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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: I have a question about Avalara after reviewing its Annual Report on line on its website. . The audit notes a Material Weakness in Internal Controls over Financial Reporting on page 70 - 71 as follows - "The Company has a material weakness as it does not have adequate controls to effectively design, implement, and operate process-level and information technology controls to sufficiently mitigate risks of material misstatement associated with certain complex business processes and changes in those processes or applicable accounting standards."
On page 68 - 69 is another note by the auditors to the Board on what they call "A Critical Audit Matter" regarding the audit of company revenues as follows - "The processing and recording of revenue, including interfaces between systems and databases, is both manual and automated, and therefore the Company uses a complex set of procedures and systems to generate complete and accurate data to process and record its revenue transactions." As a result much time was spent on verification and they had to bring in professionals with expertise in data analytics to assist with the audit.
I know Avalara is a young company, but should such warnings give me reason to not invest at this time?
Read Answer Asked by Dave on March 09, 2020
Q: What % of an equity portfolio for a 10 year hold would you recommend in precious metals. I am considering Fnv.
What % of tsx composite index is represented by precious metals?
Read Answer Asked by Terry on March 09, 2020
Q: It looks as though utilities, and renewable utilities in particular, have taken off, while Canadian pipelines, which are also traditionally stable investments, are either flat or dropping.
Do you have any comments on whether:
1. this is a short term disparity or a fundamental shift,
2. whether one group is better than the others at current prices, and
3. If the recent drop now otherwise creates a good point of entry for any or all?
Read Answer Asked by Peter on March 09, 2020
Q: Hi there,
When there is a corporate takeover and one receives a fraction of the new shares, that fraction of a new share may be paid out as "cash in lieu". Is that cash in lieu treated as a capital gain/loss or is it considered dividend income?
Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by John on March 09, 2020
Q: Hello Peter and Co,
My 20 year old grandson has opened a TFSA with $22000 in cash, and is asking for advice how to start investing. Our suggestion is that he put a fairly large amount into an index fund ETF, such as VFV, and then buy several individual stocks with the rest. They would be small positions (~$2500 per stock) but a good way for him to start learning, and with markets down, the timing seems quite fortuitous.
He is considering the following:
100 shares VFV: ~$7500
40 shares GSY: ~$2500
35 shares BEP.UN: ~$2500
1 share AMZN: ~$2500 (CAD)
7 shares NVDA: ~$2500 (CAD)
200 shares VET: ~$2500
-------------------------------
TOTAL: ~$20000

We had also suggested CSU, SHOP, KXS, PKI, TTD, GOOG, AAPL, ROKU, FB

What do you think of the above approach, and what changes might you suggest? I realize VET stands out as quite risky, but should probably do well long term.
Are there any sectors or stocks or ETF that you would suggest adding/replacing? Obviously he has a multi-decade time horizon.
Thanks for your sage advice!
Read Answer Asked by Ed on March 09, 2020
Q: The report is excellent. I own 4 of the 10 BYD CSU CAE KXS. I plan to add modestly to these names. of the names I don't have I will okk at TMX adw plc . I need to rea the report again.
of the US stocks I have JPM dropped a lot say compared to TD . Shoud I add JPM. Among
Some of the other US stocks I have is SBUX SQ DIS . Any cooments on these will be helpful

Read Answer Asked by thambirajah on March 09, 2020
Q: I started picking away at these names a week ago and bought half positions in each (I'm always too early!!). I'll probably look to buy the other half in each this week if we get more spikes to the downside. I'm a relatively longer term holder (say next 5-10 years at least). With respect to IHI I usually stick to individual stocks but took a look at the top 10 holdings and decided they were all good companies so just bought the ETF. Do you see any issue holding these names?
Read Answer Asked by Richard on March 09, 2020
Q: I understand JNJ resold the rights to purrell to gojo a while back. This company I understand is private. Is there a publicly held company that manufactures hand sanitizer. It is hard to find any anywhere and I imagine when found the price will have gone up dramatically. Maybe an investable theme?
Read Answer Asked by Helen on March 09, 2020
Q: On today (Friday) .... and on the Half Time Report, Rob Sechan expressed the opinion that, for investors looking for long term reliable dividends, HIGH QUALITY MLP’s could play an important role. I believe you have had justifiable reservations in the past ( just don’t remember the details). I would appreciate your thoughts on this as part of a dividend/ income focused portfolio.
Can you recommend a few high quality MLP’s that might be part of his thought process .... and I do understand your more limited focus on US markets.

I do not believe there are any MLP’s in Canada. Or am I wrong? Thanks once again.
Read Answer Asked by Donald on March 09, 2020
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