skip to content
  1. Home
  2. >
  3. Investment Q&A
You can view 3 more answers this month. Sign up for a free trial for unlimited access.

Investment Q&A

Not investment advice or solicitation to buy/sell securities. Do your own due diligence and/or consult an advisor.

Q: Retired, conservative dividend-income investor with a "buy-and-hold & trim-add around a core position" strategy. At times like these, I take a fresh look at my holdings and ask two key questions. #1 = are there any of my equity holdings that have alarm bells going off? #2 = how safe are the dividends (knowing that no dividend is 100% secure)? The portfolio capital may rise or fall, but it is the continuation of the dividend that is more important.

For asset allocation purposes related to individual stocks (as opposed to sector allocations), I use the following:
5% targets = AQN, BCE, BNS, PBH, RY, TRP, WSP
4% targets = AD, AW, CSH, NWC
2% targets = LNF, MG, NTR
ETF targets = roughly 3-7%

Q#1 = are there any of these equities that you hear alarm bells?
Q#2 = are there any of these equities where you foresee dividend risk?
Q#3 = any thoughts on how I have my asset allocations set up (knowing it is a very personal decision?

Take a bunch of credits. Thanks for your help...Steve
Read Answer Asked by Stephen on March 06, 2020
Q: If you were to choose between the 3 above. How would you rank them in terms of security (first and foremost) and total performance for a 3-5 year hold?

Thanks to all for your fantastic service and a very successful year in all your endeavour.
Y
Read Answer Asked by Yves on January 06, 2020
Q: Hi 5i .. i hold these REITs currently: Bpy.un (1.5% of my portfolio), car.un (3%), chp.un (2%), crt.un (1.5%), iip.un (1.7%) ... to simplify things, and diversify further, would it make sense to sell these and just buy an etf like VRE or ZRE? (for a 60 yr old div investor .. which is preferable?) ... or, is the status quo the way to go? thx!
Read Answer Asked by Patrik on September 10, 2019
Q: Good Morning,
Putting some cash to wok in my wife's TFSA, long term (20+) year hold. She is a buy and hold long term investor, looks at her portfolio once or twice a year type. Would you suggest ZRE or would you buy 3-4 REITS? I like the equal weighting of ZRE. It would be approx 10% weighting in her TFSA. Thanks again.
Read Answer Asked by Darby on September 06, 2019
Q: I am a retired conservative dividend income investor. I've held Sentry Global REIT for years (love the 6% distribution) and have been monitoring its performance as compared to ZRE and XRE. I didn't mind paying the 2.4% MER as long as it was outperforming. However, on a total return basis, Sentry has lagged significantly and I have sold it today.

With interest rates appearing to be on the decline and, more importantly, for portfolio asset allocation, I still want to have REIT exposure. I am leaning towards ZRE, due to the equal weight nature (as opposed to XRE).

I am normally a long term buy-and-hold investor. ZRE has had a good run recently, but I think the future still looks good, due to the macro environment. Your thoughts?

My target REIT allocation is 7.5%. I also have a position in CSH.

Thanks for your help...Steve
Read Answer Asked by Stephen on August 30, 2019
Q: I'm interested in REITs in general (looking for income as a new retiree), but would rather invest in an ETF than try to pick winners and losers myself. RIT appears to have a good track record and yield of 4.68%, yet net assets are just under $400M. Is this relatively small asset base cause for concern? Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Maureen on February 22, 2019
Q: I would like to buy a REIT etf for my TFSA, to capture some tax-free income, and trying to decide among XRE, ZRE and VRE. What would be your recommendation? Or is your choice none of he above but something else?
Read Answer Asked by M on January 21, 2019
Q: Good afternoon,

I am looking to add a REIT ETF to my portfolio (ZRE is my preferred), and am wondering on a historical bases if REITS right now are trading at a cheap/expensive valuation? Your website has the PE ratio at 7.8x and PB ration at 1.08x- that seems cheap? How does that compare with historical norms? Only wondering as ZRE seems to be trading not too far from it's all-time high, reached a month or two ago.

Would you expect reits to drop as interest rates rise over the coming months/years?

Thanks for the answer.
Read Answer Asked by Jeff on November 09, 2018
Q: The majority of my portfolio is invested in the TSX 60 through XIU. I am working on diversifying my portfolio and thought I would start off with the Real Estate sector and am considering ZRE.

Would you have any issues about selling about $13,000 of XIU to buy ZRE and achieve a 5% allocation in the Real Estate sector?

Also, I noticed that ZRE was dropped from the Model Income Portfolio in July 2017. Do you have any issues with ZRE specifically?
Read Answer Asked by Ray on October 22, 2018
Q: I currently don't have any REIT exposure and think I should focus on a broad ETF for more safety and diversification as opposed to some of the smaller cap REIT's I have previously held although they do have much higher yields I am concerned about the risk exposure. Would this be a good time to start a position in ZRE and/or do you have another suggestion?
Thanks,
Craig
Read Answer Asked by Craig on March 20, 2018
Q: I am retired living on dividend income. I am interested in ZWU to increase my dividend income with its yield of 6.30%.
However, I noticed that it's cash distribution has been decreasing since Jan 2017. How is its cash distribution determined? With rising interest rates, will it's cash distribution continue to decrease? What income etf yielding over 4.5% would you recommend in this market? What percent position would you recommend for income ETFs?
Read Answer Asked by Curtis on January 29, 2018
Looking for more? Sign up for a FREE 14 day trial! No credit card required

We invite you to sign up for a 14 day free trial of 5i Research!
Experience all the benefits and tools we have to offer; stock research, model portfolios, Q&A with our experts, and so much more. Join a community of like-minded investors today!