Investment Q&A

Q: 9:19 AM 3/7/2016
Good Morning Peter
I have a large position in ALGOMA CENTRAL CORP CONV UNSEC SUBORD DEBS 03/31/18 6.00%. When these mature in 2018 am I guaranteed to get paid back in cash or is there any danger of being paid in shares at the conversion rate because if so and if the share price is away down in 2018 I would be better off selling the debentures now as they are trading at par.
Thank you.... Paul K

Q: Hello 5i Team,
I hold half positions in the following; would you please rank them (regardless of sectors) top to bottom: BOS,CRH,CXI,CXR,DHX,GUD,KXS and PLI.
Thanks,
Antoine

Q: I would like to increase my weighting in oil and gas. I currently own equal weights of: Whitecap (WCP), Tourmaline (TOU), and Vermilion (VET). Should I just increase my weights equally, or switch to other equities? Thank you for all your help.

Q: Oil is up and ACQ is on a tear. Has ACQ gotten ahead of itself? My cost base is $30.44. Should I hang on or should I sell? ACQ is less than 2% of holdings

Q: What are your thoughts on People Corp? Would this be a good time to buy? I have a half position. Thanks - Richard

Q: I know this is outside your area of concentration, but I'd like an opinion on the Canadian dollar vs. the U.S. I put about 25%of my net worth in U.S. dollars in the high 90s. Recently I see an uptrend against the U.S. dollar and am considering repatriating that money. Do you agree with my reading of the situation and that it could be sustained for six months or more. Do you have a guess at where the Can. dollar would have to get to be "over-priced".

Q: It has mentioned several times that deposits at many Canadian financial institutions are insured through CIDC up to $100,000. I don't remember any mention that all deposits in any Manitoba credit union or caisse populaire are guaranteed, without limit by the Deposit Guarantee Corporation of Manitoba.There are several credit unions in Manitoba that offer online banking across provincial boundaries and higher interest rate than the banks. Implicity financial is one example that offers 1.75% interest on deposits and the unlimited guarantee.

Q: you never got back to me on this one.

massive insider selling at 11-12 range in early dec.

cfo disposed of 30 % of position.

this according to ink insider report on td website.

are these #s correct.

the last I heard from 5I you didnt agree with these #s

sold my position and bought sgy after talking with IR but would like to divversify now that sgy has moved 50% for me.



Thx Blake

Q: Concordia reports Q4('15) on March 23 and TD shows Non GAAP EPS of $1.46 (7 analyst average). Not sure if this is an upgrade from your Jan.27 estimate of $1.12 (GAAP?) or if currency conversion is in play because they report in US$ or it's Bloomberg numbers vs Broker's?

As Ryan mentions in the Oct. blog piece on CRX leverage is the issue to focus on so if they hit their 2016 numbers of ~$6.50 US how much of their $3.48 US BB debt would you expect them to pay down by end of 2016 FY and could this remove the "mini Valeant" tag if they were able to pay down a bunch? Thanks, J.

Q: Over the past 2 weeks or so, this stock has rallied about 20%. Has it bottomed and is this a good time to buy ? Is the dividend still safe ?

Q: My wife has a loss carry-forward in her non-registered account. I'm thinking that with only one place for the $5,500 investment this year it would be better to work on reducing the loss carry-forward than contributing to her TFSA. Once the loss carry-forward has been eliminated contribute to her TFSA.

Is my thinking correct?

Thanks
Ron

Q: I have been given the honour of looking after my 83 year old in law's TFSA accounts currently harboured in GICs. This money will never be needed in their lives .
I am limiting myself to "safer", "Canadian" , and dividend" stocks and ETFs ...
Guessing BNS , SLF or GWO , BCE or T ( or are they dying ) , ENB or TRP , VGG ....ZZZZZZZ...
What would be your 5-8 choices ? All sleepy Bluechips ? Thanks

Q: Hi. Can you please give your opinion about this Company and proposed acquisition of Spectrum/ Blade Optics. Do you think it is OK to invest in this company for a medium risk investor with 3 years hold time. I know it is very early stages from what I read, but I want to know your confidence levels in case you know the management team.

Q: Your thoughts on Ritchie Bros as an investment?It seems to me that the supply of product for sale should be increasing dramatically,even though the unit price may be falling!It seems like a good play on the hardship of the oil sector which we have not seen the full negative effects yet.

Q: I currently own small positions in XEG, CPG, ARX, WCP and VET. They total 6% of my portfolio and I plan to move towards a 10% oil weighting by the end of the year.

I'd also like to buy a position in small cap energy so that I can benefit from the rebound, but I can't pick which one to invest in and am afraid if I buy just one, it may end up being the small cap that goes bankrupt. What do you think of me buying Sprott's Energy fund? I don't usually like mutual funds because of the high fee (2.5%) but if I buy very small positions in 10 small caps myself, it will cost me 1-2% in transaction costs anyway. Also, if the fund goes up 30 or 40 percent, I won't care much about the fee. Do you think this is a good idea? Do you like the fund? Are there any ETFs that would be comparable? I own XEG but it is mostly large cap oil, so not comparable.

Q: One of the may investing lessons you have communicated clearly and frequently .... and so many customers seem to be keen on applying .... is the theme of "diversification". So many questions!

Would it make sense for you to simply refer us to your Growth, Income and Balanced portfolios as indicators of your current thinking regarding sector allocations for these 3 types of investors?

I know that these portfolios frequently have a small cash position, but statistically that should not change the other sector percentages by much.

Q: Hi Peter and Ryan,

For a RESP, would you prefer AQN or BEP.UN or both ?
Thanks again for the great service.
Peter: Keep up those good articles in the Financial Post !

Dave

Q: I wonder if you would explain the corporate structure of this company. I am shareholder and done very well but still don't really understand the structure. Its complicated to me anyway.

Q: Really appreciate your endorsement of BNS & the other big 5 can.banks & calming influence.So much negativety & fear mongering leading up to their 1st Q reports stated Feb 3 & ended Mar 1 with BNS,that it was unnerving.Moodys on BNN stated in a severe stress scenario ,can banks may even need to cut dividend or issue more shares to raise money.As far as I can recollect the big 6 have never cut dividend.Moodys & the other rating agencies endorsed the sub prime pakages buy US banks in the 2007-2008 financial crisis.John Aiken of Barclays Capital cut the target price of the big 6 by 20%.After graduation,he workrd for National Bank,then Dundee & since 2009 for Barclays,ranked 3123/3730 analysts & rated 1/5 with 1 being the weakest.4 of big 6 increased div(CM,TD,BNS & RY) & 4 beat convincingly( CM is the best--$2.55 eps beat $2.41 expected) & 2 were pretty closed.BNS had the biggest appreciation after release--up 5.97% @ close Mar 1.Re my Q on Feb 19,the big 6 are amongst the strongest & safest banks in the world CM leads in T1 capital @ 10.6 & BNS @ 10.1.Big 6 performed better than the US banks

Q: Would you consider the current price per share @ 238.57 a reasonable entry point or wit for pull back??