Investment Q&A

Q: 10:32 AM 2/9/2015

Hello Peter

I was shocked the other day to see your answer to a question on Currency Exchange International CXI in which you say is is an American Company and thus deemed to be a Foreign Investment from CRA's perspective requiring a Form 1135 report. To me it seemed to be just another TSX listed company!

Is there any reliable way to find which TSX listed companies are actually Foreign or do I just have to search for the company corporate head office address and assume a foreign address is the key?

Are all US [and foreign] companies with a TSX listing considered foreign? And are Canadian companies interlisted in New York considered not foreign?

I wish to avoid the tax and dividend complications of foreign ownership.

Thank you.... Paul K

Q: Team

I am sitting on quite alot of US and CDN dollars in my RSP.

I would like to start picking away at some of the Canadian dividend paying stocks ( ie: BCE, CPG and others).

The one's I am looking at trade on both the CDN and US exchanges.

We the current exchange rate favoring the US dollar, would it be prudent to buy these Canadian companies on the US exchanges.

Assuming, for example, CPG/BCE stock price increases (along with the dividend it pays out), buying it in US would also give you the additional exchange amount, as well, if you wanted to convert back to CDN dollars at this time.

As always, thanks for your excellent service.

Mike

Q: The question about CXI and reporting got me to checking my portfolios. Do I have to fill in Form 1135 for ETFs based on the S&P 500, like VFV and XSP, which trade on the TSX? What about EWWS and EWU which trade on an American Exchange?

Q: Hi Peter, I wrote a few weeks ago but haven't heard back so I will try again. Also, up to you if you decide to publish but any assistance you can offer would be appreciated.

My Father-in-law passed away in 2009 and since everything was co-owned with my mother-in-law we did not have to go through probate. Subsequently, we have now located a number of old stock certificates in his name only. We have been advised by his lawyer that we will need to register these certificates at probate in order to have the ownership transferred to my mother-in-law. Most of the certificates are nearly worthless, However, he had certificates in Young Davidson Mine which was taken over by Aurica Gold last year. He purchased 1,000 shares in 1984. Through various takeovers we believe he would now own 789 shares of Aurico Gold today so it is certainly worth the time and expense to get these shares registered in my mother-in-laws and surrender to Aurico gold. Could you tell me how I can find out what the value of 1000 shares of Young Davidson Mines would have been at the time of his death - December 26, 2009 - this is requried in order to file the probate with the courts.
Also, he had purchased 10 units in 1991 for $10,000 of Lakewood VIII Limited Patnership (National Trust Company is listed as the Registrar and it states the subscription is acepted by 170944 Canada Inc as the General Partner). Any ideas how I can find out if this is worth anything? I haven't had much luck on the internet.
Peter thanks for any help you can porvide to me so we can finalize the estate. I must say it was pretty cool finding all these old stock certificates in the basement and I am sure other boomers are also encountering this as they clean out their parent's home. Might make a good article for Money Saver - what to do with old stock certificates.
Thanks again.
maggie

Q: On an earlier post a few weeks back you used non-GAAP earnings when commenting on the quarter 0.97 cents.
Looking at forecast estimates on the TMX website for the next quarter it seems they also must be using non-GAAP earnings. It is confusing to me when in other places EPS is shown as GAAP earnings. Why use non-GAAP? Which is better when calculating PE etc?

Q: In response to a question on how to download market data directly into Excel, this is what I use:

=NUMBERVALUE(WEBSERVICE("finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?s=" & A2 & "&f=l1"))

In this case cell A2 contains the symbol I would like the information for (ie ALA.TO for AltaGas). The l1 looks up the last trade price. The website below shows other codes to use to lookup other information.

http://www.jarloo.com/yahoo_finance/

For example =NUMBERVALUE(WEBSERVICE("finance.yahoo.com/d/quotes.csv?s=" & A2 & "&f=j1")) will get the Market cap.

