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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: Hi Team! Just an investment methodology question.....I have read that Warren Buffet holds 63% of his portfolio in four stocks.( Kraft, Wells Fargo , Coke and IBM I think. He also bought quite a bit of Philips66.) Well there goes the thought of a well balanced portfolio out the window. I hold approximately 30 Canadian and Us stocks with businesses across the board. I understand that he is a value investor who likes his dividends and rarely sells his holdings....so what is the best approach to stock investing? Concentrating on just a few businesses like Mr Buffett, or holding more businesses? Has there been any studies done? Just wondering....Tamara
Read Answer Asked by Tamara on August 31, 2016
Q: Is there a way to differentiate between different posters who have the same name when presenting the posts on the Board?

For example my posts show "Stan" and it appears there is myself and at least 1 other poster named Stan.

Could a solution, so as not to expose a poster's full or last name, be to show for example, Stan1 or Stan2...? Or transfer to using an alias? or....?

Maybe this would require too much work on 5i's part. I do not know what any solution would involve in resources for 5i.
Read Answer Asked by Stan (1) on August 31, 2016
Q: I have 73 % of my investment portfolio in stocks. I'm 80+ years of age and have not need for income from the portfolio; it will be transferred to a future generation. My advisor recommends reducing the stock component to 60 %. He suggests purchasing large amounts of Manulife Global Tactical Credit Fund & Manulife Asia Total Return Bond Fund. Please provide me with a critical review of those funds. Do you have other suggestions in the fixed income area?
Read Answer Asked by George on August 30, 2016
Q: Good morning Peter, Ryan, and Team,

In today's answer to Adam about DRIPs (SIS in particular), you told him that "on a portfolio basis, we would just never get into a situation where you need to sell something to generate cash". Is it appropriate to sell part of a stock or ETF to raise cash if you're doing it for portfolio balancing? Or is this a dangerous strategy that could backfire if the market takes a nose-dive? I'm presently in a situation like this in my RRIF, which is well-balanced using mostly 5i recommendations, plus some fixed-income ETFs.

Thanks as always for your timely advice.
Read Answer Asked by Jerry on August 30, 2016
Q: I wonder about letting your winners run vs diversification. I recently donated half of my PBH(up 300%) to charity, and it still is 5% of my portfolio. Is this an appropriate way to balance those competing ideas? I read that you can't get a "10 bagger" if you keep selling your winners, and at least some pundits think it's 10 baggers that make a portfolio a success, but surely that unbalances the portfolio? confused.
Read Answer Asked by M.S. on August 30, 2016
Q: I hold Harvest group closed end funds HBF.UN (Brand Leaders Plus) and HHL.UN (Healthcare Leader) Only a total 3% of overall portfolio and fully for div income and diversive purposes into firms I couldn't hold individually. I just received notice of their plans to change over to a ETF for each of these close end funds. These are the only closed end funds I hold and I am wondering your point of view on this move. They of coarse say its to our advantage for Liquidity and growth potential. These are small funds and I wonder what kind of notice they really would receive in an already crowded ETF market and if the management team is really acting in our best interests here. I am not so sure they can maintain their current div yield of 8%ish either it seems high for an ETF. As always thank you for you good honest work on our behalf
Read Answer Asked by James on August 29, 2016
Q: Hot.un Bhy.un Bgi.undrg.un
I have over 1000 shares in the above companies could you give me your opinion
They are all for income would you suggest other choices as they have not been
Performing that well for some time
Thanks Pat
Read Answer Asked by Patrick on August 29, 2016
Q: Would you have some suggestions for reading material on covered calls? I wasn't looking for something too complicated. But I am interested in information that would cover (a) stocks and stock markets best suited for covered calls (b) logistics of how to choose the best case of option cost and duration for a particular stock ( c) option timing in dividend paying stocks and (d) what is a realistic rate of return. Thanks!
Read Answer Asked by Linda on August 29, 2016
Q: There was an article from the Globe describing an investment stratigy to look for areas where capital is scarce. I havn't seen this before, at least described like this, I guess basically the opposite of momentum investing. Or maybe this is what value investors look for. In any case they did not back the article up with any evidence that the strategy has been successful over the long term.

So: are you familiar with this conceptype and do you think there is merit to it? I guess it could help being early to a sector that will soon turn around, but it seems to me that investor capital (aside from a lot of retail) is pretty smart money and may be avoiding areas for a good fundamental reason that could last many years.

"Returns are best where capital is scarce” is one of my favourite bits of investing advice. The idea was popularized by Richard Bernstein, former chief quantitative strategist at Merrill Lynch and founder of RB Advisors."
Read Answer Asked by Kel on August 29, 2016