Investment Q&A

Q: Re answer to Ron's question on bond investment yesterday, it was mentioned "use CBO for better diversification in the corporate sector. There are 'target date' ETFs that provide a diversified pool of bonds maturing in a specific year. They are not perfect but do help to solve this problem a bit."
Can you please expand on the reasons why the target date ETFs are not perfect and the pros and cons between owning CBO and build a ladder using multiple target date ETF? Do they have similar YTM?
With target date ETFs, isn't the initial investment guaranteed plus YTM at maturity; whereas with CBO, after say 5 years, there is no guarantee one will get back the initial investment pending on the bond market and interest rate trend? Thanks for explaining in more details.

Q: Your comments on Syz'results announced this morning. PHM-Have not seen the posted results promised @ its announcement on Feb 11 to be followed by conference call @ 4pm et Feb 11.If available,p;ease comment.Appreciate your usual great comments & services

Q: Could I please have your thoughts on Brookfield's recently announced results. Thank You.

Q: What is your opinion on investing in National Bank? Would a different bank be a better choice?

Q: Hi Peter, I apologize for a general question.
TD Direct Investing (aka TD Waterhouse) has told me that they can "journal entry" my gold stock positions from my CAD margin accounts to a CAD Cash account. The question I'm fussing with is whether the CRA will consider this JE transaction a deemed disposition (for Capital Gains reasons). I'm trying to avoid dealing with the CRA bureaucracy and did a google search to get some insight with no luck. Do you have an opinion on this? Do you know of any chat rooms, websites, other sources where I can get an answer?
Thanks for your patience, Ralph.

Q: would you buy cf at 3.77 or what would you recommend something else

Q: Comments on eps.Thank You.

Q: Hello, thank you for the p / e article. Reading it made me reflect to p / e ratio vs p / cf and p / free cf. I thought professional money managers don t look too much at p / e but use p / free cf to really assess the merit of a company. Can you please comment on that and clarify how it is calculated. My understanding is that cf is net income plus all accounting expenses which are not really paid such as amortization and free cash flow involves reducing the cf by deducting all capex necessary to maintain your asset base. Please add some subtlety to your explanation if you have time. Thanks.

Q: Just Energy released 3rd quarter results and the share price got clobbered yesterday. What is your take on the results?

Q: Could you please update on alexco, have moved up a lot but don't know why? Volume hasn't changed much and I don't see any news.
Should I sell 1/2 position after such a nice move?

Q: I am sure the gold bugs at Sprott are celebrating.
This stock has gone up alot for me and my position has grown from 1% to 6%. I think the company still looks very good however and there has been no insider sells yet. Any thing you see differently. I will probablly trim some and start buying some other beaten down sectors.

Q: I am hoping to retire in the next couple of years. If I can get a 4% return on my portfolio, I believe I'll be in great shape for many years. Recognizing that National is not your favourite bank, I can't help but look at the 6% return and wonder why I wouldn't buy this as a solid income producer. Canadian Banks (including NA)are very well regulated and if they all go under, we'll all have very big problems. Am I missing something or perhaps to ask the question another way, do you see a better place to get a fairly secure 6% return for many years into the future?

Q: Baught AQN a few days ago for my TFSA. I am looking for long term gains. Presently I am down by 10%, should I keep or switch to another stock

Q: Good afternoon:

Would it be a wise more to borrow $100,000 on a line of credit and invest in the Model Balanced Equity Portfolio at this time.

We have zero debt are semi retired with indexed pensions.

Thank you

Mike

Q: Good afternoon,
My wife's non-registered account holds ARX, BNE, and VET with still a capital gain in each of these positions. Would you recommend holding these positions for the longer term or liquidating now?
Thank you.

Q: You previously mentioned that VET has "a fairly large debt level based on cash flow". and that "in the 3Q had $122 million in cash flow and paid $26 million in dividends, for a ratio of 21%".
Have these numbers changed at all - ie.- how much cushion does VET have to continue paying their dividend at the current level going forward or has their ability to continue "not cutting" their dividend been compromised?

Q: Hello Peter and team:
Are we finally here for the so called ascent of Gold? Or is this another "teaser" by Gold? Worth dipping into Gold either as GLDor XGD? I know you prefer GLD but if I were to stocks what your favourites?

Q: I own aginco eagle, would like too add 2 gold companies with more torque,i was thinking of Alamos and richmont, what do you suggest. dave

Q: Undiscovered oil is owned by the provinces and in the case of the Artic by Canada. The price is ridiculously low. Should we not be seeking some kind of political ban on future exploration to protect our children's interest in this resource? If we leave the pricing mechanism to the market and the market price is controlled by sovereigns (Saudi Arabia, Russa, Venezula etc)then you would think there has to be a floor price that Canada should set. I'm sure this question becomes mute when oil rebounds but nevertheless world markets are being adversely effected by someone trying to corner the oil market. Perhaps oil should be classified as too big to fail.

Q: With the continuing decline in the share price of Canadian banks, would you consider ZWB to be a better alternative for bank exposure at this time for the next 6 to 12 months ?

Thanks