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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: 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.
Read Answer Asked by Shyam on September 29, 2016
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.
Read Answer Asked by Benjamin on September 28, 2016
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!
Read Answer Asked by Mark on September 28, 2016
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.
Read Answer Asked by Savalai on September 26, 2016
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.
Read Answer Asked by Donald on September 26, 2016
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?
Read Answer Asked by Steven on September 22, 2016
Q: I have learned a lot and benefited greatly from 5i advice, and take particular benefit from your diversified portfolio approach. Would you say it is fair to identify any market analyst, including the 5i group, as having a particular specialization being an area of strength and certain market segments being areas of weakness or minimal depth? For example, analysts who are good at identifying software companies but less aware of details required to be successful in healthcare field. If you agree, which areas would you claim are 5i's areas of strength and which are the segments of less depth of knowledge.
In view of constructing a diversified portfolio, I am looking to draw information from a variety of sources. Your comments would help guide the relative importance to assign to difference sources.
Clearly track record is a primary guide to use, but I would also take your self-assessment as very valuable. I don't mean to be hard on you or anyone for identifying strengths vs weaknesses.
Thank you kindly,
Gary

Read Answer Asked by Gary on September 21, 2016
Q: I was listening to Charles Nenner (Research) on BNN, who you are probably familiar with, although it was a first time for me. Unfortunately while he was talking tops and bottoms I am not really sure I understood his future predictions. It did not help that the BNN reporter was really unable to bring out the issues he was talking about. It seems to me that he was saying TSX,S&P etc would undergo a down cycle in the coming quarter but when that was over we could expect a rise going thru to the end of of 2017. Are you familiar Charles Nenner cyclical philosophy and what can you tell me about it and do you give it credibility. Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Maureen on September 21, 2016
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