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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: A huge thank you to 5i! I joined in January 2014 and transferred my RESP which was previously invested in a Cdn Dividend Mutual Fund to a self directed account. With the assistance of 5i's Q&A, I managed to grow the $110,000 in January 2014 substantially. I have put my two children through university, one at a cost of $91,000 and the other at a cost of $127,000 (different U's, different programs). The current balance in the RESP is $70,400. For the majority of the past 6 years, I held approx 25% in VSP, the balance were all stocks (20) that were recommended by 5i, not all were huge winners, I may have even had a loss or two, but I did purchase BYD, CSU, FSV, CIGI, ZQQ. I did not start my RESP until my daughters were 3 & 1 and it was a struggle to put $5,000 a year into the RESP for many years. When my daughters started U, my rule was to sell enough stocks in May for the next year expenses and keep the balance fully invested until the following May. Perhaps the market did extraordinary well over the past 6+ years, I don't know, but I do know that I could not have done it without 5i's assistance.
Read Answer Asked by stephen on September 09, 2020
Q: REITs are beaten down. For a long term investor who wants real estate exposure, is this a time to get in? Can you suggest (1) two or three REITs or other entities and (2) an ETF for this? Thank you!
Read Answer Asked by Chris on September 08, 2020
Q: I have a question about 2846 - Softbank - SFTBY

Dear 5i,

A recent article in the Financial Times states that the latest increase in many of the high technology stocks is related to Softbank purchasing a high volume of derivatives lately. Can you explain in lay mans terms how this can cause stock prices to go up and how this can cause stock prices to go down rapidly. I don't really understand option trading and would appreciate your comments.

thanks for the great service!
Read Answer Asked by Ian on September 08, 2020
Q: Hi Team,
Is there a ETF similar to VGRO but sold in $US without converting to Cdn? I have some cash on the US side of my RRSP and like the set up of VGRO but would rather not convert back to Cdn at this point.
Read Answer Asked by Todd on September 08, 2020
Q: Hi 5i,
ACB stock has been in a continued freefall since the reverse split back in May.
With regards to ACB’s upcoming earnings, If they meet current earnings expectations would you expect that to provide some stability to the share price going forward?
Would you consider ACB investable at this point or would you be a seller. As an alternative to ACB what would be your top 3 picks in this space - USA or Canada.
Thx
Read Answer Asked by jim on September 08, 2020
Q: SU had been performing poorly with price back to April levels. Warren Buffett added more of the stock recently and company seems to have a strong balance sheet. How much do you think the stock is undervalued at current levels? And how do you see vaccine news affect its recovery? Thanks a lot.
Read Answer Asked by micheal on September 08, 2020
Q: As younger person starting off their professional career, I am now contributing to the federal public service pension plan and look forward to benefitting (defined benefits) from that in 25+ years. I am hoping you can provide some guidance and insight on how I best manage my own self directed portfolio in combination with contributing to the pension. How should I be looking at equity to fixed income ratios as well as sector allocations between my own directed holdings and that of the pension. Or is it better to treat them independently? As a subscriber to your portfolio analytics, I am just trying to figure out how to balance everything as I continue to develop my first portfolio during these turbulent times.

The pension website breaks its net assets per asset class (not broken down in an easy format to compare with portfolio analytics) as: 47.8% capital markets, 14.2% private equity, 14% real estate, 10.8% infrastructure, 7.8% credit investments, 4.5% natural resources, 0.6% complementary portfolio, and 0.4% other.

I also just wanted to say that subscribing to 5i has been the best investment decision I have ever made. You provide an amazing service. I just wanted to highlight the significant financial and investment education you provide through your answers, blogs, monthly updates, etc. These have been extremely valuable to me as a new investor.
Read Answer Asked by Justin on September 08, 2020
Q: A number of Canadian REITs are spinoffs of the properties of big Canadian companies. How do I, as a potential REIT investor, have confidence that the bigger parent (i.e. Magna, Loblaws, Canadian Tire etc.) will not strong-arm the REIT when it comes to rent negotiations etc. ?
Read Answer Asked by Kevin on September 08, 2020
Q: Hello 5i Team
I own several Brookfield entities (BAM.A, BEP/BEPC, BIP/BIPC, BPY/BPYU and BPO preferred) in various accounts based on tax effectiveness/reporting (based on my own interpretation).
1 - What would be a reasonable percentage of an entire portfolio (non-registered, RRSP and TFSA) that should be allocated to the "Brookfield Empire"? My thoughts are an investor should have no more 10 % of an entire portfolio invested in the various Brookfield entities as an optimum amount.
2 - What would be the absolute maximum of an entire portfolio (non-registered, RRSP and TFSA) that should be allocated to the "Brookfield Empire"? My thoughts are an investor should have no more than 15 % of an entire portfolio invested in the various Brookfield entities as an absolute amount.
3 - What would be the allocation of the amount invested to each of the Brookfield entities in the portfolio amount allocated to the Brookfield entities (i.e. BAM.A 25%; BEP/BEPC 25 %; BIP/BIPC 25 %; BPY/BPYU 20 %; BPO Preferred 5 %).
I have not included BBU as part of the question as I don't see the need to invest in it.
Thanks
Read Answer Asked by Stephen on September 08, 2020
Q: I am trying to identify one and only one Telecom co. to invest across the US or Canada. According to Morningstar data, Verizon has the best ROE, ROIC and interest coverage metrics (and the lowest P/E apart from AT&T). Would you consider VZ the best overall for a long term investment? Thank you for your excellent service as usual.
Read Answer Asked by Christian on September 08, 2020
Q: The rise in stock prices of a few mega-caps (Apple, Facebook, Amazon, etc.) has distorted the concept of broad diversification through index investing (S&P 500). While the index rises, many index constituents have performed poorly.

Some ETF providers have created funds that hold a subset of the components of existing indices. Inclusion is based on their concept of company "quality". Presumably this eliminates poor performers and results in a "better" fund.
Examples are: ZUQ, SPHQ, QUAL, ZGQ, ZEQ.

Please comment on this idea of "quality" subsets of existing indexes. Do you consider this to be a useful investing strategy? Would you consider the examples listed to be preferable investments compared to the broader indices?

Thank you.
IslandJohn
Read Answer Asked by John on September 08, 2020
Q: I have a TFSA with about $33K that I plan to give to my daughter for graduate school in about 2 years. ZWU looks like a good investment, with YTD return of -14.25% and yield of about 7.95%. Would appreciate your comments on ZWU and any other suggestions you could provide.
Thanks!
Read Answer Asked by Grant on September 08, 2020
Q: Excuse the question as it's not directly tied to Canadian stocks, but the Canadian Real Estate Market. Do you see a drop in prices coming, in light of Covid, the upcoming end of Mortgage Deferrals and CERB payments?
Read Answer Asked by Michael on September 08, 2020
Q: Hi 5i,
Somehow I let myself get seduced by Corus and bought in some time ago, and I'm now sitting on a fairly large (but so far unrealized) loss in a registered account. I've kept thinking there's potential and I'll at least get to the point where I'm only down 50% and will unload then, but things only seem to get worse. So my questions:
Now that it's so cheap is there any reasonable prospect that Corus might be seen as worthwhile takeover target by anyone out there such that the stock could possibly get a bump, or should I just put that thought down to wishful thinking, take my lumps and put what (little) money I'll get from selling into something with better prospects?
And who might such a white knight be, if you think there could be one?
Thanks,
Peter
Read Answer Asked by Peter on September 08, 2020
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