Investment Q&A

Q: Hope this is not to vague, what would be an acceptable "percentage of shares short in a company"

Q: Hi Peter and Team,

Today's Globe & Mail had an article called "Wall Street views the emerging-market rout as a buying opportunity". I'd appreciate your perspective on the validity of the author's views, and some ETFs that could take advantage of this idea (if you agree).

Thanks as always for the pertinent advice.

Q: Hi the great team, can you name a few stocks with good momemtum. Thanks always.

Q: Hi, you have mentioned price momentum in determining time of trade. What metric do you recommend ? Thanks always.

Q: I am reviewing my non-registered portfolio for cleanup and cash deployment. I have 29% in a global equity fund and 29% in cash; the rest are contained in 26 equities, for which this question is the focus. Diversification and risk not a concern.

I am looking for your advice as to whether I should sell, maintain, top up, or trim the following end member stocks in my portfolio:
ECN 0.2%
EFN 0.5%
ESV 0.03%
XTC 0.7%
HCG 0.9%
XEG 0.9%
LUC 0.4%
ASIX 0.1%
JAZZ 0.9%
HON 5.8%
MSFT 4.7%
SHOP 3.6%

With the equity fund as an anchor, a typical full position for me would be 2.5 - 3%. To deploy the cash, could you provide me with a list of 5 stocks (excluding SIS, ZCL, GSY, or KXS) you would buy today for growth and/or dividend growth. Based on this I will buy and top up the remainder of my portfolio.

Thanks for your help - deduct as many questions as necessary.

Q: Peter and His Wonder Team
I do not understand Bitcoins...Could you please explain the concept in simple terms. Where and how would a person purchase them? Secondly, how do you use or spend them? Thanks!
Dr.Ernest Rivait

Q: Hi, recently your answer touches tax loss selling. Are there many more stocks that will fall into this category ? Thanks always.

Q: Would you have any opinion on Alignvest Acquisition corp. although they do not appear to have purchased any business as of yet. Do you have any knowledge of the principals of this company and their previous business experience?

thanks
Lance

Q: I have a relatively large cash position in my RRSP which I would like to invest for 3 to 6 months in an ultra safe place due to the political uncertainty at the moment. Do you have any suggestions?

Q: If you sell a stock before the dividend is paid do you still get a portion of the dividend for the time you owned it?

Q: Hi 5i,
When structuring a retirement portfolio (with no major pension for income) many investors try to optimize income from dividends and sometimes interest. Do you have any comments about using a total return approach that factors in not only dividends and interest, but capital gains as well? My thinking is that some of the capital gains could be realized as another form of income by selling a portion of a growth holding. Any further thoughts about how to decide what percentage of the equity portion of the portfolio should be dividends vs. growth (capital gains)? Also, in your view does this broader approach increase or reduce the risk/return tradeoff overall? I realize this is a complex question but any insights would be appreciated.
Thank you, Michael

Q: Hi, can u basically construct a medium risk, all equity well diversified portfolio of Etf's that cover the whole world for a portfolio of $25,000, for about an eight to ten year time horizon, thanks?

Q: I have equity positions across my wife's and my accounts ... tfsa, rrsp, and taxable. A good portion of my equity is in etf's mostly covering us and international positions. When I calculate a full position with my Canadian individual stocks(5%) do I use my full equity amount or just the amount invested in the candian stocks (I.e. The 5% of my Canadian portfolio would be closer to 2% of my total equity portfolio).

Q: I have been an investor in small and midcap stocks for over 20 years with a willingness to accept additional risk in my portfolio.I am now transitioning my portfolio to a more Income focus, as i will need dividends to supplement my retirement.
Questions i have are about construction of income portfolio?
Do you feel it is still important to diversify in other countries and regions outside of Canada?You would lose some of the favourable tax benefits!

In trying to classify many dividend stocks in sectors i find that they cross the line into numerous sectors,(example many pipeline stocks are said to be oil and gas stocks, many are said to be utility type of investments)
What sector do you put an ETf in?Seems like a lot of investors drive themselves crazy in the allocation to sectors

I have looked at your income portfolio and your fixed income portion that is addressed by a few Etf.I have taken positions in individual preferred shares,debentures, a couple of instruments with bond like qualities.What is the percentage you would advocate for fixed income or there proxies?

Many Blue chip income stocks pay quarterly dividends,when i prefer monthly dividends.This again can skew my portfolio so that diversifying by sector and country becomes difficult

I find that the construction of my Income portfolio has given me many grey hairs(which i dont need help with"thank you very much")

Q: I thought this might be of interest to all. From a mining blogger I follow.

So I get this message from a short seller firm...
Posted: 25 Sep 2017 02:46 PM PDT
...this morning, quite a well-known one in fact, that said (quote) "When you have a minute to chat I want to run something by you". I think fine and replied "Tell me". Just a couple of minutes later the phone rings and the representative of the short selling firm offers me a gig. What happens is that they would do the legwork on A.N. Other stock then send over the information, I would publish the info on the blog, presumably they are already short when they give me the juice, the stock goes down and as a result they would profit. The short selling firm would then pay me 20% of their proceeds for my time and effort. He also said that the firm in question already has this type of arrangement with other outlets, so I can only presume their business model works just fine. I told the person in question that I'd think about the offer. He can consider this post as my definitive reply and if he wants to push his luck, next time names will be named.

Q: You discussed ETF liquidity in your September 22 reply to Brian. Are you aware of any sources of information on the liquidity of particular ETFs? If not, what general guidance can you offer? Thanks.

Q: Peter and Team,

What index funds do you recommend for the following:
TSX
NYSE
DJIA
NASDAQ
S&P 500
FTSE
Nikkei
HangSeng

- James

Q: Do you think it wise to sell all securities until this US Korea problem gets fixed one way or the other. If hostilities do break out I imagine the world stock exchanges are going to break down.

Thank You
Craig

Q: I am becoming more interested in debentures as part of the fixed income portion of a portfolio.

1) Doing the math on CSU.db it would not pay to buy them if they are called in 2020. What things do you look at to forecast whether or not a company would ever call them. Is calling them a rare or regular occurrence? I realize each company has different needs.
2) Are debentures normally fully explained on the company's web sites re terms and conditions?
3) Are there any other websites, publications etc you would recommend so I can learn more.

Thanks

Paul

Q: Does previous day activity in foreign markets offer any clues as to the activity one can expect on North American exchanges or vice versa? For example, every morning I read about how the major foreign exchanges have performed and I wonder if they are reacting to North American news or do North American markets react to Europe/Asian news or neither? Although I don't trade frequently and usually don't worry about a couple of percent change in a share price before buying, does a really poor day on the DAX, for example, suggest that I should wait to buy on the TSX because our prices would likely drop as well (realizing that sometimes the drops are sector specific and sometimes they are overall drops).

Appreciate your insight.

Paul F.