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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: Hi Peter:

I have owned shares of National Bank for about 2 years, it pays a 4% nice dividend and the stock is slowly edging up near a 52 week high, knowing that Sept and Oct months are usually not kind to the stock market, I wonder if selling half of the position and re-investing it when the market corrected would be a good move ? Thanks
Read Answer Asked by Michael on September 12, 2013
Q: could you comment on the stock gur .any suggestions for other etf? to consider Thanks CR
Read Answer Asked by cliff on September 12, 2013
Q: HI. I need to diversify globally. What stock would you advise buying for long term hold and revenue? thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Dario on September 12, 2013
Q: What are your thoughts with Nokia going forward? Recently RBC and others have upgraded the shares since Microsoft purchased their handset division.
Read Answer Asked by mike on September 12, 2013
Q: Hi Peter

Can you give us your opinion on AHF Aston Hill Financial
Read Answer Asked by Rick and Marg on September 12, 2013
Q: Good morning. I am thinking of adding to my financial holdings and have read your recent comments on BNS, TD, FSZ, SLF, GWO, and MFC all of which I hold for a 10% financial weighting. I'm thinking of adding to MFC to bring it's weighting up to SLF and GWO and total of 12% for the group. MFC is improving and 5i seems to be warming up to it. I think MFC may be getting close to rebuilding it's dividend as well.
I would appreciate your opinion on this purchase as well as the weightings overall.
Once again, many thanks for your input.
Read Answer Asked by Brian on September 12, 2013
Q: Hello Peter and the 5I team

I have watched MRC and MEQ for some time, they don't seem to ever trade above book value. I realize that they pay either no div or a very low div, is this the reason why they trade fairly low compared to their P/B ratio? I expect that most real estate investors prefer REITs because of the Higher Div. Do you ever see a point when these companies will trade above their book value? Both companies have decent balance sheet's in my opinion? Whats are your thoughts on these companies?
Read Answer Asked by Darren on September 12, 2013
Q: Excellent article on selling too early. Intertape Polymer Group (ITP) may make a good case study regarding this. The stock has been on a parabolic ride up for some time. They surprise on the upside; they have made great strides in reducing their debt; their gross margins are improving; they just doubled their dividend; and they are fast approaching a 1 billion dollar market cap. Would this be an example of a company that shouldn't be sold too soon despite the rapid share price appreciation? Forward P/E < 15 and PEG < 1.
Read Answer Asked by WAYNE on September 12, 2013
Q: Peter; Is there a U.S. ETF that would cover the fast food restaurant sector? Thanks. Rod
Read Answer Asked by Rodney on September 12, 2013
Q: Good morning, Peter & 5i team: Searching back into the questions I've been unable to find any about graphite/graphene companies, so I guess I'll take the first plunge! Would you care to give an opinion on the future of the graphite market, and how would one invest in it, if at all? Would Focus Metals (FMS-V) or Northern Graphite (NGC-V)or similar Canadian companies present possible long-term investment opportunities? Or, would a larger mining company like Teck Resources be a sounder play? Your opinions are much appreciated. Many thanks, John.
Read Answer Asked by John on September 11, 2013
Q: I know that you consider Norbord a buy, but it has gone down
since March.
What do you think of Int'l Forest? It was recommended on BNN
today.

What a great service you give. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.

C.Van




Read Answer Asked by claudette on September 11, 2013
Q: Greetings,

Reitman's (RET.A) results came out after the bell on Wednesday, and they were abysmal across the board.

I'm assuming the stock price tanks on Thursday. At what price should one perhaps get tempted? Or are their restructuring efforts so far behind the curve that any price is too much until they make more radical changes?

Thanks, Randy
Read Answer Asked by Randy on September 11, 2013
Q: Mr. Hodson,the consensus recommendation provided by Thomson Reuters for the following oil sands producers is as follows:
SU 1.86, CVE 2.13, CNQ 2.22, IMO 2.67, COS 3.11 (on a scale of 1 to 5, the lower the better)

Does that make sense, and is SU currently the best ? They all have enormous reserves, with no exploration risk. Is there some meaningful advantages to having some synthetic crude (CNQ and 100% for COS)?
Read Answer Asked by Serge on September 11, 2013
Q: Could you please give me your opinion on GXI and their outlook.
Is it worth buying now.

Thank you.
Milan
Read Answer Asked by Milan on September 11, 2013
Q: Hi Peter & 5i: Just a suggestion and a few comments on tax loss selling and superficial losses. The suggestion is that something like "strategies of tax loss selling" might be a useful portfolio management blog topic.

The comments are these: If you are worried about the superficial loss rule when selling a stock that is down significantly, think hard about what you might want to do. Imagine you have sold the stock and you now have the proceeds in cash. You can take that money and do whatever you want with it. You can invest in any stock within your discount broker's universe. With that kind of potential at your fingertips, does it really make sense to buy back the same stock that you just sold? What would that decision be based on? Is it any different than your thinking if you had not sold it but were coming to the market with new money?

Second, if you are selling something that is down because an entire sector is down and what you are concerned about is not having exposure to the sector (e.g. golds), in many cases you can pick a different stock from the same sector that is down for the same reasons. There are a number of good gold stocks that have all been trashed this year. If gold goes back to $1800, they will all have blistering upsides, not just the one you might be selling to crystallize the loss.

If I try hard enough I can imagine a situation where I might have a strong conviction that an underperforming stock is just about to turn around (within the next four weeks!) and rocket higher. It pretty much has to involve a significant catalyst event that I am evaluating correctly but that almost everyone else is missing. That is an extremely rare circumstance and not one that usually applies to tax loss candidates. One option of course is not to sell the stock. But investors should probably be wary about being guided by an emotional attachment -- of not wanting to part with a stock that has hurt them "just in case it might go up." If "just in case it might go up" isn't a good enough reason to buy a stock in the first place, it probably isn't a good enough reason to buy it back immediately after selling it for a tax loss.
Read Answer Asked by Lance on September 11, 2013
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