Investment Q&A

Q: CIBC analysts have suggested one of the reasons they downgraded this name today was potential concern of more and lower restrictions on the maximum interest that company’s like Goeasy can charge.From 35% to 30% for example.How likely do you think this potential/fear could be?

Q: Hello Peter and 5i team,
My TFSA contains the aforementioned stocks in roughly even percentages except for nominal investments in Park Lawn and DRX. I would like to make my annual contribution to one or some of these companies and would like to know what your order of preference would be for buys/adds at this time. Please also include Celestica in your considerations.
Also, are there any companies in this list that you would consider undervalued at this time?
Thank you.

Q: In some answers, you have referred to some lending companies being exposed to a "rate risk". I am not clear what that is / when it will impact a lending company. More specific to GSY....is it exposed to a rate risk? How will anticipated falling rates affect it? I know that new highs ( or at lest here a recent one) do not concern you but given its run up in recent months, are its valuation metrics still looking favourable?
Thanks for your excellent service.

Q: Hi, Referencing the recent questions on GSY, here is some color from CIBC on the rationale for their Downgrade to Neutral. Please publish, at your discretion, with or without your comments.

"Downgrading Go Easy To Neutral"

"After reviewing draft regulations for the new interest rate cap, it has come to
our attention that a consultation process was recently completed examining a
further reduction to the rate cap. The timing of the consultation was much
earlier than expected, and we are left to wonder if it was scheduled
intentionally to conclude in advance of the 2024 Budget. We have no basis to
speculate on the outcome and no proprietary insight on the decision-making
process of the Finance Minister’s office. However, we fear that a political lens
might be more appropriate in assessing the probability of further action on the
interest rate cap than an academic one. There has clearly been some forward
progress on this file and it simply doesn’t feel prudent to maintain an
Outperformer rating on goeasy in advance of the Budget. We are
downgrading GSY to Neutral and maintain our $160 price target.

Our concern, however, is that decisions of this nature can sometimes be influenced by the desire to achieve political objectives rather than engage in a balanced assessment of a complicated issue. The considerations described above did not prevent the government from taking action on the initial reduction to the interest rate cap, and our concern is that it may not stop it from taking action to reduce the rate cap further.

We believe that the first sentence of the draft regulations may be somewhat revealing regarding the federal government’s sentiment towards instalment lenders:
“Predatory lenders take advantage of some of the most vulnerable people in our communities, including low-income Canadians, newcomers to Canada, and those with limited credit history—often by extending very high interest rate loans.” Describing instalment lenders as “predatory” sounds almost adversarial or outright hostile, in our view.

Bottom Line

In our view, the range of potential outcomes appears to be skewed asymmetrically negative. On the one hand, the federal government could elect to take no action and this would become a non-event to shares of goeasy. At the time of writing, we believe that this outcome is already priced into the stock. GSY shares have run up nearly 50% since late October (i.e., the same month that consultations were launched) and the P/E multiple has normalized back towards long-term averages (see the line chart in Exhibit 3). This suggests to us that there is little evidence that public market shareholders are bracing for an adverse outcome.
On the other hand, the federal government could take a heavy-handed approach and reduce the rate cap further. In this scenario, the magnitude of almost any reduction would likely be meaningful to the earnings power of GSY. "

Q: Down this morning because of a rating down grade. Do you consider this a buying opportuity? Thank yiu

Q: Any reason you are aware of for the drop in gsy?

Thks
Marcel

Q: Will the coming Federal rate cap be a big impact on Go Easy?

Q: GSY has been dropping the last 2 days. Is there any negative report that has been released on it? Thanks

Q: I want to add one of these to my TFSA. With potential total growth in mind, could you please list these in order in which you think might do best. Thanks.

Q: Recently you recommended the above companies as top 5 small caps. Could you rank from 1 to 5 re: upside potential?
I currently own EQB and GSY.
Many thanks

Q: Expanding on my recent question about my desire to reduce exposure in the Financial Services sector, today's article in the Globe & Mail is of concern:

"Non-prime lenders warn thousands of borrowers they could be cut off because of new maximum interest rates"

Should this cause me to rethink my strategy to reduce TD to raise the cash? As you pointed out in your answer, GSY is significantly riskier than the our other holdings in this sector.

We are seniors (75 & 80) and the stocks referred to are in a RRIF.

Your thoughts? Thanks!

Q: Portfolio Analytics indicates that across our accounts, we are overweight in the Financial Services sector. In order to free up some cash for under=represented sectors, my thinking is to reduce TD enough to achieve the target amount. I'm a bit uneasy with some of the recent negative issues with TD, but still would like to keep some due to its wide moat and 5i's opinion that perhaps its "problems" have been overplayed. Would you concur with my strategy? Thanks.

Q: Hello. Have been a member for a few months and absolutely love the service you provide. I have 57k in RSP and 83k in TFSA ( cash ). could you suggest stocks / ETF's for best possible return on. investment over the long term. Thank you.

Q: I have contribution room of $17000, for 2024 due to a cash withdrawal of $10,000 in late 2023. I would like to move the largest portion of this years contribution from my RRIF withdrawal for 2024 with stocks that have performed well over the past, these include, ,topicus, goeasy, first service, wsp, BNS, Td, TFI Int., Almentation couch Tard and Shopify.
At the moment I am looking for an outside opinion from 5i, on the best most profitable to fill my 2024 contribution.
Looking forward to your response.
Rick

Q: Would you kindly pick 4 stocks (at least 1 of which is a Canadian stock) that you believe could increase in value by 1000% over the next 10 years. Each must have a current market cap of at least $750M. Please provide a short reason for selecting each stock. Thank you.

Q: Can you provide the current insider share ownership and any recent insider activity in both these names

Q: I need to gradually raise cash over the next 6 months and am operating on the assumption that interest rates will begin a to decline in late Q1, I would only like to sell those holdings that are less likely to do well in a declining interest rate environment. Please rank each of these holdings from "Sell Now - least likely to benefit from a declining rate environment" to "Avoid Selling - should do very well in a declining rate environment". AQN, BCE, BN, BNS, DSG, ENB, GSY, KXS, NTR, PBH, TCN, TD
Thanks...Glenn

Q: I have partial psitions in these Financial stocks. Would you add to the Financial sector at this stage? I have full positions in large Canadian banks. Which from my list or any others that you like would you be comfortable adding to full positions. Please rank those that you would be comfortable adding to full positiond today and target buy prices for any others that you still like.
Happy New Year and thanks.
.

Q: No rush to answer
My intent is to use from my investment account into my TFSA either one of the following TFII or GSY.
Which one of these two would you transfer to a TFSA or would you use a combination of both?
Thks
Marcel

Q: What are your top 5 small caps with early 2024 bounce potential with 3-5yr hold?