Investment Q&A

Q: Peter,

I am being pitched an Insured Retirement Plan by a potential Financial Advisor. This particular case involves a plan from Canada Life that has apparently been around for 165 years or something. I believe the product is the "Retirement Income Enhancer" and the basic idea is that you have to contribute for 20 years and then after that you can draw income or leave the money in longer and then draw on the plan and/or use bank loans to fund your retirement using the plan value to support the loan. It also has death benefits/life insurance as well.

I am curious if you have any thoughts or experience with plans like this. It seems like a lot of money to contribute to get not that much income and your plan is underwater for 20 years before your plan value matches what you've put it. I am concerned about putting a ton of money into savings that can't be touched if bad things happen. I also feel like contributing the amount required to make a plan like this worth it would stop or hinder my ability to prepay my mortgage early. Mortgage is the only debt I have and I like the idea of retiring that debt early to make me "invincible" financially (to the extent that being all cash, no debt acheives that).

Your thoughts would be much appreciated.

Q: Big news this morning, about splitting the company into parts. Comments? ( And if many people have asked this, please ignore this and charge me a question anyway!)

Q: Hi guys,

I have an index portfolio set up for my son - 1/3 Canada TDB900, 1/3 US TDB902 (S&P 500 unhedged) and 1/3 International TDB911. Given the rise of the US currency vs. the CDN $, would it be prudent to flip all of TDB902 to TDB904? Would you do a 50/50 split between TDB902 and TDB904? I guess I could ask the same concerning TDB911 and TDB905.

Thanks!

Aaron

Q: I currently own Fortis, Emara and Canadian Utiliites. I am considering ZUT but am looking for a dividend grower. I see their 5 year dividend growth rate is negative ( G & M watchlist ). when I look at the dividend growth of some of the stocks in the ETF this does not make sense. Many have positive dividend growth over this period.
Is there any reason I would not expect the dividend growth to be weighted average of the underlying holdings less the MER of .62%?

Can you think of any other reason not to buy ZUT for utility exposure ( as opposed to the individual stocks )

Many thanks as always.

Paul

Q: What is the valuation like on Dirtt? What is the future expected rate and overall is it cheap, fair or overvalued for growth in the next 5 years. Thank you!

Q: Hello Peter
I own a large poition of my portfolio in the MAW150 fund , it has been down about 9 % this year 2016 so far. Should i be worried, or contuine to hold for the long term ?
Thanks

Q: Hi
What is thoughts on this company ?

Q: Would you please list your top five utility picks for income investors? Many thanks,
Peggy

Q: Hi Peter, Considering current downturn I am thinking of putting some cash to work. Can you please give me *top* 5 names from your growth/model portfolio considering a 10 year hold(whose valuations are very attractive at the moment on a risk adjusted return basis)?

Q: I got a fresh infusion of money in my RRSP. I am thinking of adding some positions which have been beaten up badly. Should I keep some of this amount in cash for opportunities or invest it all. If you suggest investing What should be the order I should buy from among the following companies:

KXS
CSU
ESL
ATD
ITP
CCL
BYD
MDA
GIB
OTC
CIG
FSV
LNR

Q: Good Morning
I have purchased the PHN Hi Yield Mutual Bond fund a couple of years ago and it has lost approximately 12% of its value. I noted that some of the top holdings are related to the energy sector such as Savanna, Gibson, Baytex, Trinidad Drilling etc.
Can you please comment whether I should hold or sell this mutual fund?
Can the value of this fund decline further if some of the companies included in the top holdings list like Baytex go bankrupt??
Is the ranking of 4 stars out of 5 by Morningstar for this mutual fund of any significance?
Thanks

Q: I still hold the stock. I did not sell when you advised. They halted the trading last week. Is this company bankrupt? I had $10000 worth stock and it shows $950-ish on my trading account? Can I sell it somehow or does it have zero value?

Q: Comment: before buying Boeing, please consider following:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-probe-sec-idUSKCN0VK1R7

"Boeing shares drop on accounting fears, competitive threats"

Q: Not so much a question but an insight into how a Company should be run. Last dividend payout from Grenvillewas late in my I Trade account, I phoned ITrade, they had no idea why. I have my Grandsons' paper route money invested in GRC and they missed their payouts too so I contacted Genville's Customer Relations by email they responded immediately that they had paid CSD and that ITrade must be to blame. Another phone call to ITrade, still no idea. CSD contacted ITrade and dividends were paid. The surprising part was Bill Tharp the CEO phoned me at 7pm BC time to apologize for ITrade's problems He said he had personally looked into the problem and hoped I had not been inconvenienced and also that it would not happen again. It was NOT the Company's fault and I appreciated him going the extra mile to keep his investors happy.
I don't know if it is appropriate to publish this, I will leave it to your discretion but I was impressed and thought you would like to know.
Lynda

Q: Are there a couple of good articles about why market timing does work... or if not could you tell me briefly?

Thank you.

Q: Do you have any opinion on this ETF as a small part of FI portfolio? Thanks

Q: Any new comments on this one ?

Q: After a $150. pullback, do you think it is a buy now.
Ken

Q: Can I please get your take on VNR's Q1 results. Market didn't seem to care for it.

Carl

Q: The common stock has gone up slightly over the past 12 months whereas the pref. has gone from near par to ~$16. I am thinking of taking a position in the pref. (already have some of the common). Can't seem to find much info. - is it a perpetual? Am I missing something? Thanks.