Unfortunately WEBSERVICE is a non-volatile function, meaning it doesn’t re-download the information from the web automatically. To refresh, you need to either

- Hit CTRL+ ALT + F9
- If that doesn’t work for some reason on your computer you must use VBA to refresh at opening (Application.CalculateFull) .

It is a little complicated for some, but is the only good way I have found if you want to stick with Excel and not move to Google Sheets.

Q: Hi Peter,
I would like to download market data on stocks from a source for analysis. Could you please give me a source for this data preferably in excel format.
Regards
Simon

Q: Hello 5i team,
In North America, a large number of companies release their quarterly earnings report after the close of the stock markets (TSX, S&P 500, Dow Jones, etc.). How is it that, immediately after the numbers are released, the shares of these companies start trading up or down depending on whether or not they beat expectations? Who is buying/selling these shares and on which stock markets? Is there any way that I, as a retail investor, can buy some at that time in order to get in before the opening of the North American markets the following morning?
Robert

Q: In 2010 Starbucks decided to sharply focus on return on invested capital (ROIC) as a metric of success as opposed to solely earnings + revenue growth. Lease portfolios were growing faster than revenue and profits - costs were going up and performance was sub-optimal even though revenues were going up. Deploying increasing levels of capital into high-growth, high-return areas has been a winning formula for them - as well as closing under performing stores. Where can one find a list of companies with high ROIC's?

Q: Likely this has been asked, but could you clarify what your A,B etc rating means. I currently invest in most A to B+ rated companies. You touched on this in yesterday's market call segment.

Q: Peter, can you explain why inflation is so important? What happens if the central bank cannot reach their inflation target? Sorry if this is such a basic question to ask. Thanks in advance.

Q: James asked on the 3rd about TD dividend not being paid as he expected. For my RBC Dominion account it came through on the morning of the 2nd. Please share with him (if you wish) as maybe there is another issue related to his account.

Q: I read in one of your answers that Enbridge should be classed as a Utility for sector classification and I am wondering if TRP would be considered a Utility as well.

Q: Thank you, Peter, for the excellent webinar today on Dividend Investing. If anyone missed it, make sure to sign up next time! It's either a great introduction or a good review!
Marilyn

Q: Not a question, but hopefully a helpful comment for the 5i community given the number of recent questions related to portfolio balancing:
Google Sheets is similar to Excel spreadsheets, but has an interesting function that can be used to track portfolio weightings easily. The function is called GOOGLEFINANCE, which can retrieve the latest price of a security online automatically.

The way to use this function for a typical stock on the TSX is:
=GOOGLEFINANCE("TSE:symbol")
(for stocks on the Venture, use CVE instead of TSE)

For instance, to find the price of Brookfield Renewable Energy, the function would be:
=GOOGLEFINANCE("TSE:BEP.UN")

If you have one column for the stock price and another for the number of shares, you can then multiply them together to calculate the total value. Categorize all your stocks by sector, and then have Google Sheets calculate portfolio weightings for each. Hopefully I described this clearly and that it is useful for others. I know this has saved me a significant amount of time!

Q: A further question on deflation. If we do enter deflation, can low to zero interest rates still be used as a positive indicator for the economy?

Q: To register for the webinar one must register to Questrade who have the authority to contact you. I already have an account set up, so I really don't want have to deal/talk with them. My question ... Is the webinar available for view immediately after the live show ends?
Thanks,
Rick

Q: Barclay's is predicting the USA will experience a negative CPI in 2015. What would be the best sectors to be invested in should we find ourselves in a deflationary climate? Thank you.

Q: If you don't have American dollars can you justify spending Canadian dollars to buy American stocks. In my cash ACCOUNT AT PRESENT I HAVE 34% American stocks and 66% Canadian stocks
Alan W.

Q: Hello, I am new to your membership and this may have previously been asked. As there are many companies out there I would like to know what your criteria is to pick a stock for performing a review on. Are these ones scrutinized from the general lot for having the most potential?