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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: The Market Update and Special Report of March 9, 2020 is necessary reading in these turbulent times. If one already has a full position in any of the listed stocks, is your recommendation to consider them a HOLD, or if and when one feels more comfortable with buying more, would you suggest that we go overweight in that stock and/or sector, even temporarily? Thanks for your insight.
Read Answer Asked by Jerry on March 09, 2020
Q: I have a question about Avalara after reviewing its Annual Report on line on its website. . The audit notes a Material Weakness in Internal Controls over Financial Reporting on page 70 - 71 as follows - "The Company has a material weakness as it does not have adequate controls to effectively design, implement, and operate process-level and information technology controls to sufficiently mitigate risks of material misstatement associated with certain complex business processes and changes in those processes or applicable accounting standards."
On page 68 - 69 is another note by the auditors to the Board on what they call "A Critical Audit Matter" regarding the audit of company revenues as follows - "The processing and recording of revenue, including interfaces between systems and databases, is both manual and automated, and therefore the Company uses a complex set of procedures and systems to generate complete and accurate data to process and record its revenue transactions." As a result much time was spent on verification and they had to bring in professionals with expertise in data analytics to assist with the audit.
I know Avalara is a young company, but should such warnings give me reason to not invest at this time?
Read Answer Asked by Dave on March 09, 2020
Q: What % of an equity portfolio for a 10 year hold would you recommend in precious metals. I am considering Fnv.
What % of tsx composite index is represented by precious metals?
Read Answer Asked by Terry on March 09, 2020
Q: Any idea why ppl which currently yields 5.27% was down last week while the above other defensive stocks were up?
Read Answer Asked by Terry on March 09, 2020
Q: It looks as though utilities, and renewable utilities in particular, have taken off, while Canadian pipelines, which are also traditionally stable investments, are either flat or dropping.
Do you have any comments on whether:
1. this is a short term disparity or a fundamental shift,
2. whether one group is better than the others at current prices, and
3. If the recent drop now otherwise creates a good point of entry for any or all?
Read Answer Asked by Peter on March 09, 2020
Q: Hi there,
When there is a corporate takeover and one receives a fraction of the new shares, that fraction of a new share may be paid out as "cash in lieu". Is that cash in lieu treated as a capital gain/loss or is it considered dividend income?
Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by John on March 09, 2020
Q: Hello Peter and Co,
My 20 year old grandson has opened a TFSA with $22000 in cash, and is asking for advice how to start investing. Our suggestion is that he put a fairly large amount into an index fund ETF, such as VFV, and then buy several individual stocks with the rest. They would be small positions (~$2500 per stock) but a good way for him to start learning, and with markets down, the timing seems quite fortuitous.
He is considering the following:
100 shares VFV: ~$7500
40 shares GSY: ~$2500
35 shares BEP.UN: ~$2500
1 share AMZN: ~$2500 (CAD)
7 shares NVDA: ~$2500 (CAD)
200 shares VET: ~$2500
-------------------------------
TOTAL: ~$20000

We had also suggested CSU, SHOP, KXS, PKI, TTD, GOOG, AAPL, ROKU, FB

What do you think of the above approach, and what changes might you suggest? I realize VET stands out as quite risky, but should probably do well long term.
Are there any sectors or stocks or ETF that you would suggest adding/replacing? Obviously he has a multi-decade time horizon.
Thanks for your sage advice!
Read Answer Asked by Ed on March 09, 2020
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