Investment Q&A

Q: Like most people I have a bit of cash to spare but am nervous about catching the proverbial falling knife in this market. Would you recommend easing into a stock I liked slowly by buying part positions? Or better trying to buy based on a technical signal. Such as waiting for the ten day moving average to turn up or a golden cross to develop etc.? In the past I have found technical signals to be pretty useless and I think academic research shows their accuracy to be at best slightly better than a dartboard.

Q: With so many (hopefully) bargains which stocks would you guys start chipping away at? Preferably ones with dividends and low debt. What would Peter and Ryan be doing?
Thanks guys

Q: Recently and in very short order, the TSX blew through a correction (10% down), then quickly passed through bear market territory (20% down) and is right now on this very bad day about 26 % off its high. At what point do we start calling this a market crash? At what point would you consider there to be blood in the streets? It certainly feels like the blood is being sucked out of my portfolio!

Q: Based on your time and experience in the market,does this feel like capitulation? Could the the energy pipe stocks like IPL,TRP and ENB be viewed as the candian bank stocks of 08/09, sold in capitulation(fear) to provide an incredible buying opportunity for those brave investors who looked like they were stepping in front of a "freight train"?

Q: Scotia itrade research has a revenue breakdown of this company as 75% Tims and 25% BK. Can this be right? I thought BK was much larger than Tims. It also has 41% of revenue coming from Canada. Is that correct?
5i I believe has recommended it. Do you not think that at 25-30x forward earnings is too expensive? Or does the growth potential justify the price?
Thanks
John

Q: good morning, i don't understand what my book value will be for the new suncor shares that will be coming into my portfolio (converted from cos). Do I take the loss on the difference on the COS shares from my original purchase price, and get the new suncor shares at what they are trading at now? ~$20/sh? thx

Q: In each of the past 4 years, this stock has risen very substantially in the first 3 or 4 months of the year, to a high between $12 and $14. Currently its price is close to last year's low, (though not quite as low as the $7 price in January 2014). Debt ratios seem consistent with prior years and revenue seems to be increasing. In 2016, won't this stock benefit hugely from the low Cdn dollar ? (Poloz presumably would expect so) Do you expect that in 2016, this stock will perform in a similar manner to previous years and will rise substantially ? What are your thoughts and rationale ?

Q: For income generation for the next 3-5 years, is there one or 2 sectors to overweight on or is it still better to diversify across sectors?

Thanks

Q: Hello:
I have just transferred a LIRA to a self-directed account. It is filled with Fidelity mutual funds and their huge MERs. I would like to convert these into a portfolio of stocks that fit with my other accounts and my future plans. The Fidelity funds have, of course, tanked with the rest of the market.

The question is about selling the funds. is there a reason to hold off for some recovery/rally? Are these funds more affected by market swings than individual dividend/blue chip stocks that would make selling now disadvantageous? Or, perhaps, the reverse is true?

My instinct is to sell ASAP and buy individual stocks while they are on sale with a great yield.

Can you provide any insight or guidance?

Q: What are your feelings about POT at this time in terms of any risk of a dividend cut or much worse surviving this storm. Thoughts when comparing with Agrium? Late November the CEO said they would not cut jobs but today POT announces 420 job cuts. Normally this could be interpreted 2 ways - 1 of them positive (fiscal prudence) but is there now a management credibility problem?

Q: Hello.
I can appreciate you are trying to help us think long term and support Investor behaviour instead of trader mentality.

If you would oblige, some add-on comments to the earlier question would be helpful for me.....January 18, 2016 (asked by Richard)
I recognize RY long term chart works out in considering your comments but looking at REITs(REI.UN) and Pipes like IPL.....the long chart story is different; 5 & 10 year for REI.UN on a price basis is flat if not negative. IPL and PPL are painful to look at with half gone.
Are there investments that should not be held for the long-run even though they may be good companies like IPL,PPL,REI.un?
With account values down so much after a year of decline in 2014 and a sudden drop this year, I (as a retail investor) am beginning to feel like one of the only ones left in some of these declining stocks.
Some thoughts on this would be appreciated.
Dave

Q: Hello, do you think the reasoning 15 or 16 times earnings of 90-100$ which implies the spx benchmark adjusting to around 1500 has some merit in the current environment ? Also, with the US economy doing ok and the $can below 0.70, is it a strong stimulus for Canada or are we not exporting to them as much anymore ? Thank you

Q: Would you endorse a switch from HBC to XTC or something like TOY?

Q: Please provide recommendations in Canada & US for the following sectors to properly diversify a long term income portfolio :

Consumer Staple
Material
Consumer discretionary
Industrial
Utilities

Thanks

Q: some very good information. Thought I would pass it on to other subscribers.

https://www.oaktreecapital.com/insights/howard-marks-memos

Q: I assume revenue, and most expenses, for DR are in US dollars. Will the falling Canadian dollar have any significant impact on their earnings?

Q: )I have tracked 9 ofyour Fri. recommendations ,as of now (3pm) they have dropped around 3.3%, the tsx has dropped 1.2%.What message does this send to me?

Q: I am 68 years old, retired, and rely on dividends for income. I went 100% into cash on December 31st, thereby avoiding the 7.2% drop in the TSX over the past two weeks. Once the dust settles, I plan on re-establishing my previous positions in individual high paying, low beta, small to mid-cap Canadian dividend paying stocks, diversified across most sectors. I prefer Canada over the U.S. for the dividend tax credit, and I prefer small to mid-cap stocks for their monthly payouts. Given the current macro and micro economic conditions influencing the Markets, in your view, is this a reasonable strategy going forward? As always, thank you for your valued response!

Q: Can you please give your top names (covered by you or not) of fairly-priced companies today, that stand to benefit the most from a lower Canadian dollar? XTC comes to mind as you've mentioned them before. Presuming I needed that sector in my portfolio, would you be buying it now? I'm not one to wait for a bottom in this messy market, or freak out and "sell everything". I liked your comments on BNN yesterday. Cheers

Q: Headlines scream out "Sell Everything" ... but surely there needs to be someone on the other end to "Buy Everything".

I've been slowly dipping in and buying and appreciate the wisdom in your answers to all members questions.

Do you have a gut feel for how long the market sell off will continue? I like open ended questions like these to see where you go with them.

Thanks
Mike