Investment Q&A

Q: I am 72 and retired. I have been building a part of my portfolio (58.4%) for the last three years with ETFs. Current holdings are (% weight of portfolio in brackets): zwh (10.5), zwu (9.1), zwc (8.5), mft (5.9), xtr (5.3), xhy (5.2), zwe (4.7), cdz (3.2), zdh (3.2) & zre (2.9). With 24.2% cash, I plan on slowly adding to these etfs. How would you do this? The remainder of my portfolio is in dividend paying Canadian large caps.
Thanks, Jim

Q: Hey 5i,

As a follow up. What are your top picks US/CDN REIT ETF's
You'd recommend for a longterm hold.

Thank you for all the great advice!

Q: Morning 5i,

Looking to diversify our portfolios
Longterm hold.
Wanting to add a real estate position(s)
Obviously we could go up or down due to covid and a rougher than expected recovery.

Looking for advice on which to do first.
ETF, such as above OR pure play such as CAR.UN?
Which is a huge portion of XRE anyways.
*your top rec's in this sector would be greatly appreciated as well.

Understanding the risks and dynamics our thought was adding an attractive pure play at lower valuation and then the reit assuming it may be depressed for a longer time period.

Looking forward to your advice and thank you for the great stuff here! The info is tremendous.

Q: hi, dear team
for banks or reit which one your guys is a good buy now for long term investment ? like ten years.

appreciate!

Jacky

Q: In your portfolio analytics, you used to have A list of suggested etfs for each sector. I cannot find this list anymore. Has it been removed? Could you please provide a list of recommended etfs for each sector. Thank you

Q: Bought ZRE in a non-registered account just weeks before COVID. Down 33%. Yikes. Would you suggest waiting it out? And if so - looking at your trusty crystal ball - when would you see share prices for this ETF rising to pre-COVID levels (a year...two years)? Alternatively, is it time to cut my (considerable) losses and invest in another sector (tech, consumer cyclical?) which would have a better chance of seeing a faster recovery? Thanks.

Q: Thinking of selling SIA and BPY and replacing with ZRE/ Would this be a good move?

Q: ZRE is down more than 40% from its 52 wk high. Is it a good buy at this level for a capital gain? Was it over valued at its 52 wk high? Do you foresee further downside from its present value? thank you

Q: Hi Peter: When I sit back and take a look at the big picture and review how my portfolio performed during COVID-19 (so far), I try to see what lessons I can learn, then turn to how to apply those lessons to make my portfolio stronger.

I am a retired, dividend-income investor. I am a huge believer in asset allocation and have designed a portfolio, in my opinion, to be reasonably well diversified, although heavy to Canada. It WAS roughly 70% equities (including 32% foreign content) and 30% fixed income (roughly 15% insured annuities, 15% Fisgard Capital...both averaging in the 5-6% pre-tax range and minor cash). My equities are mostly blue chip, dividend payers, as you can see above. The 3 mutual funds are a very minor part of my portfolio, especially Eric's Energy Fund (<2%). I also receive a company pension and CPP-OAS which, when included, drops my equities to roughly 32%.

I use various metrics to monitor my portfolio, such as P/E, P/BV, P/CF, P/S, Beta, ROE, Div growth, Payout%, technical indicators like 200 mda. I am normally a buy-and-hold investor who trims/adds around a core position.

Periodically I measure how "at risk" my portfolio is relative to the overall market. I do this by prorating my portfolio using Beta. Based on equities only, I averaged 0.68 and for my entire portfolio I averaged 0.44. So, one would think that if the overall market (TSX) was to drop 30%, then I would have thought my portfolio would drop 44% to 68% of that, being in the range of 13% (overall) to 20% (equities only).

In actual fact, my entire portfolio dropped 27% from peak to trough vs the expected 13%...over double! I understand that EVERYTHING was sold off...almost no exceptions. So what do we learn from this and what changes should we consider? Do we accept that "sxxt happens" once in a while...you can't predict every event, accept it and move on? Should we consider increasing the cash component as a buffer? Or...is there something else to be learned here?

Thanks for you help...much appreciated...Steve

Q: April 7 report on the income portfolio: ZRE (BMO REIT) show -3.45% for the month of march ? Am I missing something ?

Q: I noticed you suggested swapping CSH.UN for ZRE. I understand the change to CSH.un but not ZRE. Yes REITs will benefit from low interest rates but won't retail REITs such as SRU.UN suffer from closed store and Apt REIT suffer from possible non payment of rents?

