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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 regards to Austins question,the two split shares above will quit paying a dividend on the common shares when the Nav for the common shares plus the preferred drops below $15.00.you can keep track of the Nav on their website.Dgs has been by far my best income stock,buying in for an average $6.94,gives me an annual return of 17.3% on original purchase.Present Nav. is $17.30 according to Brompton's
website.DFN pays a lower dividend,but has a bigger cushion in it's NAV.I think these are excellent vehicle for income as long as you keep track of the NAV value!!
Read Answer Asked by terry on December 05, 2017
Q: A couple of others do not display above, MKZ.un, BSO, LCS & OSP. Is there a reasonable amount of safety in any of these Very High Di Payers? If a stock pays a Dividend > 8%....who cares if there is NO appreciation, as long as risk is limited.

Thanks as always!
Read Answer Asked by Austin on December 05, 2017
Q: I want to give my take on DFN, a split share investment vehicle. I realize 5i and probably every other good financial advisor does not favor this vehicle and would not buy this for their clients. Yet people are buying this product every day.

Please let me know how sound these thoughts are or if you have anything to add.

As an investment DFN is a road full of potholes. For one thing, the dividend could be cut off completely for as long as two years, although DFN has never discontinued its dividend. Along with that, the share price could plunge 30% or more. As well, the share price will probably degrade over the years.

Who would benefit from DFN? Someone who absolutely needs the 11% dividend every month in order to pay the bills.

However, they need to be cushioned against the potholes. They need a mental cushion that will allow them to withstand sharp drops in the share price, as well as survive a disappearance of the dividend for possibly as long as two years.

Therefore, besides the right mental attitude, they need a cash back-up that would replace an absence of the dividend for two years. On a 100k investment they would need about 20k in cash to replace two years of cancelled dividends.

They also need to realize that at the end of the day, perhaps only half of their original investment may be passed on to heirs.

I can see people in their 70s and 80s who are prepared for the aforementioned potholes buying DFN, so there may be a demographic tailwind holding up DFN for the next several years. Thank you for allowing my view to be heard, and I appreciate your response.

Read Answer Asked by Jerry on September 05, 2017
Q: Hallo I5, is there a tax advantage between dfn, df and zwu, would you please rate or rank them from safety point of view. Perhaps suggesting a couple better ones. I do not have any India holding. Would you consider either of the above safe with reasonable MER, perhaps a suggesting a couple better ones. Many thanks, J.A.P. Burlington
Read Answer Asked by Joseph on May 08, 2017
Q: You stated recently: (the investment strategy of DFN) "and the strategy could be quite easily duplicated." Holding the banks in a self-constructed portfolio would indeed be easy, but it would produce a 4% yield, similar to ZEB. How would you construct the portfolio, as you suggested.

Thank you for your services, esp of stocks not usually covered by analysts.
Read Answer Asked by Kurt W on March 28, 2017
Q: Being retired I like the idea of funds that use covered calls to boost dividends. I have a limited amount of these funds because I do not want to miss the upside. However, if you assume that, in general, valuations are stretched right now, would the attractiveness of these funds not increase? In addition they are a natural source of diversification.
This question was prompted by a recent response to a question on DFN. My RBC website shows a monthly dividend yield of 10 cents or 11 % annually. Am I correct to assume that this is a calculation based on history and that if I bought this fund now, the actual distribution I will get will depend on a number of market factors and there is no way to actually predict it.
Thanks in advance and congratulations to Ryan.
Read Answer Asked by Don on March 17, 2017
Q: This is a comment on Jerry's question this morning. DFN holds a portfolio of 15 high quality large cap companies. Its net asset value now is about $ 19. The preferred shares can be surrendered at maturity on December 2019. If he is comfortable with holding these preferred shares until maturity and getting a 5% yield I think the dividends and the redemption price of $ 10 are reasonably safe. It will take a total market collapse to reduce the net asset value to below $ 10. There are many split preferred with different maturities, yields and risks. Considering their price stability and yield, with the right choice, I think these split preferred are better than holding GIC's or money market funds.
Read Answer Asked by Saad on March 15, 2017
Q: Please don't answer this with the standard reply about split corporations. I know 5i is not crazy about split corporations. No one ever mentions the preferred share side of the split. Everyone talks about the ultra-high yielding Class A shares that pay over 10%. That's not what I'm asking about.

The preferred shares yield about 5%. DFN.PR.A was priced at about 10.50 in 2004 and today its price is 10.34. There was a 30% dip in 2008. Otherwise the graph is amazingly level, showing only a fraction of the losses "normal" preferred shares showed in 2015-16. Also, distributions have never been suspended. A graph of dfn.pr.a compared to the preferred share etfs CPD and HPR may be surprising. The question is, How dangerous are preferred shares of a split corporation? Certainly they have to be safer than the Class A, high yielding shares. Seems like a good place to park some cash, which is what I've been doing. Thank you for your thoughts.
Read Answer Asked by Jerry on March 15, 2017
Q: In your answer to my question yesterday you noted "If the NAV falls below a certain level (found in the prospectus), the payout will be cut and that will likely be a huge hit to returns."

To be more precise the prospectus says:

"No regular monthly dividends will be paid on the Class A Shares in any month as long as any dividends on the Preferred Shares are then in arrears or so long as the Net Asset Value per Unit is equal to or less than $15.00 (calculated as described under Details of the Offering Valuation of Assets ). Additionally, it is currently intended that no special year-end dividends will be paid if after payment of such a dividend the Net Asset Value
per Unit (calculated as described under Details of the Offering Valuation of Assets ) would be less than $25.00."

When I look at the actual dividend history, I see that DFN has consistently paid dividends of $0.10 per share every month since inception -- including 2008 & 2009 when the markets were so unsettled.

I also note that DFN shares have traded below $15 since Jan 2008, reaching a low of %4.66 in 2008 and trading in a range of $10 - $12.50 since July 1, 2009.


My questions are:

1. Does it seem like they like have more flexibility to continue dividends than the prospectus indicates?
2. Given the this history of consistent dividends over a fairly long period, covering the scary 2008 -- 2009, why would you not consider DFN a screaming BUY?




Read Answer Asked by Douglas on August 09, 2016
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