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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: Gents,

It's adequately clear (esp from some of the comments I've recently read) that the Healthcare/Pharma sector in Canada offers very few choices and even fewer good choices.

Whereas the same sector in the US offers fabulous alternatives, opportunities and growth.

I feel it is a shame to limit this weak Canadian sector in our portfolios when you can offer so much more with reccos south of the border.

Even a well represented ETF for US pharma/healthcare/bioscience might do the trick if you are time starved.

Just saying.

Sheldon
Read Answer Asked by Sheldon on August 17, 2017
Q: Every few months someone writes in with "disappointed" comments about the service provided by 5I. These people should realize that for a few dollars we have access to professional experienced market advice/comments with no strings attached. This is very valuable and rare. Use this information, or not, to increase your market knowledge, purchase/sell stocks but do stay diversified. No one can predict outcomes or know the vagaries of the market. Keep up the good work! Gord
Read Answer Asked by gord on August 16, 2017
Q: Hi, was wondering how one would set up a portfolio using the 5i web site.

Should a 33% be put in each portfolio or should another portion be in cash and bonds.

At the moment my portfolio is 10% cash, 10% bonds, 40% dividend payers and 40% small cap, in the summer months I usually raise some cash for the fall.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated

Anthony
Read Answer Asked by Anthony on August 15, 2017
Q: I have about 1k (and growing) saved in an account with RBC as the company I'm working for has started to match monthly contributions for investment purposes. What would you suggest i put it in as far as products offered by them? I currently have a reasonable size portfolio with Tangerine that also gets monthly contributions. Would like to be a little aggressive with the RBC account. Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Chris on August 15, 2017
Q: Hello, I will have to liquidate a substantial amount of my portfolio in the near future and figured I may as well take the opportunity to rebalance my holdings. My goal is to build a fully invested portfolio based on the 5i Balanced Equity portfolio core, with a minor growth tilt. I have read through the Q&A section thoroughly and have come up with the following solution and wanted your opinion:

NON-REG: AIF, BLX, PKI, WSP, XTC (5 holdings)
TFSA: CCL.B, CSU, KL, KXS, NFI, PBH, PHO, SHOP, SIS, SYZ, TOY (11 holdings)
RRSP: ATD.B, BYD.UN, CAE, CLS, ENGH, GSY, GUD, MX, SJ, PEO, ZZZ (11 holdings)

I have 2 questions (please feel free to deduct more credits if necessary):

1) Are there any names you would remove and/or swap out for other names? (I am nearing 30 holdings which from what I have read could be getting too large and inefficient) and

2) Is the division of holdings across the NON-REG/TFSA/RRSP best spread for growth efficiency?

As always, thanks for your amazing service!!
Read Answer Asked by Michael on August 14, 2017
Q: For an investor with a higher risk tolerance who is always fully invested, do you think it is possible to profit on a risk adjusted basis from buying into a market dip on margin (assuming a "reasonable" margin rate of <6%)?

Given your experience, what would be reasonable parameters of a system to do this? I am thinking something along the lines of: If the market (e.g. index tracking ETF(s)) drops 10%, deploy 10% margin, drops another 10% deploy another 10% margin, ... subsequently deleveraging by a similar scheme on the way back up. Are there other schemes in the same vein you are aware of which are profitable?

Would it instead make more sense to wait for the market trend to reverse before deploying margin? For example, say you sit idly while the market drops 30%. Then you wait for the trend to reverse (e.g. Spot price > 200 SMA) and deploy margin, perhaps in 20% increments monthly as the trend continues eventually delevaraging at a new market peak.

Thanks as always.
Read Answer Asked by Andrew on August 11, 2017
Q: I like shareholder friendly companies that routinely increase cash dividends. Here's a list of top names with an average annual growth rate above 10% from 2015-17. Is there any names here you don't like? And are there any names out there you like that aren't on my list?

Cash Dividends
2015 2016 2017 GR (%)
ZCL.TO 0.18 0.82 0.48 63.3
NFI.TO 0.61 0.89 1.30 46.0
GSY.TO 0.40 0.50 0.72 34.2
FSV.TO 0.30 0.44 0.49 27.8
CCL.B 0.30 0.40 0.46 23.8
SIS.TO 0.17 0.22 0.26 23.7
MG.TO 0.77 1.00 1.10 19.5
GIL.TO 0.26 0.31 0.37 19.3
ENGH.TO 0.46 0.54 0.64 18.0
SJ.TO 0.32 0.40 0.44 17.3
XTC.TO 0.24 0.28 0.32 15.5
DHX.B 0.06 0.07 0.08 15.5
ENB.TO 1.86 2.12 2.44 14.5
FSZ.TO 0.54 0.62 0.68 12.2
EMA.TO 1.66 1.99 2.09 12.2
HLF.TO 0.46 0.52 0.56 10.3
PBH.TO 1.38 1.52 1.68 10.3


Read Answer Asked by LARRY on August 10, 2017
Q: Hi. My portfolio has no US ETFs. I have some individual US technology, financial and industrial stocks. (total 10% weight). Now, I'm planning to sell some of my Canadian stocks and to increase US stocks to 25 to 30% weight.

I'm in the process of adding more US stocks into my well diversified portfolio. My questions are 1) Do I need to buy into every US sector? If not, what US sectors should I concentrate into buying and what other US sector should I ignore? For instance, I assume I don't need US energy and US material stocks. 2) In my US portfolio, I have GOOG, ADBE, VISA, AIG, CGNX. What others US stocks should I also add?

I'm still unsure how to incorporate US individual stocks into a portfolio. Please give guidance... Have a great day.. Thank you in advance.
Read Answer Asked by Esther on August 09, 2017
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