Investment Q&A

Q: Hello Team,
Between Stella Jones and Constellation Software, which would you prefer for growth? Also, could you comment on the most recent results for both.
Thank You,
Barry

Q: Hello 5i team,
I am responding to your answe to Les concerning the amount of fixed income appropriate for a 70 year old. I think it would help many of us to have your rationale for your suggestions.

For instance, you suggest 40 per cent fixed income, even though they have enough to live on from their pensions and could thus presumably ride out a down turn. In this low interest rate environment many suggest a nuch lower per centage. You have yourself, i believe from time to time.
Should not the pension be considered a form of fixed income and thus count towards the per centage?

You also recommend xbb, which goes out to seven years. I imagine we are mainly thinking about preserving the capital. And if that is the case, why not choose the shorter term, xsb instead?
Thanks for any insight you can put on this important aspect of investing for many of us
Claire

Q: Hello Peter & Co,
A gentleman asked you about CPH but your response indicated CXR; was it a typo error?
Thanks,
Antoine

Q: Hi Peter & Team: Your comments to Allen's question today: "but expect a flat to declining sector..." I own this in my Riff and in a loss position, should I let it go? Thank you.

Q: You claim that there was insider selling, in reality according to INK RESEARCH there was zero selling and $648,087.00 insider buying.

Q: WEF reports on July 28th. The stock moves up and down by .15 almost every day. West Fraser report was not very good. So should one assume western forest will also be bad? I am wondering if I should move on. Thanks.

Q: Hi, What would be the impact of CSU being added to S&P/TSX 60 indices, effective July 24, 2015?
"S&P Dow Jones Indices Announces Changes to the S&P/TSX Canadian Indices
17:15 EDT Tuesday, July 21, 2015
Constellation Software Inc. (TSX:CSU) will be removed from the S&P/TSX Completion Index and added to the S&P/TSX 60, 60 Capped and the 60 Equal Weight Indices. Constellation Software will not be added to the S&P/TSX 60 ESG Index at this time. Also, Constellation Software will be added to the S&P/TSX 60 Equal Weight Index at a relative weight equal to the relative weight of Catamaran at the close on July 24, 2015."

Q: Could I please get your recommendation for both an inverse oil & gold ETF.

Thank You
Craig

Q: I sometimes see inside selling of small or micro-cap shares, often in conjunction with an exercise of options to purchase at a much lower price. The insider often is only selling a small % of their holding. Are these sales sometimes done in order to get a block of shares in the hands of larger buyers, like institutions or funds?

Q: From time to time, the feds negotiate for a free trade deal- with Europe, the TPP,- what would happen to SAP if they gave up daily protection to open other markets? How much does SAP depend on the daily marketing board?

Q: In your Updated news report July 18th you said to make sure you have international exposure. What do you recommend? I follow closely your investment advice and my portfolio consists mainly of stocks from your balanced model portfolio. I have a 5-10 year time frame.

Thank you so much,
Louise

Q: Can you give me your opinion on recent acquisition of
softgate systems?
Thanks.

Q: I have both which would you own?Thanks for your great effort! What would you replace if you think I should in the same sectorThaks Cliff

Q: Hi Peter,

You mentioned that if you had to pick a mutual fund, you like CI Financial. I personally am very fond of the Mawer Balanced fund, which you also mentioned as a good family of funds.

Of coarse a good way to make money is to buy the fund company rather than the funds...
I currently hold IGM (Investors Group), but I am wondering if you think CIX would be a better choice going forward.

Thank you for your great service.

Q: Peter/team -do you any thoughts on The Howard Hughes Corp . ??

Q: I've been a member for over a year now and appreciate all the help you have given regarding individual equity choices. My wife and I are both 70 years of age. Our pensions provide enough money to meet all of our monthly needs so we are able to take on some risk. I am having some difficulty determining what percentage of our portfolio should be in each sector. I would appreciate it if you would suggest how much we should relegate to each of the following categories and one or two etfs (I like the Vanguard family for their low fees) that you think would provide the exposure we need.
1. Fixed income
2. Canadian equities
3. American equities - I'm leaning towards VUN
4. Global equities.
Thanks once again for your guidance.

Q: Peter and Team,

I believe gold is needed for portfolio insurance. It costs you to have it but the day you need it you will be very happy you had it.

My current portfolio breakdown is 86.7% equities including cash and 13.3% bonds. Of the equity exposure, 9.6% is cash, 7.3% gold and silver bullion, and 5.44% precious metals stocks (BTO - 1%, MUX - 0.33%, NGD - 0.83%, SGN - 0.2%, and Goldcorp is 3.1%). All of these are down from higher levels.

My question is about Franco Nevada. I like the company and the business model and am thinking of selling all or some of the stocks to replace with Franco Nevada. I currently have total exposure to PM's of 12.74%. Can you suggest if FNV is a good replacement for any or a group of the above? I think its cash position is still strong and it still makes free cash and pays a decent yield.

Your thoughts?

Q: What are the risks with agt? Is bad weather its primary risk? Could you please give a short mention of its roe, margins, debt etc.
What stocks do you guys think have the most favourable outlook?
Thanks

Q: I recently asked about Firan and the stock has done well, but I recently noticed a very large disposition ~750,000 shares (4.2% shares outstanding) by the company's new chairman - Beutel, Robert Jonathan:
www.canadianinsider.com
This worries me a lot as the shares were disposed at $2.10/share and it seems a very odd time to sell given the stock's positive momentum, USD tail winds, and the fact that its going into a quarter which should be extremely easy to beat materially from the year prior (Q3 2014)...

I realize insiders can sell for a number of reasons and should not always be seen negatively, but this sale seems a little fishy to me.

Should I think about taking profits or ignore the insider sale?

Thanks

Q: You just answered a question for Doris on the relative merits of CGI and Enghouse. You were quite definite in your opinion on the superior quality of ESL management, but you lost me after that. The wording of your answer implied that a large backlog for ESL was not a good thing to have. More importantly however, on valuation, I am getting much higher P/E values and much lower Growth/P/E values for ESL from my usual financial information source.
Am I misunderstanding your answer, or is your valuation based on parameters that I have not considered?