skip to content
  1. Home
  2. >
  3. Investment Q&A
You can view 3 more answers this month. Sign up for a free trial for unlimited access.

Investment Q&A

Not investment advice or solicitation to buy/sell securities. Do your own due diligence and/or consult an advisor.

Q: ET & quite a no.of other 5I's stocks will be added to the small cap index as at close on Sep 18.SJ will be added to TSX.Please advise impact.Thanks a lot for your usual great services & views
Read Answer Asked by Peter on September 14, 2015
Q: Good Evening
When reviewing the insider reports I come accross to the following term under the heading Nature of Transaction: " Buy Under Company Plan." Can you please explain what is meant by "Buying Under Company Plan"??
I understand the buying and selling in the open market but I am not sure how the buying under company plan works. Are the insiders required to buy company shares at specific intervals?
Thank you
Read Answer Asked by Terry on September 14, 2015
Q: Seems crooked that two directors sold shares last week before yesterdays announcement.Any comment?
Read Answer Asked by Don on September 10, 2015
Q: Hello Peter & Co,
I appreciate your quick response to my sector query for a particular stock; I just found a great source for such info.
Go to TMX Money, click on Investor Tools, click on Stock Screener, make your sector choice and you will get a list of companies in that sector.
Hope that my co-subscribers will find this useful.
Thanks,
Antoine
Read Answer Asked by Antoine on September 09, 2015
Q: I apologize in advance for this rather off-the-wall question.
A number of years ago I opened a separate account and I deposit $1000 per month on the 4th of each month. The account then automatically buys the same TSX etf a day or two later. I did this as a test to see if it would outperform my trading, but that is a different matter. My question is this -- wouldn't most retail investors be on average buyers early in any given month, and more likely a seller at the end of a month, everything else being equal. It seems like most of have more cash, on avarage, available at the beginning of the month, for a number of reasons. Would market prices therefore not tend to be higher early on a monthly basis rather than later? Do you know if this has ever been studied?
Cheers
John
Read Answer Asked by john on September 09, 2015
Q: I know 5i prefers not to hedge and considers it diversification. However, I consider foreign exchange to be a commodity and fluctuates without much warning and therefore consider it to be high risk. Diversification of a portfolio makes a lot of sense, however, if you look at the US CDN dollar rate fluctuations over the past 10 years, the US dollar has been as high as 1.65 then dropped below the value of the CDN dollar and is now trading around 1.35. Hindsight is wonderful, but I do not think any person can predict what will happen with foreign exchange. Short term perhaps, but unlike the stock market where you can buy and hold good companies with the expectation that they will go up in value, I prefer not to hedge.

Stephen
Read Answer Asked by stephen on September 09, 2015
Q: At what point is it feasible to allocate a percentage value to stocks in a portfolio, as opposed to a dollar value? For instance, if an investor starts out with $100,000 in cash, it's easy to pick 20 stocks and allocate 5% to each to come up with a nicely rounded, well diversified portfolio. But, if an investor is starting out with only $50,000, or $25,000, does the same principle apply? Or should one arbitrarily assign a dollar value -- perhaps min. of $5000 per stock, and build from there ... so that a $25K portfolio might only have 5 good stocks in different sectors? Would that be enough protection/diversity?

I'm asking this to set the course for a few young adults in my family (nieces, nephews) who are starting out on their investment life, and are inheriting some funds.

As a follow up to that thought, would you structure this amount of cash differently for a 25 year old than you might for a 45 year old, with the same amount of cash?

Thanks for your help and insight, as always.
Read Answer Asked by Sylvia on September 07, 2015
Q: Just like the last time you increased your prices, you have been very fair with current members. I know I totally appreciate that, as many others do. You are providing a very unique, yet wonderful service! Thank you!!!

