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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: I am very impressed with your ability to limit your balanced portfolio to 25 stocks. Currently I hold the above six stocks in the financial sector whereas you hold three. The only one with large imbedded gains is REF.UN which I have held for over twenty years. one third of our total portfolio follows your balanced portfolio. The other 2/3s is managed for us and includes a large allocation to canadian banks. I am willing to sacrifice some stability for more growth. Would you consolidate any of the above stocks to simplify the portfolio? Below is my current allocations. My bias is to keeping REF, GSY and ECN.
2.23% aif
3.16% ref
2.36% ecn
1.90% fsz
2.54% gsy
1.86% slf
Read Answer Asked by Paul on June 08, 2017
Q: RE: June 08, 2017 - Asked by Jerry - NEO >>>>

Looks like I won't be getting quotes directly from Google any time soon. Received the following reply to my email from NEO:
Thank you for your market data inquiry. I can confirm that we have engaged Google Finance with respect to making NEO Exchange market data available on their platform, but they have been less than responsive. Most global data vendors do currently support NEO data. If you are inclined, please feel free to contact them directly with your request, as there are no applicable fees for them to make NEO data available.
Read Answer Asked by Paul on June 08, 2017
Q: As I am over 55 and live in BC I qualify to defer my property taxes until sale of our home. I will have to pay .7% interest on the deferred funds this year and the rate can change yearly. I was thinking of depositing the equivalent funds (about $2500 per year) my TFSA each year as i have unused room and I was wondering what recommendation you would make for a reasonably safe investment for these funds for the long term until sale of our home when they will come due along with interest.
Read Answer Asked by John on June 08, 2017
Q: I have BCE and RCI.B. I had thought of dropping Rogers and buying Telus, now Rogers is moving somewhat. Would you recommend I replace one of the two with Telus? Keep the two I have? or invest in all three as I am underweight Telcos?

Thank you for this and all your answers to others
Read Answer Asked by Paul on June 08, 2017
Q: Hi Peter, Ryan, and Team,

I understand the rationale for different weighting of sectors among the three portfolios. You've stated in the past that we should look at our entire portfolio to "determine where we stand", and I've done this for my RRIF, my wife's RRSP, both of our TFSA's and our joint Margin Account. I use Google Sheets to track this entire portfolio. My question is this: In a 'composite" portfolio, how can one determine the appropriate sector weighting, or is it purely a personal choice? For example, Technology is 21.38% of the Balanced Equity Portfolio, 32.05% of the Growth Portfolio, and 7.26% of the Income Portfolio. In our 'composite' portfolio, Technology has a weighting of 10.83% of the portfolio's equity portion. So I suppose my question would be "How do I know that my weightings are appropriate, and once weightings are chosen, do I stick with them? Or should they vary for different points in the economic cycle?"

I have another question that I'm hoping can be answered by one of our computer-savvy members: As mentioned, I use Google Sheets to track our portfolio which can "capture" the stock price for popular indexes like the TSX. However, there's a "new kid on the block", namely the Aequitas Neo index, and I haven't been able to "capture" prices to be inserted into Google Sheets automatically. As an example, a Canadian Money Saver top-rated ETF, (CLU) is no longer listed on the TSX, but is now listed on the Aequitas Neo index. Do any 5i members know how to accomplish this "price capturing"?

Given that there are several questions in this long-winded question, please deduct as many question credits as you deem necessary. Thanks for all your help! Now I'm going to watch Peter on BNN which I PVR'd earlier!
Read Answer Asked by Jerry on June 08, 2017