Investment Q&A

Q: Happy new year and best wishes to the entire team of 5i.

For the benefit of all the members, Virtual Brokers now offers penny commissions for all US and CDN shares. So if you buy one share your commission is going to be one penny. The minimum commission is 1 penny and the max is 9.99 (Disclosure: I am not being paid by them and only have a small account with them right now)

In the light of this, I have a question. If I want to build a portfolio by accumulating smaller quantities of good companies/ETF's like buying say 1 share of IWO or similar companies every month, would this be a good strategy. Also, what if in this approach I end up buying many more companies than the prudent 20 like say 50 or 60. Would it be too many to manage?

Q: Potash Corp (POT)is paying a 4.25% dividend. Is the dividend sustainable? What is the outlook for the company for 2014? Is it a buy a the current price of $35.
Thank you.
Ron Beaton

Q: Feye
Hi Peter
Fire eye had an ipo recently . It has skyrocketed .. I know you are not that well versed in the us stocks. But I value your opinion on this company and their tecknology .should I continue to hold or is it too speculative. .secuiity seems to be so important today .
Candi

Q: Hello team,
I just recently subscribed to 5i and have been very impressed with your service. I am new to selecting stocks and a couple questions have arisen. I have about $35,000 in my TFSA that I would like to dedicate to growth stocks. My two questions are:
1) Given the small balance (and limited to adding only $5500 new money each year), what would you suggest to be an appropriate number of stocks to purchase? I would like to have some diversification but also think the fees of buying and re-balancing 20 stocks like in your model portfolio would be too costly.
2) Based on the number of stocks you think appropriate for my situation, do you have specific stock recommendations I should consider for purchase in 2014?
Thanks in advance,

Q: Hi Team
I am in the process of trying to replicate you model portfolio this week. I am in the fortunate position of having about 200,000. dollars to allocate. Would you recommend simply increasing the % to 10 for each stock or diversifying more or increasing the weight in certain stocks.

Thanks
Mike

Q: Bell Aliant (BA) pays a much better dividend than the big three telecos. If you were to pick just one, are there good reasons to prefer BCE, T or RCI? Is BA more risky?

Q: goodday,Peter iknow you don't like it,but here goes. how about tossin us tail waggin dogs a couple of bones with respect to short term trading i.e. 1 to 45 days. tkx pat

Q: GLN Glentel is up $2.00 in the last two weeks and it raised it's dividend four percent yesterday. Is it going up because people sold it for tax loss and are now buying it back or is interest coming back into because of improving prospects? I'd appreciate your thoughts. THANKYOU

Q: EQI How do you feel about EQI as of now? Smoothwater appears to be supporting the stock which worries me. Do you think they might pull back on that support to try to sway us little people to go with their offer? Would CXS be a decent more stable alternative?

Q: Dear 5i,

As a quick follow up to my previous question on TransCanada TRP, I also currently have about 3.0% of the portfolio in IPL. I was thinking of using some of the proceeds from selling TRP.PR.D to bring that up to 5.0% in IPL. Having another pipeline seems like a good idea and Enbridge is in the Model Portfolio as well. Is that still the best pick today or would you suggest TRP or Pembina?

Also, saw the posting of the December 2013 portfolio. Congratulations or your out-performance! I know it won't always be like that, but you did very well for your membership. I've been really using the service and learning a lot from you!

Marc

Q: Happy New Year to everyone.
What would be your top two energy drilling stocks for 2014?
Thanks
Jean

Q: From Andy I forgot to write in the stocks. I'll start again Sorry. Question from Dale Jan. 02. on small cap stocks. How would you compare these and if you were to throw any out which ones.CMI -PLI -NCI -SYZ -E Thank You Andy Happy New Year To Everyone

Q: Dear 5i,

I just did my 2 year renewal with you. I've been a member since the very first day and wanted to thank you for your care of exisiting members!

To celebrate, I was hoping I could ask a question about TRP and TRP.PR.D. I own both the common and preferred stock of TransCanada (about 5% in each) and wanted to sell one of the positions for balancing reasons. The rest of my portfolio is all cash and stocks (no other fixed income). I was planning on holding the preferred "forever" and selling the common but the thought crossed my mind that the preferred my react particularily negatively to rising interest rates (worse than the common). Any thoughts on what should stay and what should go?

Q: PLUG has met their 4th quarer targets and the stock is spiking in early hours.
According to the CEO the first quarter 2014 should also be a good one. Once again they seem to be on a good growth curve with top notch customers. BLD is one of their suppliers.
Could be a very good year for both companies.
Do you agree.
Good Luck for The New Year
Hersh

Q: I will retire in 2014 and am looking to structure my RRSP and non registered investment account to generate monthly income. I'm looking to achieve approximately 6 percent return. Would you provide some suggestions as to dividend stocks and also a 25 to 30 percent of the portfolio in growth stocks with a moderate amount of risk

Thank you for this great service and I wish the team a very successful 2014

Q: In our portfolio all of our US allocation is 25% in in one etf - XSP, also 23% allocation is international, again one ETF - XIN Would you suggest an alternate or is XSP and XIN ok in you opinion?

FYI our portfolio is 27% bonds - CBO, 25% US, 23% international,
15% Canadian using 5i portfolio, 5% emg mkts - VWO, 5% cash.
Please give us your opinion and suggest any tweeks or recommendations.

Since becoming a member I have had great benefit and enjoyed this web site, hence the above questions on whether my allocation which I am comfortable with is using the correct product.

Wishing you all a happy and successful new year.

Q: Convertible Bond question of Jan 02/14(asked by Lance):

Also check the "Change of Control" sections in the CD prospectus (sedar.com). In such circumstance, often the company must make an offer at par in cash, and somtimes extra shares are available to compensate for the loss of interest to maturity.
Publish at your discretion.

Q: Happy New Year to all!

This is just a general question on "behind the scenes" action at 5i. Over the course of the year, I've come to enjoy, and trust, Peter's recommendations on BNN -- and that was the catalyst for becoming a member here. (Very happy I did -- I just renewed for another 2 years.)

I'm interested in knowing how questions are answered. Given the volume of questions pouring in daily, I can pretty well assume that Peter is not answering all of them, so, what is the team's approach to evaluating companies and providing answers and advice to members? Is there a specific formula, for instance, that applies to everything? I see that the answers come in fast and furious, ... and so there must be some sort of proscribed method that all team members apply to the questions, as they come in, to be able to answer them so quickly.

I'm also noting that you've mentioned, a few times, that new employees will be coming on board in 2014, and was just curious to know the methodology behind choosing those who work from Peter's way of thinking. It is certainly different from "the street consensus" , which is a very good thing, but am wondering what new employees will do to the team dynamic, and if the analysis will continue in the same vein.

I;m only curious, and hopefully you don't feel it's an impertinent question, for it certainly isn't meant to be.

Feel free to respond privately, or publicly, at your discretion. (For better or worse, I'm always the one pulling the curtain, to see what Oz looks like behind the scenes.)

Thanks so much for your great service!

Q: Hello Peter and Team,

Happy New Year. This is not urgent. I've been following your comments on EEM (emerging markets stock ETF) and VXUS (all markets stocks except US) for foreign stock ETF holdings. I was wondering if you could compare/contrast them with EFA-N (developed markets stocks in Europe, Australia, Asia & the Far East). If you had to choose only one, which would it be and why?

Many thanks. Michael

Q: Good morning, After reading your article on small caps, I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on the canadian graphite or graphene mining companies. Are there any that are already profitable or have a distinct competitive advantage? Thanks, Rod