Investment Q&A

Q: In your response to Graham re Badger you suggested one stock should not exceed 10% of the portfolio. Is that 10% of the equity portion or 10% of the total portfolio including income securities { bonds } and cash? Thank you.

Q: Hi, I originally had 1500 shares of Badger. Sold 500 and paid for my investment. With the 1000, I now have 3000 with the split. It has 'fortunately' given me a heavy weighting with this company. You seem to keep recommending it and I continue to like it even though it does tend to swing my investments when it has good and bad days. My dilemma....at what point does a 'balanced' portfolio outway selling a good stock!

Cheers,
Graham

Q: Hi. I'm a new comer to your service. I love it so far. I have a question regarding your summary list. I am wondering if this is a list of stocks that are okay to buy or, is it the list of the stock universe that you cover and not all of them necessarily represent the best ideas to buy at this time?

Q: I understand that you are not tax professionals and if you can't answer my questions that's ok. I also know it is hard to answer accurately without knowing all my information and details. First question is is interest paid in a margin account tax deductible?

Second question is more complicated. My wife works for Abbott and gets stock options. She pays 2% of her pay and company matches 3% of her pay for a total of 5 percent. Her portion comes off her check and the companies portion shows up on T4 as earnings. When do we pay tax on this? Only when we sale? I understand that we have to claim the dividends as earnings through out the year. To add further confusion Abbott split and now she owns approximately 300 shares of Abbvie and Abbott. How does a split effect taxes?

As I stated this may be complicated and I will take any general answers or advice.

Q: Do you generay favor and recommend dripping a stock or etf?
With 4-5% yield on some stocks or ETFs, dripping can make an impact over a few years

Q: Peter, I wanted to say I agree so much with Pauls question of Feb. 5. I think you are helping a lot of GIC refuges, such as myself.When Gics dropped years ago we slowly stepped into the market with Pembina, IPL, K bro, Cinaplex Rio Can, Keyera. All were paying between 8 and 10 percent dividends at that time. It seemed no one wanted them. Well of course hind sight is 20 20 but as they say the rest is history.. I believe so many of us are looking for the next one of these stocks. They seem very few and far between today. I, like Paul, will not invest in anything that does not pay 5%.Banks, although o.k. have been one of our poorest performers over the years. That is why I think high dividend payers are soooo important. Yes a person takes a hit on the odd one ie. ATP and YELLOW but what we are looking for, I believe is the next K bro or IPL or ect. ect. That is for you to decide. I know it is not as easy now but some gems must still be there. That is what is so valuable to me. Thanks Ken

Q: Re Jason's query regarding trading fees:
TD Waterhouse now charges $9.99 for all Cdn.& U.S. trades placed
online through WebBroker. No minimum balance requirements and
no share quantity limitations.

Q: Do long-short funds produce better returns than long-only funds. Thanks. Michael

Q: What is your opinion on tight stops and how tight?

Q: hello,

I am wondering why some of issues on your portfolio are NR (not rated)? What has prevented them from being rated?

Thanks

Q: Your client, a couple of days ago, was selling a stock he had held for many years and would experience a large appreciation. Something to check for income tax purposes is the "Statue of Limitations", which is for 7 years. His income tax may only be calculated on the appreciation for the last 7 years.

It's worth a looking into.

Q: In response to Jason's query re:broker commissions,RBC Direct's commission is $9.95 regardless of total value of the account.

Q: hi 5i,
not sure if this is your area of expertise or if you want to comment. if not , no problem.
what is your thought on the risk with the trillions of dollars in the derivatives market, and off market stuff. i read recently that one of the recent financial industry persons in europe who "fell from a high work office tower to his death" was trying to unwind a multi trillion dollar derivatives trading account for a major european financial institution. there have been quite a few of these strange deaths lately???
thx chris

Q: Hey guys just in my first year of investing learning on the fly I have invested in tcn bnk win e aya ppy dhx and Msl am doing ok but I have it in a Tfsa is this a smart place to invest in ? Also I use itrade but they charge 24.99 every time I buy or sell any better options than this.

Thanks so much

Q: Hello, we are long term investors wanting safety and dividends. We currently hold XIU and BCE shares. We are considering selling XIU and buying more BCE. What is your opinion of this move?

Thank you

Q: Hi team: I really appreciate the posts related to sector weightings and have been trying to take a more macro look at my holdings and see where I am over/under weight.

Based on an older post or two from you, I've created the following categories with weights, and I'm trying to determine where my holdings fall.

Materials - Gold/Silver
Materials - Other
Energy
Utilities
Cons. Discret.
Cons. Staples
Telecom
Info. Tech.
Int/Software
Industrial
Industrials - Transportation
Health Care - US
Health Care - Canada
Financials
Retail
Real Estate

We don't need to get into my specific weightings as everyone's targets will be different based on their situation. However,
I'm a little unsure where to categorise certain stocks, which isn't helping my analysis.

Can you confirm the list in general makes sense, and I'm not overlapping? If so, can you please help with the following?

AVO- you had referred to it before as an Industrial, wouldn't it fit in the Information Technology space?
MDA, GIB.A - do you consider these Info Tech, Software, or Industrial?
BAM.A - Financial or Industrial?
WIN - Financial or Info Tech, or Telecom?

Thanks!

(You have catergory groups on the right hand side for financials, metals, oil, real estate, technology already. One helpful thing, at least for me, would be to have categories for each of the areas above, so people could reference stocks in those areas when looking at their weightings. It may help reduce amount of questions like this and be a great resource for subscribers).

Q: Peter; For those interested there is an article in today's Globe re market timing and ETF's by Norm Rothery. Certainly illustrates why not to try it.

Rod

Q: Hello! I am wondering if there is a way to closely monitor disinflation? Thanks for the excellent service provided!

Q: If someone decided to split up your model portfolio between an RRSP and a taxable cash account, which stocks would you put in each account.

Thanks.

Q: REally enjoyed PEter on BNN yesterday and paid attention to the comments about selling - that is when not sell. My question is when is the right time to sell? No stock is likely good to keep forever as there are simply always better opportunities at some point. So, yes, when then should I sell a holding?