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Investment Q&A

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

Q: Is there a source to get short information on US and Canadian stocks besides Bloomberg.

thanks, mark
Read Answer Asked by Mark on July 30, 2013
Q: Hello Peter and team. I response to Linda and her question July 29 Analysts who appear on BNN marketcall have their opinions chronicled on stockchase.com I believe BMO Investorline does a good job of listing ratings from various brokerage houses in a table with changes to ratings and target prices. I should also mention I switched from BMO to CIBC Investors Edge because I find it is a better trading platform. I hope this helps. Frank
Read Answer Asked by Frank on July 30, 2013
Q: Hi Peter and company,
What is the best way for an individual investor to get analyst price targets of stocks of Canadian companies?
Read Answer Asked by Linda on July 29, 2013
Q: Good morning 5i team. As investors, we’re told that our stock portfolio needs to be diversified across various sectors. Makes sense, but is there such a thing as a universally accepted list of sectors. If so, what are they? Do I need to hold stocks in all sectors? If not, how many represent a good level of diversification? And is there a readily available source (website) to identify which sector any individual stock falls under? Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Thomas on July 29, 2013
Q: Hi Peter and team,
While P/E ratios are often used by investors to value a company, many pundits warn against using this metric in every instance. A number of investment gurus recommend using EV/EBITDA ratios. Besides being difficult to calculate, I see that it's not always recommended in every situation. Can you give me an idea which type of stock this metric is ideally suited for and if there is a website that provides that data?
Read Answer Asked by Robert on July 29, 2013
Q: Hello 5i .my question this morning is regarding Ben Bernanke 's replacement.For the past 2 weeks i have been reading several articles concerning this matter.from what i understand the outcome could greatly influence stock markets.even Warren Buffet has stated in public that Larry Summers would be disastrous to equity markets. what are your thoughts and what is an investor to do ?
Read Answer Asked by NORM on July 29, 2013
Q: A general question from a new investor - Do you predominantly use limit orders when buying a given stock?
Read Answer Asked by Peter on July 27, 2013
Q: In response to edward's question re: trading in US funds at TD . To keep your funds in US currency you must call TD Waterhouse and request that the funds remain in US dollars.
Shirley
Read Answer Asked by shirley on July 26, 2013
Q: RSP investment with USD asked by Edward

TD Waterhouse allows investment in USD. You have to ask TDW that you want to keep the USD currency. So you will pay the conversion the first time, then they will invest the USD cash in US Money Market Fund. Whenever you buy, you will see the transaction converted to C$, but someone in their Ottawa office will cancel the currency conversion the next day, and change the trade in USD only, and enter an order to redeem US Money Market Fund for that purchase. When you sell US stock, someone will convert that order back into USD the next day, and enter an order to buy US Money Market Fund with the proceeds. They keep a few people in their Ottawa office to do this. I was told they were going to make an RSP USD account so they don't need to do this manual thing, but a few months passed and they have not done that yet. The point is we don't have to lose currency conversion loss every time we trade, only the first time (which you can achieve by converting CAD to USD, or sell an interlisted stock on NYSE such as BTE RY or TCK), and the time when you want to withdraw funds from RSP as they only do CAD withdraw at the moment.
I found this 8 months ago when I wanted to sell a stock that was halted on TSX but continue to trade OTC in US, and have since use that proceeds to trade US stocks only, trading and investing in AXL MTG FNMA TEN PHH MITK ORI etc.
Read Answer Asked by Kevin on July 25, 2013
Q: Re US funds, I pay 30 dollars a quarter toScotia Itrade in my rrif and receive the bank's exchange rate which is a great incentive to trade US stocks.
Read Answer Asked by Alex on July 25, 2013
Q: Companies are buying their shares back.What does this tells us on the long term? Your opinion would be appreciated.Thanks.Emml
Read Answer Asked by Emmanuel on July 25, 2013
Q: Peter; This is for Edward re the RRSP and US Funds. I deal at BMO InvestorLine and once you convert to
US funds to buy US equities it stays in USF. If you sell someting you just request settlement in USF . Rod
Read Answer Asked by Rodney on July 25, 2013
Q: Hi. I'm new to the service and excited about the fresh look at research and the personal advice. Would I be wrong to start building a portfolio using the 'A' rated stocks providing they are in different sectors and industry.
Read Answer Asked by Barry on July 25, 2013
Q: Would convertible bond funds such as AVK-N, CCI.UN-T, NCD.UN or CVD-T be safer and/or more likely to hold their value than bond funds or reits over a period of time as interest rates increase and as primarily income vehicles in a conservative portfolio?

Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Donald on July 25, 2013
Q: If you were considering a US Model Portfolio, what would you do?...am I putting you on the spot?

Thanks, you are great!
Read Answer Asked by Gregory on July 25, 2013
Q: Hi folks. If we wanted a more conservative Model Portfolio, would you add any other companies or change the allocation from equal weighting to some other allocation? I would add a fixed income portion of approximately 50-60% and am not looking for suggestions regarding that portion.
Read Answer Asked by Gregory on July 25, 2013
Q: Peter - can you explain the merits of the 50-day, 90-day, and 200-day moving averages? Also, what is the best source to acquire this information for individual companies. Thank You.
Read Answer Asked by Luigi on July 24, 2013
Q: Hello Peter,
RE: Investment Strategy.
Do you subscribe to a policy of "letting your winners run' OR
Rebalancing to adhere to a 5% weighting ?
Thank you for your response.
Bill.
Read Answer Asked by William on July 24, 2013
Q: More for Ted on GlobeInvestorGold: GIG in principle tracks unrealized gains and losses, but a major bug got into their software a few months ago that results in nonsensical numbers for $ gains and losses for periods in which you realize gains or losses, particularly for the specific stock sold. You might note in that situation there is no correspondence between $ gains and losses and % returns and it could be that the % return figures remain accurate, taking account of unrealized gains. I emailed them about it last month and got back a form letter response to the effect that for the low fees they charge (which happen to be far higher than 5i's), they can't be bothered to look into calculation problems. I'm still trying to pursue it with them.
Read Answer Asked by Ralph on July 23, 2013
Q: This is for Ted regarding Globe Investor Gold and tracking both share price changes as well as dividend income.

The Gain/Loss option shows $ increase or decrease in the value of a holding and total income(dividends, Interest, roc) to end up with a total gain or loss to date on a stock. This applies to both stocks that were sold and to stocks still in your portfolio.

Hope this helps.
Read Answer Asked by Donald on July 23, 2013