Investment Q&A

Q: A few stocks that I like, now trade close to or below their book value.
How reliable is the estimate of "Book Value", from respected research sources.

Q: The TD report on TOY earnings says:
Q4/19 Results: A Self-inflicted Trip to the Penalty Box
(owing to an ill-advised transition to a new DC during its peak selling season).
TD is famous for using acronyms in their reports. DC?
Confusing. Can you explain what transition they are talking about?
Thanks

Q: How do you track the volatility index?

Q: About the Pimco Monthly Income Fund. I have read some commentaries over the last week. With oil prices tanking, some are saying that this will be the beginning of significant losses for bonds, beginning with the non-investment grade bonds in the US shale companies, but then causing a re-rating of lower-tier investment grade bonds into junk status that will need to be sold by pension funds, but with essentially no buyers. I understand there is an enormous amount of investment grade corporate dept that is in this BBB category, just above junk. What are your thoughts, and if that was to happen, what would happen to this fund in particular? My elderly parents have quite a bit of their portfolio in this fund. Thanks for your help.

Q: It looks like stocks are going to be on sale this week.

Q: Dear 5i
Do all the US stock futures trade out of Tokyo ?
How does the trading of stock futures overseas affect the US and CDN markets (Indices ) ? If US stock futures are down then do the US stocks in the US markets start the next day down lower as a result of the Asian markets being down or do US stock values start off the next day where they left off the day before in the US markets ?
Hope this question makes sense . I'm trying to get a feel for applying a stop/loss on a stock so knowing how the futures markets affect opening North American prices is important to have an understanding of this .
Thanks
Bill C.

Q: I currently hold VGRO in my registered account and looking to diversify with another low cost Growth ETF Portfolio. Suggestions please

Q: Do you, or do any of your members, know why BNN has started highlighting the various exchanges on the right side of their tv screen in either red or green at various times throughout the day? I have searched their website and emailed them, but with no luck...
Thanks.

Q: Is CNQ a buy at this time or wait.
Thank you

Q: Lightspeed just closed a $175M financing a couple of days before the meltdown. Great timing for them and their large shareholders who also sold some stock.
Would you buy this stock now at $30? It's up from $18, the 52 week low but more than one-third down from their $49 high. What do you think?

Q: Freehold is down considerably and now paying an ten percent plus dividend. Even with a slow oil recovery, is this dividend safe and would you buy it now?
Thanks.

Q: What is your general "gut" feeling about this meltdown? If the Dow does not breech 25,000, does that indicate a bottom forming or do you see a prolonged period of share price damage?
No one doubts the seriousness of the virus, I wish they would call it the "new flu" as the present name sounds so ominous, but compared to the 20,000 plus who have died this season from the flu, it seems the media reporting "each case" is causing some serious panic both in life in general and in the markets. What is your overall assessment of the present conditions and can you take a stab at how long you think this will be so dominant in the news cycle. I guess when it's the second or third top story, it will be time to buy a lot!
Thanks.

Q: I use the Globe&Mail online portfolio manager to keep track of my numbers. It costs about $25/mo. and is a bit quirky (i.e. it goes offline a lot). They also keep bombarding me with efforts to subscribe to their paper which I don't want to do (I'm not a GTA guy). Can you recommend another option?

Q: How would you feel about buying a call on one or more large gold stocks at this point?

Q: Hi,

I own the Alaris CVB. Is there danger here of insolvency or would you consider it safe to hold to maturity?

Sheldon

Q: Sell or hold after precipitous drop

Q: Has the Brazilian currency gone up or down much since Knight made the purchase of Biotoscan and do see it as an influencing factor overall or is the currency relatively stable?
Thanks.

Q: I was surprised at your answer about EQB. The stock has provided 500% return over last 10 years (before the recent decline). The reasons for not meeting expectations were explained adequately, Is this decline not a great buying opportunity for more than income (after things have settled down)?

Q: With the major down swings/upswings this last week or so, what type of investor are you seeing most active in the marketplace (and are we able to see this info publicly). Are these "mainly" the big institutional players unloading positions or loading up causing huge swings or is it the retail investor...or both
Also, are you seeing the majors starting to step in with more conviction on the dips?

Q: Retired, conservative dividend-income investor with a "buy-and-hold & trim-add around a core position" strategy. At times like these, I take a fresh look at my holdings and ask two key questions. #1 = are there any of my equity holdings that have alarm bells going off? #2 = how safe are the dividends (knowing that no dividend is 100% secure)? The portfolio capital may rise or fall, but it is the continuation of the dividend that is more important.

For asset allocation purposes related to individual stocks (as opposed to sector allocations), I use the following:
5% targets = AQN, BCE, BNS, PBH, RY, TRP, WSP
4% targets = AD, AW, CSH, NWC
2% targets = LNF, MG, NTR
ETF targets = roughly 3-7%

Q#1 = are there any of these equities that you hear alarm bells?
Q#2 = are there any of these equities where you foresee dividend risk?
Q#3 = any thoughts on how I have my asset allocations set up (knowing it is a very personal decision?

Take a bunch of credits. Thanks for your help...Steve