Investment Q&A

Q: I would feel remiss to let the year go by without expressing a heartfelt thank you for the service that you provide! Your steady hand and the knowledge that you share has helped us to achieve unbelievable financial returns in this crazy year. All the best in the New Year.

Janet

Q: The TSX total return is now positive for the year. I would like to better understand whether the market breadth for the index is quite narrow, and whether the TSX returns are based on exceptional performance for a few stocks only, such as Shopify.

Are you aware of any site which provides details about how each stock has contributed to the overall return of indexes, such as the TSX? I would like to understand how many (and which) stocks are up, and how many are down, over the last year.

Many thanks for your assistance. Best wishes to you and to your team for a very Happy Holidays and a prosperous New Year!

Q: Purchased Denison Mines about 10 years ago @ $3.62 and have been hopefully awaiting the return of uranium prices since. The stock price was up about 12% today to $.91 after being into the low teens earlier this year.
Would you take the money and invest in something with more potential or
continue to wait for further positive moves in uranium?
My financial consultant suggested the purchase of BMO Auto-Callable
Notes for my RIFF and after a brief review I ok'd the purchase. Subsequently I read an article totally against such an investment. Definitely to late to cancel without substantial costs. However, what are your thoughts on this particular type of investment ( possibly your answer would be of interest to my fellow subscribers)! I should add that I am in my early 80's and have requested minimum risk investment for my riff.

Q: Will I get the dividend if I sell my position on Dec 30, the ex dividend date?
Thanks

Q: Hi, thanks for the work that you do for the average Joe.

I am about 8-10 years from retirement. Earlier this year, when good Cdn blue-chip dividend payers were "on sale", I started creating an income portfolio in my non-registered account. The idea is that these stocks would form the basis of my income in my retirement as I don't have a DB pension.

I am currently in the highest tax bracket so will pay significant taxes on the dividends that I receive until I retire, in 8-10 years.

I also have funds in my TFSA where I focus more on Growth.

Am I too young to start creating a dividend account when I'll be paying significant taxes? Should I instead focus on Growth stocks now, and convert those to dividend paying stocks when I retire?

Or does it really matter that much?

This is a non-urgent question and can wait until the NY.

Thanks
Robert

Q: May I add a small contribution to the momentum discussion..
AS MY OWN OPNIION may not be very relevant, i would like to list below the famous 10 rules of Bob Farrell that have been core how I believe the market (trading or investing) should be regarded

Markets tend to return to the mean over time.
Excesses in one direction will lead to an opposite excess in the other direction.
There are no new eras — excesses are never permanent.
Exponential rising and falling markets usually go further than you think.
The public buys the most at the top and the least at the bottom.
Fear and greed are stronger than long-term resolve.
Markets are strongest when they are broad and weakest when they narrow.
Bear markets have three stages: (1) sharp down, (2) reflexive rebound and (3) a drawn-out fundamental downtrend
When all the experts and forecasts agree, something else is going to happen (this is my favorite).
Bull markets are more fun than bear markets.
And to finish, I also would like to quote one of Charlie Munger best quote:
"It is remarkable how much long term advantage poeple like us (he is probably thinking of Warren Buffet)have gotten by trying to be consistently nt stupid instead of trying to be very intelligent"
All the best to you , your families and also All your members that asked so many interesting questions over the years, they are to be, no doubt, counted as part of the success of your letter
CDJ

Q: I see the request for "top picks" is a question that gets asked a lot, is there a section for most recent top picks? Any chance we could get a filter to filter by most favourited from other 5i users?

thanks for a wonderful 2020, love this site, zero hesitancy when it comes to resubbing. happy holidays!

Q: I have seen the Vector Vest ads on BNN over a period of years. Do you have an opinion on how useful / accurate their system is? Thanks for any opinion you might offer.

Q: Seasons greetings, everyone.

Question: I am trying to get my head around ENGH's eps expectations. Thomson Reuters has ENGH's 2021 consensus estimate at $1.75 with the high being $1.93. Thomson Reuters also has 2022 consensus estimate at $1.83 with the highest estimate being $1.99. However, on Scotia's ENGH report, they have their 2021 estimate at $1.95 and their 2022 eps estimate at $2.37, both higher than what Thomson says is the highest ENGH estimate. Any insight as to this inconsistency?

Also do you think consensus estimates or Scotia's 2021 and 2022 eps estimates will prove to be more accurate?

Lastly, what weighting would you be comfortable with, if you were presently building a position in ENGH?

Thanks.

John

Q: Peter and team: I want to sincerely thank you (!!) for your service--from a long time BNN viewer, avid reader of Peter's published articles, and very, very enriched long time 5i subscriber.

It is difficult to think of how 5i could be meaningfully improved. The responses to subscriber's questions in particular have terrific value when The questions are short and focus on one or a couple stocks, and I read the incredibly well thought out responses with keen interest, and have acted on these responses many many times over the years, profiting handsomely as a result.

