Investment Q&A

Q: I am considering opening up an information trust account for my 9 year old. He has 'savings' from gifts of around 5k that we have been keeping for him. To get him comfortable in the market, I thought it would be fun to start an account for him. However, I am unsure how well I could diversify only 5k. That got me thinking about buying holding type companies and splitting the money the best I can among them. I have been thinking about BAM.A, FFF, MRC, OCX. Are there any others that would fit this criteria? I'm primarily looking at TSX traded stocks for simplicity. Do you think this is a good approach or would you just buy "single" companies? Thanks in advance - I value your advice!

Q: I would appreciate your opinion on BAM.A - is it too expensive to buy now?

With thanks.

Q: How do we track companies through history when companies merge, change their names or perform any other activity that causes them to change their ticker symbol? Is there a public data source that tracks this information?

Q: Hi 5i team,

To start an TFSA account with$10,000, what would you suggest to do? buy an eft or pick stocks, please suggest some names for long term holding with low risk. Thanks. Lin

Q: Hello Peter & Team,
I have no exposure to Food related stocks except indirectly through ATD and DOL; How would you rank CLR and MTY at current levels?
Thanks,
Antoine

Q: Hello Peter & Team,
I think it is important to classify holdings by segment because holdings in the same segment respond to the same drivers; this in turn gives us an additional picture of our exposure to a segment.
Let's agree on the following 11 segments: consumer discretionary, consumer staples, energy, financials, health care, industrials, info tech, materials, real estate, telecoms, utilities.
How would you classify CCL Industries, CNR (transport), Stantec (engineering), Alimentation Couche Tard, Dollarama, Boyd Income Group, Cineplex, First Service, Altagas (utilities or energy), Clearwater Seafoods, MTY Foods, Badger Daylighting, Progressive Waste.
Thanks,
Antoine

Q: Just a general question. I'm I wrong in thinking that this time of the year where allot of people are making last minute investments in RRSPs and TFSAs seems to give some extra momentum in the stock market? It just seems that even though we had a bit of a panic in the oil sector and an unexpected rate drop, there still seems to be allot of areas which are pushing above or hanging around yearly highs.

Q: Hi Peter and Staff: A good number of insiders have been buying (including public market buys) last few months. Is there a significance of to this activity?

Q: Good Morning

Would you know if owning shares of BAM.A requires CRA filing of form 1135 when held in a non registered account. I can't seem to tell if this is a company that reports to the IRS or not. I know that BAM.A trades on Toronto, and BAM trades on New York and that the home office is in Toronto.

Q: Peter, here’s a challenge of sorts for you; I hope you can help. We are about 5 years from retirement. Our RRSPs and TFSAs are topped up, so we’re starting a non-registered account for excess savings. We have no need for income from the account (though, as you’ve said, it’s a good sign when a company initiates or grows a dividend). Can you suggest around 6 or 7 ‘lowish-risk’ stocks for long-term ownership? By this, I don’t mean we’re unduly concerned about volatility or short-to-medium term losses. Rather, we’d like stocks for which you think a loss of more than, say, 25% after 5 years is highly improbable. We are already topped up on banks, energy producers and REITs, but are probably a bit light on IT, Industrials and consumer stocks, amongst others. To add to your challenge, we already have fairly full positions in FSZ, SJ, WPK, ESL and DHX, all of which have done well for us, thanks to you! (ENB, DSG and BIN seem like possible candidates? But we’ll leave the advice to you.) Thanks for the TRULY excellent service and the unbiased guidance you are providing to us smaller individual investors. James

Q: Hi team,

I'm working on diversifying my portfolio with a canadian media company. I have been looking at Corus Entertainment (CJR.B). I'm a bit concerned with their relatively high P/E ratio for the sector as well as the drop in their EPS form 1.7 to 0.6 recently. I like their 5% dividend payout, but wonder if this is sustainable given their reduced profitability.

Do you think corus's profitability will improve or continue to decline? Would you consider it a good option to buy at present or would another stock such as DHX media be a better purchase (even though teletubbies freak me out).

Thanks,
Jill

Q: is this a good time to take a position in the above?

Thanks
M

Q: Most of my money has been handed over to professionals who have more time to focus on investing and frankly have abetter track record than I do! However I'd like to keep 10-15% of my portfolio as a serious hobby (2 TFSAs and an unregistered account). Thanks to your wise words, I am getting more diversified and now have about 35 stocks (some of which will likely be sold when resources recover a bit). I'd like to add to Healthcare as this is under represented in my portfolio. I currently own some Knight (GUD) and Chartwell (CHS which is only sort of healthcare). Am I correct that of the Canadian healthcare choices, CCT would be your top choice even after the recent run up? Am I also correct that you would view my number of holdings as being at the upper limit for a diversified portfolio?

Thanks for your patient assistance!

Q: The recent financial results for CAE SEEMED good but the stock dropped considerably,,, Is there something in the report or forward advice that is the cause.. Please give your take on the finances and growth prospects of this enterprise going forward and if this is an opportune time to invest; and perhaps what other company might be 'better' ( more sound, better growth prospects) than this. Also would you consider their business to have a fairly secure "moat"
Thanks

Q: Given that the markets (except for Canada) are near all time highs and appear to be quite stretched, do you feel that it is wise to enter any long positions, even 5i's picks? My instinct tells me that I should be hedging my portfolio and search for short opportunities rather than go long? Any thoughts on this? Thanks so much.

Q: Your views on the recent sell-off...is Rx a buy, sell or hold at this time?...Thanks, Barrie

Q: Hi Peter,

Could I have your opinion on Bombardier Pref B ? I have about a 50 % loss if I sold today, don't mind the income but concerned about future down side. Would you sell and move on ?

Thx
Dave

Q: Hello,

I have a question in two parts. I know it's hard (if not impossible) to predict where the price of oil (and as a result our dollar) is going in the short term. Having said that it seems that oil has been stabilized some what and a drop to 30$ (for any long time) in not likely. With that in mind:
1. Is it still worth it exchanging C$ to $US at current prices to buy US equities? and if yes which ones for a 2+ years hold on a non registered account.

2. Some energy stocks doubled since lows in December. Are there any that you would pick today (that even if oils goes down for a couple of months) will not go broke and have the best chance to multiply.

Thank you
M

Q: We have a bond that matured and want to invest in another bond in the RIF which is mostly fixed income. Have XCB and 8 or 9 individual bonds in that account. In the context of which one of these is the safest (most likely to be around to pay the principal back at the end of the term), which one would you pick.
Precision Drilling 15-mar-2019 6%
Sirius XM 23-apr-2021 5.4%
Great Canadian Gaming 25-jul-2022 5.65%
Crombie REIT 30-sep-19 4.3%YTM

Q: With their recent results in mind would you consider this a good entry point?do you see much potential for growth?