Investment Q&A

Q: This is in response to Jim’s question regarding selling covered calls on Microsoft. I understand the fear of it easily rising above the strike price. Just a suggestion from an amateur, if you feel it would likely go up, you could instead sell a put. This is, of course, an opinion on the direction the stock is headed and 5i may not suggest that. But, it is maybe possibility

Q: Hi,
Is there an easy method to unsubscribe to all the printed documents I receive from Computershare for Annual General Meetings. Unless being a large shareholder, the voting material is usually of no interest (auditors, compensation plan). I still receive this material by email from many companies, which is fine. I like the letter to the shareholders, but too often absent. I prefer a better use of my recycle bin.
Thanks

Q: When 5i subscribers have done there homework and have made a decision to buy a stock for as you suggest a 2 to 5 year hold, why do so many of the daily questions concern a one day drop in price. Do you think that these daily watchers are just day traders and wondering why they cannot sleep at night?

Q: Question for the 5i team. I took over our investment accounts about 8 years ago and since then bonds were not particularly attractive. As bonds my be about to have their day in the sun I feel it may be time to consider adding them to our portfolio. I however lack the knowledge and experience to make informed decisions at this time. The first part of the question is, can you recommend any informative reading or sites that would be of benefit to a novice bond investor. The second part would be a quick summary of your outlook for bonds, longterm, short term, etc and opinion as to which bonds, ie treasuries, to junk, would offer high yield without excessive risk for young retirees. Thanks for all your helpful and sage advice.

Q: Chaikin Power Gauge
The infomercial on his tool to essentially time the market is puzzling on many levels.
- Is the performance valid to your knowledge?
- If a system can accuratly predict industries or stocks that will fall or rise in the next several months, what if everybody use it. What would be the impact on the market. Something like a self fullfiling prophecy? So people in on the system would sell or buy at the same time rendering the system useless because it could not predict the timing anymore.
- Why selling it when you can make money of it and maybe jeopardize it?

I know 5i would not comment on specific analysts but in general what would be your caveats on these kind of stock picking tools sold on the market?

Thanks as always for your excellent support and advices

Q: Hi,

I read the piece by Salmaan Farooqui in The Globe and Mail on Saturday, 3rd June , about AI assisted Portfolio mgmt called Portfolio Pilot by Global Predictions. What do you think of it. Do you see folks like you and similar services that offer features that include portfolio analysis will either buy into services offered by such AI driven companies or adopt AI by some other means? I am still in the early stages of exploring it. Afterall it is free!

Are there competitors to Portfolio Pilot?

In what way this is different from your algo driven Portfolio Analytics?

Q: I would like to 'park' some money in a product like HSAV which generates capital gains instead of interest. I would thus be able to offset the gains with losses YTD. I understand this ETF can no longer be purchased through major bank brokerages as they would rather have you purchase their own money market fund. Is there a workaround ?

Q: Just a comment, not a question. To Hal's question about sites that report ROIC. Morningstar provides 10 year historical ROIC metrics for companies, and its free.

Q: Peter; Re the SHORT question. I learned the hard way that “ stop loss sells” do not function in after hours trading ! I assume stop loss buys would be similar. It’s very frustrating to see a stop loss blow through your prices in after hours and nothing happens.
Rod

Q: Your response to my question on ROIC would be very difficult for me to calculate. You mention that very few paid sites would provide this which would imply that some do. Can you give me some paid sites? Thanks

Q: Good morning, At times you guys talk about a good company that has a long runway in the future but for now the investor will have to be patient. Wouldn't it make more sense to sell these stocks for the time being and invest in something that should have more short term potential? Typical of an Opportunity cost. A couple examples would be Aritzia and Brookfield, BN

Q: Hello:

Are the "Market, Model Portfolio, and Report Updates!" emails archived on the website?

Thank you.

Q: Can't say that I'm an "experienced" investor in stocks but I have been dabbling for a number of years now. It feels, and I know that's not proof, but it feel like the markets over time trade more on sentiment than fundamentals now than what they did in the past. I'm thinking the computer trading algorythms are reacting more to sentiment then the real experienced investors do. And now we will have an enhanced AI Computer Trading platform - do you have any worries of the market setting realistic stock prices (let alone our jobs) with the rise of AI everything?

Q: Td shows figures for Return on Investment and Return on Capital. I'm looking for Return on Invested Capital (ROIC). Where can I find this?

Q: In response to my earlier question:
Thanks for highlighting that the "Shares Outstanding" hasn't gone up a lot in the last decade.
I am looking at the data provided from gurufocus and their numbers for "Outstanding Shares" match with what you mentioned in the earlier answer.
But when I look at "Common Stock" it has been doubled in the last decade period. It remained flat until 2019 at 5660 mil and jumped to 11399 mil by end of 2022. Do you think this is because of the split in 2020?
Can you please clarify the difference between "common stock" (which doubled in last few years) and "shares outstanding" (which somewhat remained steady in the same period)?
Should I not look at "common stock" while looking at a company's balance sheet.
Thanks again for addressing my concern.

Q: Everyone, what would you tell yourself about investing on your 20th birthday. Clayton

Q: More than half my portfolio is US stocks or etfs valued in usd with very little fx hedging. In recent history the usd/cad exchange rate has ranged from a low of about 0.95 in 2011 to a high of just over 1.40, and we are at 1.35 now, that is, close to the top end of the range. As I live in Canada, am I taking an outsized risk here based on currency alone? There seems to be a lot more downside potential at 1.35 than upside. If we move ever move to par again, that would be huge hit for me.

Q: Let’s talk index growth potential, generally.

We see the S&P500 has a 7+% weighting of Apple and a 22% concentration in the top 5 stocks. Reports are that tech drives the index growth much more than the remaining companies. Other indices around the world do not have this anomaly. e.g. TSXComp, MSCI World, MSCI EAFE (all typical of locked pension funds)

As we eventually move past this period where a recession may or may not happen, and market downturns may or may not happen, which areas (and these indices) may enjoy a healthy, lower-risk yet most favourable delta over the next 3-6-9 years? Is Warren Buffet on the right track when he recommends that his wife stay with just the S&P500 when he’s gone?
Clayton

Q: Hi 5i,
Horizon's ETF; HSAV says the management fee is 0.18% plus applicable taxes. Do all ETF's have to pay tax on the management fee? Do you know what the tax is and is it the same for all ETF's? I'm guessing it is our contribution to the GST at 5%. Hope you can help.

Q: With the apparent impending credit tightening (particularly in the U.S.). It seems to me that this presents a great opportunity for alternative lenders to attract new business at better margins. What do you think? What "push back" do you have here other than the fact that these company's own access to capital may be constrained themselves. I have mentioned 2 companies above here, but feel free to comment on others if you have any advice on other opportunities. Thanks