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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: In an answer to John you stated that you would expect ZWU " would likely retain its' share price better than UMAX " . Though UMAX hasn't been around long enough for a comparison I think one can speculate on what return might be expected as fifty percent of their portfolio are utility stocks with no calls written on them . So I would think the capital gain would be fifty percent of the utilities index. For example if the index returned 8% annually UMAX should return 4% which would reflect the percentage of the portfolio that is stocks { half the portfolio }. I would think that might be a good educated guess ..... ZWU on the other hand has been around for a while. So my question is has ZWU historically beaten fifty percent of the annual return of the utilities index ? And what has their historical annual percentage been compared to the utilities index ? ......
What I am shooting for here is a way to calculate whether the difference between ZWU's return and the utilities index return is enough compensate for a 5.6% lag in yield between it and UMAX ...... Thanks Garth .....
Read Answer Asked by Garth on August 29, 2023
Q: Wow, 13.7 % is almost too good to be true ; is it ?
This would seem ideal for my RRIF ; a very high yield on solid Canadian companies. Will the covered call aspect make distributions fluctuate ?
I need clarification on the last sentence of your response to John today:

“ZWU will likely retain its share price better than UMAX. “

Are you saying ZWU will not go down as much as UMAX or go up as much ( or both ) ?

Thanks . Derek.
Read Answer Asked by Derek on August 29, 2023
Q: These are my wife's holdings in her non-registered account. Held these for very long time. EMP.A I bought for her maybe 5 years ago when down a lot. Sitting on a fair bit of cash. Thinking of adding to banks at some point (recession?) or adding BCE and EIF? T is small holding at 2000 shs. Comments/suggestions please. Oh, own ETF ZUE for quite a while also. RRSP has other banks +++
Read Answer Asked by James on August 29, 2023
Q: I am looking at yield opportunities in preferreds given where we are in the rate cycle. Could you please comment on buying high yield individual preferreds from stable companies such as Enb ridge as a strategy, and also why their spreads vary so much. In these two releases the yield for the same company goes from the 6 to 9% range, when the stock yields in the 7s.
Thanks!
Read Answer Asked by Peter on August 29, 2023
Q: Hi, what is your opinion on these minimum raté reset prefs? An 8% yield seems interesting given the solidity of the issuers. Am I wrong to assume that they will one day go back to 25$ ? Even if it takes 5-10 years the total return potential and risk/return ratio seems pretty good (especially in a non registered account). Thanks!
Read Answer Asked by anthony on August 29, 2023
Q: Subscribers sometimes ask 5i for the current P/E versus the historical P/E range on a particular stock. Is there a reliable, free and user friendly source of historical P/E ranges on Canadian stocks?
Read Answer Asked by Edward on August 28, 2023
Q: I keep seeing and hearing questions about interest rates going down. I'm in my 70's. I had my first mortgage in 1985 at somewhere between 10 and 12% after my family helped me scrap together the 25% down required at that time.
I think interest rates are just normalizing (see https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-210-x/2010000/t098-eng.htm) and I do not understand why anyone would think rates would go lower? Could you explain?
Read Answer Asked by Stephen on August 28, 2023
Q: If you had $20,000 to invest today for and Income with some growth investor in an otherwise well diversified portfolio, what would you pick or just add to?
Read Answer Asked by Martin on August 28, 2023
Q: 5i team: a 10 years comparative chart of these 4 banks reveal a strong tendency of BNS to lag the rest and NA to grow faster. Is BNS having challenges in its management , or is Latin America investments pulling them down ? , Will they ever recover ? , would you recommend instead NA for a better growth ?, what is the downside of owning NA ?, thanks !!
Read Answer Asked by Alejandro (Alex) on August 28, 2023