I have one small suggestion to some subscribers. My wish would be for those offering criticism of 5i--David's recent remarks on Peter's endorsement of high flying TTD is top of mind-- to refrain from criticism of 5i's picks. If you are unaware, Mr Hodson is one of the very, very best in his field in Canada, full stop. He has made serious money from momentum plays. Your idea that TTD is too expensive is your perception and if Peter is endorsing it currently odds are you will likely be proved wrong, not Peter.

For a very modest annual sum we, the subscribers, have access to his thoughts on securities and the market. If you act accordingly on his recommendations, you will be rewarded over time.

To those who occasionally use the Q&A feature to be critical of research offered by Peter, on behalf of (Im sure) many subscribers, please, we don't want to have to filter through criticism, we want instead, ideally, just short, pointed questions on Peter's opinion regading say, one or two stocks at most.

Finally, those who ask long winded questions, or questions involving a dozen or more stocks, or those subscribers who occasionally angrily vent that a stock that was recommended lost altitude (that is part of the game folks) please consider the hundreds ? thousands? Of us who read these questions daily and are craving quality questions to elicit meaningful responses from Peter along our financial journey. Let's continue to give Peter reasons to continue operating this amazing service and continue personally responding to many of our questions by being reasonable subscribers as many, many of us are.

Q: This is more of an observation than a question. I am disappointed that you are now recommending "nosebleed" momentum stocks like CRWD and TTD quite often, and went so far to to include some of these momentum stocks in your answer to a question about which US stocks you would add today. In my humble opinion, buying stocks with astronomical valuations that are already up 10-fold or more from their 52 week lows is not normally a good recipe for investment success. It would be especially imprudent to buy such momentum stocks that are not even profitable and trade on the basis of Price to Sales. On the other hand, it is good that you are disclosing your personal ownership of many of these nosebleed stocks: I hope that you will also let your readers know when you sell...

Q: Last year we sold the shares in all 4 portfolios and switched to the ETF's in your growth portfolio. Used your % weighting in each ETF. We also held 2000 LSPD.
Now that the growth desired has been achieved, we would like to switch to a more conservative group of ETF's. Do you have any suggestions as to how to go about this?
Thanks, Bill

Q: Hi
Besides the amazing science a lot of great investment ideas here. Protein predictors AI grabbed me.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2020/dec/20/the-virus-free-scientific-breakthroughs-of-2020-chosen-by-scientists

Best of the season to all.

Q: It would be good if you had a page that provides an overview of your different products.
I see you have a $50 +/- upgrade to the basic 5i called Research - I can't find anything on the site that describes the value it provides.

Q: Hi Peter and team:
My question is about Drips and more importantly discounts on drips. I have had IPL for a number of years, and at one time they offered a discount. I truly believed, and was told that I was getting the discount on reinvestment. My shares are held in my RBC Direct investing account. I now read that this is an Rbc synthetic drip, and the only way to ever get the discount is to hold the shares in your own name. In a RRIF this would be impossible. Please fill me in on my lack of knowledge. Thanks, BEN.

Q: I wanted to respond to Roy's concern that the answer I received from TD Waterhouse was a "load of crap " as I believe it could cause a lot of concern among your members that they are being cheated by their online brokers. The best way to do this is with math - Lets say that in total  TD WaterHouse  held 101 shares, split with 19 clients holding 5 shares and 1 client holding 6 shares.  Their total of 101 would be rounded up to 152 shares in the 3 for 2 split and that would be what TD Waterhouse would receive from BEP.  If you look at the clients accounts separately the 19 people would be entitled to 7.5 shares - 7 physical shares and cash for the .5  and the one client with 6 shares would receive 9 shares post split  for a total of 19 X 7.5 + 9 = 151.5 share equivalent in compensation..... So if the total number of shares that the broker holds in trust is an odd number they are making at most .5 of a share - not .5 of a share on each client as Roy implied. As well its the only fair way to treat us. I would be upset if I was the guy holding 6 shares as I am getting 9 shares or 1.5X the number of shares post split whereas if the guy holding 5 shares was rounded up from 7.5 to 8 shares he is getting 1.6 X the number of original shares. Nothing looks deceptive or dishonest to me.

Q: What will be some of the factors that will lead to an analyst(s) starting to cover GSI? How does that work? Do they seek analysts out, or vice versa? Thanks.

Q: National Bank Financial did the same thing to me. I had 85 shares and was only given 42 shares,
I have told my advisor.
What are the next steps?

Q: Qtrade stated in an email to me that they did not receive enough shares to round everyone up so they sold the half shares & gave us cash , $32.32, in lieu of the rounding up as is standard in these cases.
Dave

Q: Good morning Peter and team,
I know you have answered this type of question in the past but I have tried multiple options in the Search by text function without any luck.

Do you have any recommendations for reading material for a young adult new to investing? In particular, I am trying to steer him away from thoughts on getting rich quick by picking stocks he sees marketed by youtubers or "stock gurus" hawking their ideas on the internet.

Many thanks,
Rory