Investment Q&A

Q: In calculating the weightings of individual equity holdings, I use only my total equity holdings as the denominator and ignore bonds. Outside of Canada, my equity exposure is held in international ETFs, and I include these in the total equity when making the above calculation. Do you think that's the right approach? I go back and forth on whether to remove the ETFs from the calculation.

Thanks.

Q: In my self administered TFSA I’m invested about 50% in US equities/50%CND equities.

So whenever I’m buying or selling a US stock I have to deal with currency conversions as well as trading fees.

Am I allowed to have a Self directed US dollar TFSA thru Invest Direct at CIBC and linked to US dollar account held at the same bank? My local CIBC guy says no. Seems RBC allows it. Thanks for your appreciated guidance!!

Q: Hello Peter,
Please watch this link....it's only 1min. This is very worrisome. Pierre Poilievre suggests "lock away your money". What would you suggest? If decide they want to go after ou savings (which BTW I think it's very possible), what would they "grab"? How would they go about doing this assault?....Do you think they could go after trading accounts? Or maybe the cash on trading accounts? Maybe savings accts., GIC's, etc.
How do protect ourselves?
As you may know, Trudeau w/NDP (which represent majority) are in agreement to tax on the equity of your home (principal residence) when you sell it. Also, they are planning (maybe they've already done it, don't know) on taxing inheritance to pay for all the free money they are giving away.....BTW Canada apparently has the highest debt, by far, of the G20.
Thank you very much!
Silvia

https://www.facebook.com/PierrePoilievreMP/videos/4692225587515077/

Q: Just wondering about your opinion of the Globe and Mail 2020 ranking of Board of Directors.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/management/board-games/article-board-games-2020-how-we-ranked-canadas-corporate-boards/
Would appreciate your suggestions on where to look for information or ranking of the best lead companies in the Canadian markets

Q: What is the net asset value of dfn at present and where can i find this on my own in the furure? thanks

Q: I'm relatively new to directly investing in stocks. With the help of the 5i resources and the community QA resource I am well on the way to building a portfolio. I am noticing that stocks seem to have outsized reactions to news or no news fairly regularly. I am hoping you may be able to recommend a book and other resources that will give me insight into the behavioural side to investing.

Q: What is a mixed shelf ?

Q: Hello 5i team:
This is a suggestion and a question!
Not at all hypothetical or a thought experiment.
In the main newspapers G&M, FP and magazines like Moneysense there is a real case history of people who submit their stories and ask for suggestions. Names and identities are of course masked.
It will be nice to see such a feature say once a month in your blogs!

Question: If you were to construct a portfolio(s) with ETFS spruced with some stocks that generates 80k per year, how much capital one would need? You may want to apply your approach of Income/Balanced/Growth portfolio.
Your growth portfolio has done exceptionally well thanks to some highflyers like SHOP. But one can't rely on such phenomenon all the time! Hence my ETFs based approach.

Q: Where to get information on daily trading volume of a stock for a particular date? also it is available to have a real time volume trading for a particular time, example from 9.30 AM - 11.30 AM?

thanks
Albertus SA

Q: This question is about valuations and growth. How do you determine when a valuation is too high? To me it seems extremely hard to me.

I've owed KXS since $80 (thank you btw) and still have most of my position at the current price, but isn't the valuation like 150X earnings and 20x fwd sales or something?

Same with PLTR: my cost base is $22/share, and it seems like it has tremendous growth prospects... but a really high valuation (what is the fwd valuation btw?).

At what point would you sell (KXS and PLTR for example) just on valuation alone even with amazing growth?

Sorry if this is poorly worded... but I think you get the idea of what i am trying to say.

Q: In your answer to a question concerning REAL you mentioned that the stock is cheap. Would you please explains what makes a stock cheap and conversely what makes an expensive stock. Thanks … Cal

Q: Active vs passive investing over next 12 months. I had shifted much of my USA and International exposure to low cost ETFs. With most mutual funds in that class at the time having MERs>2.0% and rising tides making it hard for them to outperform their fees. The landscape in Canada has improved for mutual funds with many companies releasing new lower MER funds or significantly dropping them on exisiting funds. With the bar for otuperforming their MER much lower now do you consider the lower fee active funds a better choice in these more volatile times? I am holding some cash and need to decide is I put it in ETFs to hit the average or pay for more active management in some well managed global and USA funds.

Q: Hi, when weightings are discussed in questions from members, e.g. BCE is x% of a portfolio, does the portfolio include both the equity and bond portions or just the equity portion? Thanks, Martin

Q: Dear 5i team:
I know that you have consistently and persistently been saying the portfolio construction and asset allocation percentages of sectors/stocks is very personal and therefore can't make suggestions.
Agreed!
May I request you to direct me/others to resources that will help us to structure a portfolio? Websites/articles/podcasts and such.
Thanks.

Q: I have done well with Canadian micro and small caps over the past 25 years , in large part because that is where I have found the biggest growth opportunities as the share prices are often not at all reflective of the actual and potential earnings. There seems to be far fewer opportunities in Canada (ex commodities) to make largish investments ( minimum of $50,0000) and am looking to American micro and small caps. From your experience would you say that there are much more opportunities to find bargains in the US exchanges or are American investors more aggressive and bigger risk takers so that there is less mispricing?
Tangentially, it would be educational for me to see how the 5i team goes developing a thesis for purchasing a stock.
Thanks.

Q: Hello 5i,
This is a comment in response to the question Dale posed earlier about Norbert's Gambit. If I understood his comment correctly, he uses N.G. for CAN. to USD conversions, but can't for USD to CAN.
I use N.G. for both, but mostly for USD to CAN. and I wonder if it is more a function of his broker? I use RBC Direct Investing (for better or worse), but I do find that I have no problems with using Norbert's Gambit at all. The first time I did it, I called D.I. for some help and they were fully aware of the process and had absolutely no qualms about it as a currency exchange mechanism.
Perhaps if Dale posted to the Forums, those of us who use it both ways could offer some suggestions?
Hope this is of some help.
Cheers,
Mike

Q: I was confused by your answer to the Q "Norbert's Gambit appears to work well to convert CAD to USD. However, this Gambit does not work for the reverse conversion. Do you have any suggestions as to how to limit your foreign exchange conversion fee, while limiting risk, when converting from USD to CA" .........why would converting from USD to CAD less efficient than CAD to USD using Norbert's Gambit?

Q: Just renewed my I5 membership and added Portfolio Analytics. I have been a trader for over 20 years with good results but ever since I have become a member of I5 my yearly results have been verry good and this year it has been stellar. Thanks for the excellent work and the great stock pick.

Q: 5I team - I have marvelled today at the quality of your answers to questions and, in particular, options questions. Great job. My question is on methodology of "optimizing" covered call strategies and would request any reference you may have available in addition to a response.I have held MRNA and sold 109 Dec covered calls, purchased the calls when the stock went to 129, resold 125 Dec CC and am now trying to develop a strategy with the stock at 149. Is the simple and. most effective process to buy the calls back and place a stop loss position short of the current price? Again, if you have a reference to provide options in dealing with this, it would be much appreciated. Thank you

Q: Hi, With recent more companies use SPAC IPO, I wonder how can I know if a company was SPAC IPOed or traditionally IPOed in late days, say 3 month after the IPO? Was PLTR IPOed in that way? Also related, where to find SPAC companies lists? Thanks,

Lin