Investment Q&A

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?

Q: Ryan
Thank you for the blog posts regarding dividend payout ratios. It's a tremendous follow-up on my question (including using DIV as an example).
Thanks Cameron

Q: Good morning,

I recall that the yield on "VE" was over 4% several months ago and is now showing as just under 2%. The distributions seem to change quarterly? Hoping you can shed some light on the proper way to understand the yield on this etf.

Many thanks,
Brad

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

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.

Q: Hello Peter & team, I hold shares of BIP.un in my account and I know that the stock has splitted 3:2 last week. My online broker account reflects the new BIP.un share price but it doesn't show the new number of shares. It actually shows the exact same number of shares that I had before the split. Is it because it takes the online broker some time to make the adjustments? Thanks, Gervais

Q: I submitted this question last Thursday. But I think there maybe system glitches that some questions get lost. This is a resubmitt:

Your balance portfolio has an impressive returns. Mine is way behind. So I searched your QA database, without success, to see if previous questions were submitted regarding a general strategy on how to migrate my stock/mutual funds/etfs holdings to duplicate your balanced portfolio for getting less hands on investing. I hold perhaps 80 stocks and I share perhaps 15 securities with your balanced portfolio and these are obviously to keep within the constraints of asset allocation. I have about 25% holdings in US companies. Your answer, I am sure, would be of great benefit to those members who are like me, are tired of chasing ellusive returns and wish a steady hands-off approach to investing.

So my questions are:

- Is it possible to give a guide line on how to migrate a portfolio to duplicate one of your portfolios? Do you think by adding few of your covered stocks with A/B ratings be a positive or a drage on performance?

-In searching your data base for questions like this one, using a key word like strategy, would I be able to find answer to such a question?
- Allocating assets between Canada and US in general terms, to enhance returns, without consideration to personal circumstances, what percentage allocation should one invest outside Canada?

Your program has helped me tremendously in focusing my portfolio after many years of haphazard approach to investing. So your help is much appreciated by the many members of this community,

Thanks a lot.

Q: Hello 5I
I currently hold these three but they have been a bit of a drag for a year or so. I was thinking of redeploying the capital elsewhere but I looked at TD Waterhouse charts on them and they appear to be gaining a bit in the last month or so. There are good bullish signals on them recently. I know you guys prefer point and figure charts but TD Waterhouse do not have them and I don't understand them. In a nutshell what do point and figure charts say about these stocks?

Thanks Again
Clarence

Q: I am hoping you can further educate me on the workings of the market. Specifically, what exactly is a roll-up company and how does is it different from a company that regularly does acquisitions?

The term "roll-up" seems to be used nowadays by analysts and other media experts as a negative term, perhaps due to the failures of Valiant, Constellation among others. But ATD.B is lauded due to its growth via acquisition. So, is a roll-up strategy inherently negative and if so, how do you spot a roll-up vs a smart acquisitor?

Appreciate your insight.

Paul F.

Q: what is your outlook on the market for the next three months and also the next year tsx dow jones and nasdaq?

Q: I understand that you will be giving a speech on when to sell stocks. Since I find that selling is much more difficult than buying, would you consider posting the speech on the website after it is given ? Thanks Glenn

Q: What is your outlook on the Canadian dollar for the next three months and also the next year?

Q: I signed up for the Money Show 2016 seminar but missed the presentation and would like to see the webinar, but I cannot seem to be able to download it on the website.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Reference Number: 20343068 (for the Money Show)
Rick

Q: Can you please explain something to me? Why, at least based on what I read in the newspaper, when the economy shows signs of deteriorating putting off risk of an interest rate rise the market goes up. When things look better for the economy and there is talk of raising rates the market goes down. Wouldn’t most legitimate business do better in a better economy? So shouldn’t it really be the other way around? Why are stocks thought to do better in low interest rate environment? And is it true that they do?