It's your discretion whether to publish this, but when I read the notification, it sounded like if I renew for two years I'll pay the "old" price of $119.95 for the first year, but $119.95 less 10% for the second year. However, just re-reading now, it seems this was intentional as you consider the Two year membership as a package, not two one year memberships.

Honestly, I'd pay even more for this service as it has reaped returns far superior to what I would get on my own, or with ANY advisor.
Read Answer Asked by Brenda on September 02, 2015
Q: Dewflation--it may sound weird but my greatest feat is an outbreak of deflation, perhaps world-wide.

In deflation, I know to avoid commodities but what else to avoid and what to invest in ---how do you handle investments in deflation.

Bryon in Elmira
Read Answer Asked by Bryon on September 02, 2015
Q: I have just recently tried to find value stocks to invest in and am currently watching about 40 stocks and I would be interested to know what you consider to be the main value indicators to watch such as P/E ratio, debt to cash flow ratios, state of balance sheet etc. I would also be interested to know what indices you consider important before making a decision to buy a particular stock. For example, a P/E ratio below 20.. You may well have been asked this question before and if so please refer me to your response. Thanks

.
Read Answer Asked by Bob on September 01, 2015
Q: Can you comment on the fact that BNN Market Call takes place during the trading day and not all of us can be watching while we are at work. I have frequently come home to see their picks and I an interested in a stock, but find it has traded up 10% or more just after the pick is announced on the television. This seems unfair for those who cannot watch. Do you have any pull with the BNN producers. Maybe we can get them to air it at 1:00 after the market has closed. Do you have any advice for other than to wait to see if the stock trades down to a reasonable level before buying?
Read Answer Asked by Dan on September 01, 2015
Q: Hi, Maybe an odd question but wondering about your thoughts on using Beneish m-score and Altman z-score in the stock screening process for a long term investor.
Read Answer Asked by Cameron on August 28, 2015
Q: With respect to Shyam's query Aug 27 regarding resources for fixed income/bond investing I found a book by Hank Cunningham entitled "In Your Best Interest: The Ultimate Guide to the Canadian Bond Market" to be quite informative. Mr. Cunningham used to be a frequent guest on BNN and I believe is well respected.
Read Answer Asked by Stephen R. on August 27, 2015
Q: I'd love to find out what you guys think about the Zero Hedge Financial Blog?

Some of it may seem fairly insightful but then you'll come across 15 tweets or articles in a row that sound reactionary, doom and gloom, zombie apocalypse is upon us and that immediately get disproven the next day. I'm having a tough time getting a handle on these guys. From my perspective, it seems like their moments of clarity and genuine insight is later ruined by pandering to an audience who is waiting for the markets to go to zero. Its weird, cuz Catherine Murray follows them on twitter and she strikes me as being very conservative (I guess though just because you follow someone on twitter doesn't mean you agree with their viewpoint).

Anyway, your thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks.

John
Read Answer Asked by john on August 27, 2015
Q: I use the Bloomberg app on my iphone to track my portfolio. You can set up watchlists for your holdings and in the summary tab you get a breakdown by industry, asset type and location.
Read Answer Asked by James on August 27, 2015
Q: Good Morning Peter, Ryan, and Team,
This is regarding a question that another 5i Member asked about portfolio allocation tracking websites or apps. I just recently switched from TD Direct Investing to BMO Investorline. I discovered that BMO Investorline cleverly takes your account holdings and automatically generates a portfolio sector allocation pie chart and also shows the accompanying list with the percentage allocated to each sector. This is displayed at: Home / My Portfolio / Allocation Charts. This is not a plug for BMO Investorline (although I do really like it) but it is clever and saves valuable time. Hope this is helpful. DL
Read Answer Asked by Dennis on August 27, 2015
Q: Hi guys,
Do you know a good app or website that I can use to track my portfolio and sector allocation? I used to subscribe to GlobeinvestorGold and they had a nice portfolio analyzer that I found handy.
Thank you,
Brent
Read Answer Asked by Brent on August 27, 2015