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Investment Q&A

Not investment advice or solicitation to buy/sell securities. Do your own due diligence and/or consult an advisor.

Q: Hello Peter & Co,
I'm another year less young (71) and thinking of moving 15-20% of my RRIF portfolio into fixed income vehicles; I could reduce each holding on a pro-rata basis (which is easy to do) or I could exit 10 positions (which is much harder to do).
Which of the following would you select to exit?
Consumer discretionary 5.2% of portfolio: LNR,MG
Energy 6.9%: HWO,TOU,VET,WCP
Financials 8.1%: BNS,EFN,HCG,TD
Health/Pharma 12.6%: CCT,CPH,CXR,GUD,RX,XHC
Industrials/Transport 8.5%: CCL,CHE.UN,CNR,SJ
Infrastructure 4.6%: BIP.UN,STN
Materials 4.0%: IFP,WEF
Pipelines/Midstream 11.5%: ENB,IPL,KEY,PPL
Retail 5.3%: ATD,DOL
Services 7.4%: BYD.UN,FSV,CGX
Technology 16.9%: CSU,DSG,ESL,GIB,MDA,OTC
Util/Telco/RE 9.0%: ALA,BCE,BEP.UN,TCN
I greatly appreciate your input
Tony
Read Answer Asked by Antoine on January 16, 2015
Q: I am starting a TFSA and have a maximum of $36,500 to invest.
Can you recommend two stocks in each sector for diversification?
I am 24 and can handle some risk.
Also is CXI in the financial sector and which two stocks out of these GUD, CRH, PHM, NMHC would you pick in the healthcare sector?
I alrady own CRH.
Thanks for all your help
Read Answer Asked by Ron on January 16, 2015
Q: 9:01 AM 1/15/2015

Hello Peter
I am considering buying shares in 3 or 4 of these companies for our annual contributions to our TFSAs, and to our Cash account, and would intend to hold them for many years.

I have several concerns with these stocks, mainly high debt and high Payout Ratios [POR] on some:

ET : 69% POR, very low debt, 8 year rising dividend... looks good to me!

AD : 135% POR, very low debt, 7 year rising dividend

DH : 115% POR, Debt/Equity = 1.0, and 5 year rising dividend + special dividends

AW.UN : 118% POR, Debt/Equity = 0.6, dividend flat for 4 years

CSH.UN : POR very high, Debt/Equity = 3.5, dividend flat for 5 years

CSW.A : 91.5% POR, zero debt, and 5 year rising dividend + special dividends

All have reasonable dividend yields. I am looking for companies that will best withstand severe corrections and have a high probabiluty of continuing and increasing dividends.
I would appreciate your comments and suggestions on these and would ask you to please rank them in order of preference.

We always appreciate your excellent advice,
Thank you........... Paul K
Read Answer Asked by Paul on January 15, 2015
Q: Could you please tell me the names of Canadian companies that should benefit from the low Canadian dollar, that have expenses in Canadian dollars but revenue in U.S. dollars. Thank you very much.
Read Answer Asked by A on January 15, 2015
Q: Hello Folks:
Currently we have approx. 65% large cap US. stocks and the reminder a few Canadian stocks and cash. We have slowly divested ourselves of all Canadian energy producers except for a good chunk of IPL. Do you have a few particular Canadian stocks you could recommend to use up the cash. I am am hesitant about materials/energy and financials.
We are quite confused and any help you could provide is immensely appreciated. Thanks so much!
brian clarke (age 68)
Read Answer Asked by Brian on January 15, 2015
Q: Is it because it is a low volume stock it has declined a quite a bit this-with new contracts and low fuel prices was wondering why the pullback
Read Answer Asked by terrance on January 15, 2015
Q: Wonder if you could update your views on HWD. Stock has held up remarkably well during the recent market sell-off. Is this due to its small cap size, low trading volume and lack of significant analyst coverage? Look forward to your analysis.
Read Answer Asked by Sue on January 14, 2015
Q: Hi Peter and Team,

I own Tourmaline (TOU) and Stantec (STN). The former pays no dividend and the latter a small but growing one. Both are weak lately and I was thinking it might make sense to switch them both to good quality dividend payers while waiting a recovery. My thoughts were to trade TOU for Peyto (PEY) and Stantec for WSP Global (WSP). Both pay over 4%. Do you think the dividends in PEY and WSP are "safe" and is this a good idea. I am getting closer to retirement and would like to gradually shift my portfolio towards income-paying companies.

Thank you.

Michael
Read Answer Asked by Michael on January 14, 2015
Q: Hi Peter and Team,

I am often suprised by target growth rates (10%) some investors write in about and am wondering if i should be setting higher goals for my portfolio. I often struggle on how to evaluate my own performance as a manager of my own investments. I am hoping you can provide some guidance on my own positioning and whether my targets seem reasonable given my circumstances and my risk tolerance. I am approx. 5 years or so from full retirement. My first priority is to protect the assets i have and i do my financial planning based on a 5% overall return but set a goal for myself as a 7% average over multiple years. Since i don't pay any fees for someone else to manage I thought this seemed reasonable. i am almost fully invested in equities since i have a defined benefit pension plan that is fully funded with little or no risk.

Do you have some sort of metric that self managed investors should be looking at to evaluate their own performance. I would consider myself on the lower end of medium risk but not yet on the low risk side and income is not currently an issue. Any guidance or evaluation metrics you can provide for us or point us 'do-it-yourself' investors to would be helpful.

Thanks a million.

Cheers
Read Answer Asked by kelly on January 14, 2015
Q: i have fairly large positions in air canada and chorus and have done very well , i know you hate them both, but what do you think of todays agreement. dave
Read Answer Asked by david on January 13, 2015
Q: Hi Peter /Group Can you please enlighten me on the news that came out today and caused WEF stock to drop over 5% Is it a short term adjustment or can it cause longer term issues for the stock price. I have no idea what the news means?? Thanks I appreciate your knowledge/direction
Read Answer Asked by Terence on January 13, 2015
Q: With a projected increase in auto sales in 2015, would it be a better way to invest in LNR, MG, and MRE rather than the various manufacturer's? Would you recommend any of them and in what order. With thanks, Bill
Read Answer Asked by William J on January 13, 2015
Q: Hi Team
I would like your views on the nerger of Teckmira & OnCore Biopharma.
It seams to be positive, I have some shares of Teckmira, is it a hold or sale
Thank you for your advice
Guy
Read Answer Asked by Guy on January 12, 2015
Q: Could you please comment on the share buy back offer at $9.50 from Clarke which I received today. It is trading at $9.46 today and I am tempted to hold on for more value after the buyback. Is my thinking correct? Thanks, John
Read Answer Asked by John on January 12, 2015
Q: Hi 5I Team,

What are your current thoughts on BDT?

Best wishes,
Terri
Read Answer Asked by Terri on January 12, 2015
Q: Could I get your opinion on this stock. Much appreciated.
Read Answer Asked by Ken on January 12, 2015
Q: Hi Peter & Team,

I need a few stocks that pay dividends for my kids accounts, each child has 5k to purchase 2 stocks. I have narrowed it down to these few names ( because of asset mix in their accounts) but ultimately my kids will choose. One is in a TFSA and the other is a cash account because of age. Could you please give an argument to the ones you favor ?

Thank you for the great service!

Dave
Read Answer Asked by David on January 12, 2015
Q: Could I get your opinion on this stock as it has pulled back from its 52-week high. Much appreciated.
Read Answer Asked by Ken on January 12, 2015
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