Investment Q&A

Q: Hi,
What are your favourite criteria to evaluate a company? for example, PE ratio, quick ratio, etc.
Also, could you rank your criteria by most important to least important?

Thank you!

Q: Payment for order flow . Is such practice is permitted in Canada?
What happens if an order is directed for US stocks or US based foreign depository? Is PFOF permitted in US stock exchanges.
Thanks. Miroslaw

Q: Hi 5i Team

When investing monies into a diversified ETF, such as SPY or QQQ, which investment approach provides the best risk-return profile? More specifically, how would you rank the following investment approaches: lump-sum, dollar cost averaging, (DCA) and augmented DCA?

Augmented DCA is a modified version of DCA where the investment strategy is more aggressive if the economy is expanding and more conservative if the economy is contracting. Macroeconomic factors are employed to determine if the economy is expanding or contracting (e.g., market volatility, unemployment rate, and capacity utilization).

If an investor chooses DCA or augmented DCA, over what investment period would be reasonable? Is it 6 months? 9 months? 12 months? 15 months?

Thanks

George

Q: BNN has adopted a new policy of only having money managers on Market Call which seems a bit much given 5i’s excellent record. I’ve created a New Topic in Forums suggesting we send BNN objections to this. Rod

Q: Please explain where a bought deal is announced by a Company with a broker at a discount to the share price at the time of announcement, where the institution then "shorts' the stock to cover the PP. Rookie question, but the only dumb question is the one not asked.

Q: I am familiar with norberts gambit to move Canadian dollars to the US but what is the best way to convert US dollars to Canadian currency?

Q: NEO-L
Duane recently had a question about Amazon being available to purchase on NEO-L. I don't understand what is involved here; can you pls describe how such CDRs work. I do not know even where / how to purchase them. Also, I am concerned with liquidity; on their website they state "CDRs will reference highly liquid global shares that trade on major exchanges around the world. Generally speaking, where the underlying shares has a high trading volume, the corresponding CDR is expected to have a high degree of liquidity.".
Will shares (units?) be easy to sell if one wants to dispose of a position? I believe these will make otherwise high priced stocks available to small investors. Can you think other advantages or disadvantages to buying? Last any other source of info you can point me to? Many thanks for your excellent service

Q: The National Bank of Canada has recently introduced online trading for $0/stock trades and $1.25/contract for option trades. Their trading platform is free if you do a minimum 15 trades/month. I calculate saving about $350/month if I switch from the TD. Do you see any downside?

Q: Hi
Before I posted this question, I went through CMS archives and searched the questions bank here as well. As I didn't get any "hits" I thought of asking you folks.

I was recently told that establishing a Joint Partner Trust is a good way to go if one

a. wants to avoid probate fee even for the primary residence
b. to shelter probate and other fees for assets held in a private corporation
c. transfer wealth to future generations with certain amount of protection.
d. Arguably the best way to go forward if one's adult kids are in the US (through a Dynasty Trust)
Any thoughts about JPT? Especially for professionals who own a private holding company/corporation. If you think JPT is not the way to go, what would you suggest?

An article is begging to be written in CMS!
Many thanks.
Mano.

Q: I appreciate this is not a US/Cdn stock, but curious what your thoughts would be. The space they are in seems to be hot these days, but they are trading at almost a 12 month low. Results are supposed to be out in a few days, wondering if market is expecting mediocre?

Q: Could you please some insights into the relationship between the number of analysts covering a company and the number of institutions holding that investment? For example, I was surprised to hear that TOI only has one analyst, while Yahoo shows 109 institutions holding shares. Is this simply because they were "given" shares from CSU? If that wasn't the case, how many institutions would you expect to be holding shares (roughly)? I'm trying to get a sense of what high vs low institutional interest looks like. Thanks
Marc

Q: Please clarify this for me so my thinking doesn't go off on a wrong tangent. CDIC covers up to $100,000 in a bank savings account and up to $100,000 in a bank chequing account. What about cash sitting in a registered account [TFSA, LIF, RIF] or in a non-registered account [Margin]?
Right now I'm carrying varying amounts of cash, depending on the account, using it to buy stocks low and sell high. At times the cash balance can exceed $100,000.
Thank you

Q: Regarding your recommended portfolios, is it safe to "assume" that if an investment is still in the porfolio, you would consider buying still? If not, is there anyway you could colour code, or highlight that you support acquiring still or just hold as some investments have been there a long time.

Q: Can you provide guidance on what is the most appropriate strategy for profit taking? Should you have an objective in mind when purchasing, and when that goal is achieved, sell? Or if underlying investment still has solid fundamentals, continue to hold?

Q: Hello 5i. Can you please tell me the simplest way to get earnings dates for all my stocks, in one place. Thank you.

Q: Do you think that the other Canadian banks will follow NA's zero commission? If yes, does this mean they would profit from Order Flow, meaning less attractive prices for investors?

Q: I just noticed TSLA.NE

CATSLA Or TSLA CA on TD
TESLA, INC. CDR (CAD HEDGED).
Can you ad this to the list and who is managing this? Is it simply TSLA USA hedged?

Q: Hi 5i,
I have been investing in my work-RRSP for a number of years and am somewhat lost in trying to define the proper calculation to track my progress. As an overly simplified example,
Year 1: invest $10k
Year 2: invest $5k
Year 3: invest $7k
Year 4: current value $30k

What kind of calculation would help me calculate the growth? Something like compound annual growth rate seems to only take the beginning and final values into account and I was hoping for something with a little more substance since I'd be continually adding to this fund every year.

Q: What about National Bank no fee's for trading ETF and stocks. Will the other banks follo. This could save a lot of money for investor's like me. Tks 5 i

Q: Assuming you could keep track of N companies, would it not make sense to own as many as possible if business fundamentals are good, the price is reasonable, and you have the funds? This is compared to trying to select which specific company to add to or purchase from a basket of options. My understanding is that often a few really great companies can end up carrying your portfolio and make up for the losers (I believe this was from Peter Lynch's book). The reason I'm asking is because I look at more volatile growth stocks like APPS, AT, NVEI, EGLX, TOI and GUD , and keep asking myself that question. I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Marc