to have the least variance between GAAP and non GAAP measures: AGU ATD, BCE, BMO, BNS, CM, CNR,CTC, DOL, EMA, GIL, IMO, MRU, NA, POT,POW, PPL,RCI, RY, SAP,SJR,SNC,T, TD, WN.
Am I right in interpreting that these companies are "reasonably" clean in their corporate governance? Does this list by Veritas correlate with other lists by other companies that measure or evaluate ethics of a company by entirely another set of variables?

Do you folks consider this accounting issues when you choose a stock?
Thank you for your patience in advance. My apologies for this rather verbose question.

Q: Can you name a site or sites that I could plug in my portfolio and get the similar type portfolio chart like the balanced equity portfolio chart. Hopefully it would be capable of giving either daily or weekly updates of the chart so I can determine my individual and overall performances.

Q: Good Morning: I saw an article in the Globe a few days ago about a firm called "Transcend" which is a program run by Provisus Wealth Management. Looks like the principal player is Chris Ambridge. They are advertising themselves as a "pay for performance" discretionary money manager where you pay a minimal account maintenance fee (25 basis points annually) and then a performance premium of 20% on account profits (or smaller losses). However, the 20% is apparently only on profits that are better than the performance of the appropriate market. So for Cdn. equities I assume that would be the TSX. Wondering if you know anything about this program, know any of the principals at the company, or have an opinion about the merits/demerits of this kind of account. At the moment, I am a self-directed investor using BMO Investorline. As always, thanks.

Q: Can you suggest an investment vehicle(s) (eg. ETFs) that invest in U.S. dividend paying stocks and will pay out a Canadian eligible dividend? Is this type of investment available?

Q: You mentioned that there is a daily digest e-mail, is that something you send to all members or only to those who ask for it? I would be interested in receiving it.

Thanks

Q: Hi I've done well this year: up almost 17% year to date. Thanks to mostly your BE stocks. I'm thinking maybe I should hedge my portfolio somewhat to protect the gains. What do you think of the us etf HDGE. It doesn't seem to have the difficulties of other bear etfs with their daily decay rate.
Or would you just ride the portfolio through the inevitable cycles of downs and ups?

Q: Are there any new site improvements being planned?