Q: I get most of my income from dividends. Please name 4 sectors where dividends might be relatively Less likely to be suspended and 5 companies that will do best with the criteria mentioned. I understand that at this time it is hard to project but I ask for relative possibilities with the current situation that may change. 
thanks 
Yossi

Q: Retired, dividend-income investor. I currently own ZLB (RRSP, max'd out), XIT (RRSP-TFSA, max'd out), ZRE (Cash, 3/4 position, will add to over time), ZWC (Cash, close to max'd out). I also have some legacy positions in RBF1018 (RBC Cdn Equity Income-D...MER of 1.0) and CIG50217 (Sentry Cdn Income...high MER), both of which I have averaged roughly 7-8% return over the last many years, prior to this crisis. On top of the above I own AD, AQN, AW, BCE, CSH, CM, FTS, NTR, NWC, RY, TRP, WSP in various amounts to achieve my overall asset allocation targets (not to mention my fixed income portion of my portfolio.

I normally like to run a concentrated portfolio of around 20 positions, composed of +/- 6 ETF-MF and +/- 14 stocks. I have mapped out the use of my current cash (15%) into monthly repurchases over the next 6 months. My question relates to the combination of ETFs, but focusing on ZWC. I own ZWC for its high CC dividend, but recognize that the upside is potentially limited in a recovery. Also, when mapping out spending my cash, I reach an uncomfortable level of too high an allocation per individual stock. That led me to consider adding another ETF. I looked at several, and filtered them down to CDZ, XEI and XDV. I have chosen CDZ as my candidate to add. Looking under the hood at the ETF holdings, they appear to not overlap too much with my own individual stocks.

Do you like this strategy? Does it result in a significant overlap in stocks, held either individually or within the existing ETFs?

Thanks for your help...Steve

Q: Retired dividend-income investor. I currently own ZLB (in RRSP, max'd out, love it) ZRE (Cash account, purchase for LT hold-distributions, plan to add to it over time) and ZWC (Cash account, purchased for LT hold-dividends).

I have a sizeable capital loss in ZWC....2 choices. #1 = Keep it, top it up over the next several months. #2 = Sell it, save the capital losses for future years (don't need them for 2020) and replace with either CDZ or XDV. I flushed XDV right away due to the very skewed asset allocation (to financials & utilities).

So that left the comparison between ZWC and CDZ. Their metrics are, for the most part, similar (beta, P/E, P/CF, ROE, MER).

ZWC is down 39% YTD, pays a current yield of 11%, has a reasonable asset allocation (the 22% energy allocation initially may seem high but might be good for the eventual rebound). However, I don't have the knowledge on how the Covered Call part of ZWC may impact the comparison with CDZ.

CDZ is down 43% YTD, pays a current yield of 6%, but has a slightly more diverse asset allocation and has performed better than ZWC over a 3 year period, but has a higher Beta.

I entered the comparison exercise believing I would conclude to sell ZWC. Now however I might just periodically top it up. Your thoughts please?

Thanks....Steve

Q: I noticed that you have suggested adding a 4% position in ZRE. Do you have any concerns of how real estate will hold up in the face of all of this?

Q: Retired, dividend-income investor. I own ZWC and ZRE and am thinking of topping them up. Their share prices have obviously taken a hit and buying more at these lower prices with magnified dividend yields "appears" attractive.

What I am wondering is related to the continuation of the dividend. By my numbers, ZRE is yielding 7.4% and ZWC 10.5% (annual dividend divided by current stock price). Am I correct that the yields are supported by not only the underlying security, but the covered call option? What happens if the underlying security reduces their dividend? I guess my real question is...is there a risk of the ETF dividend being cut?

Thanks...Steve

Q: Hi 5iR Team, I'm totally confused by your recent addition of ZRE to the portfolios. It is my thought that REITS will be among the hardest hit of all sectors. Mortgages will not get paid, many small businesses will collapse, rents will not get paid, lack of mall shopping will mean some malls will go under, Sr's who depend on REIT income will be effected, etc., etc.. Why would I invest in ZRE? What numbers am I missing in this equation?
Thanks Team. Cheers, Chris

Q: Just read your March 17 Stock Market Update article regarding "Where is the bottom???" and the bear Market histories. Very enlightening.

I have been almost entirely in cash for over a month now and noted your portfolio changes. You mentioned Adding a new 4% position of BMO Equal Weight REITs ETF (ZRE) in the Income Portfolio. ZRE has been very steady since inception in 2010 gaining almost 40% over that time period until the recent unprecedented and understandable 37% drop since Jan 31.

My question is where should we park our cash while we wait out this terrible situation? Should we just leave it as cash? Is the BMO ETF a suggestion for a short term hold? I did read your Trade Rationale and was a little confused by your comment "remove some of the 'tail risks' that might be seen if there are issues at any individual company." Am I right in thinking this is in reference to ZRE being an ETF? Apologies for my ignorance.

Thanks for all you do

gm

Q: Both are tracking the last month in a similar downward trend. I understand why CPD is down with a predominance of reset preferreds and lower interest rates. Why is ZRE taking a hit with lower interest rates?

Q: hi 5i .. for a retired income investor, which of these three ETFs would you pick to buy today, given these market conditions, and why ... thanks!