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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 have just about forgotten why I bought into the silver craze (FR). It was self-explanatory when FR zoomed to $23. I thought about selling, but blinked--had I bought this as a speculation, or an investment? Now it's back down not far from where I bought in. For context, it's a small holding. I generally buy and hold 5i BE stocks and have reason to believe in the long-term story of my holdings. FR is the exception.

Can you give me an analysis of whether you think it is prudent to hold FR, given the macro environment--and more importantly, why? If silver is a useful 'hedge' for any nasty looming risk or otherwise good to have, would something less volatile (SLW? No etfs please) be better?

On the macro point, I can't piece together what silver hedges me against. As a non-yielding asset it seems to be sensitive to talk of a rate hike (going up when Fed didn't raise rates). But it soared along with gold earlier this year seemingly regardless of interest rates. Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Read Answer Asked by Chris on September 23, 2016
Q: For simplicity, the following list of stocks are close to equal weight in my RRSP portfolio. I want to add another full position of one stock. I am thinking of CM for dividend or TMR for gold exposure or another suggestion you may have. I included my TFSA holdings so that you can see all of my equities.
RRSP
Energy-ENF/RRX/WCP
IT-ESL/SYZ
Industrials-EIF/MAL/RBA/SIS/WSP
Utilities-BEP.UN/EMA
Consumer-MG/NFI
Financials-BNS/SLF
Health Care-SIA
Telecos-BCE/T
Materials-CHE.UN/SJ
Realestate-BPY.UN

TFSA
ADW.A/CCL.B/CSH.UN/DSG/ECI/GUD/IPL/PUR

Thanks and have a good weekend.
Read Answer Asked by Roy on September 23, 2016
Q: Hi, Can you please comment on Marco Polo sale of 4.5 mln shares on a privately arranged bought deal. (Any idea of the price?) I understand that they still will own 6.5 mln shares. This is the 1st and largest shareholder deciding to monetize a sizable portion of their holding on the heels of the company's 2nd largest private equity shareholder slowly and contantly offloading large blocks of their shares over past 6-9 months. Is there a theme here? New Jersey issue is still an overhang. What are your thoughts ? Thanks
Read Answer Asked by rajeev on September 23, 2016
Q: 1) The board of directors is staffed with a lot of what seems to be high level financial people with a lot of experience, what I did not see was a high level IT person, which for a company who is selling IT solutions for banks seemed a little remiss. My question was "how can you manage that portion of the company in a very specialized area if not even one person on the board knows anything about IT?

2)There was nothing in the literature about the security of their IT platforms. In the age where IT security and on line financial fraud is a huge concern, I thought it should have at least a nod in the presentation.

Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by John on September 22, 2016
Q: In this morning's Globe FN is touted as being a future "dividend aristocrat".

The article went on to state: "It is dominant among mortgage brokers, of which about one-third of Canadians seeking mortgages utilize. The company has close to a 20-per-cent market share there.

First National has shown good capital gains and strong dividend growth. “The company has been a solid, under-the-radar executor of a simple business strategy: become the most trusted and efficient operator in the mortgage broker channel.”
Would you agree with these comments?
Do you consider FN to be a "buy" at this time?
Read Answer Asked by shirley on September 22, 2016
Q: I submitted this question last Thursday and received the auto response that my question had been submitted but since I haven't received a response I will try again.
My question relate to the income portfolio. We own many stock from the 3 portfolios but now that we are about to retire, we are trying to mimic the income portfolio. I understand that if one already owned ET, SPB, VNR, and DH that we should stick with them however, if one was constructing an income portfolio today can you suggest substitutes for these names? Also, given the dividend that ZCL pays, would it be suitable for an income portfolio?
Thank you.
Maggie
Read Answer Asked by Maggie on September 22, 2016