Investment Q&A

Q: 3:05 PM 9/27/2017

I have been looking at Extendicare as a source of slow growth and a good dividend, but I have a number of questions about the company that you may be able to answer.

1. What happened in May 2013 when the company cut the monthly dividend from 7 cents to 4 cents? In the same year Revenue dropped from $2,037 million in 2012 to $784 million in 2013 and Operating Income was cut in half.

2. Morningstar shows Equity of $135 million and Debt of $533 million. Can you explain these figures as they relate to Market Cap of $823 million?

3. What is the actual current $ debt, and Debt/Cashflow, and is it unacceptably high?

4. What do you think of management and do you forsee any problems ahead for the company other than inflation and minimum wage increases.

5. Do you have any concerns about the company's ability to continue paying the 4 cent a month 5.2% dividend?

6. INK insider shows that there has been good net insider buying in the last year at EXE with the CEO almost doubling his holding to 240,000 shares with rights to an additionsl 197,000+ shares. In contrast I note that Directors at Sienna have sold nearly 200,000 shares of SIA in the last year. Does this hint at trouble at Sienna and better days ahead for Extendicare?

7. Would you consider EXE's dividend any more or less reliable that those of SIA or CSH.UN? I currently have a 1% position in EXE.

8. Would adding new Money to my 1% position in EXE for the dividend, be a complement to my positions in SIA [4%] and in CSH.UN [3%]?

Thank you very much............ Paul K.

Q: I will reword my last question to be better understood, which equity Etf's would you recommend for each region of the world outside Canada, in other words, your favorites, thanks?

Q: Hi Guys,

Could you please suggest somewhere safe to park $300K cash that is sitting in a brokerage account.

Thanks
Dave

Q: I would like to top up one of these 4 stocks and would appreciate your opinion on best buy at this time. Please rank best to worst with an explanation.
Thanks for the great advice.

Q: About a year ago (Nov 2016), you provided 10 "forever"stock ideas. Would you still categorize those same 10 stocks as "forever" stocks today?

Q: Thanks very much for your recent reply. I’d like to get your opinion on the Active Beta ETFs from Goldman Sachs, particularly GEM (Emerging Markets) and GSIE (International). They charge a higher MER than Vanguard funds, but would you say it’s worth it because investors benefit from the expertise of top managers? Between VWO and GEM, which would you prefer and why? Thanks again.

Q: In addition to Canadian stocks, I hold a few ETFs for US and International exposure. In order to get a clear understanding of my sector allocations, I would like to incorporate the sector contributions from these ETFs. But when I look at VDU, for example, instead of consumer cyclicals and consumer staples, it lists consumer goods and consumer services. Do you have a suggestion for how I could incorporate these different categories into my sector allocations?

Thanks.

Alan

Q: Do you think we are at or close to the bottom? Would buying now put me in a position to have a substantial gain in 2 years lets say? Thanks

Q: What are your thoughts on SNAP chat. It certainly dropped below the ipo price...but it seems to be popular among teens..

Q: I have a relatively large cash position in my RRSP which I would like to invest for 3 to 6 months in an ultra safe place due to the political uncertainty at the moment. Do you have any suggestions?

Q: Sylogist and K-Bro Linen, two stocks have been quite boring for a while, do you know of any catalysts that could move these to the upside, possibly before the end of the year, thanks?

Q: In March 2017 Metro had 32,227,000 Class A Multiple Voting Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc. ("Couche-Tard"), representing approximately 21.81% of the issued and outstanding Class A Multiple Voting Shares of Couche-Tard.
Do you think ATD.B went down today as some concern that Metro sells some of their shares to finance the merger with PJC.A?

Q: Please discuss dividend distribution schedules, monthly vs quarterly, in the context of DRIPS ("synthetic" DRIPS, by the brokers or trading platforms, which typically deal only in whole shares). A DRIP investor would want a dividend payment & schedule that yields sufficient dividend to buy new shares with the dividend.

SIS, which I recently added to my TFSA, has just changed to monthly dividends -- with not enough dividend to DRIP monthly unless I add more SIS, putting my SIS holdings at an uncomfortably-high allocation. My KBL has been in the same situation, for quite some time now.

What influences management to go to monthly from quarterly distribution?

Q: If you sell a stock before the dividend is paid do you still get a portion of the dividend for the time you owned it?

Q: I am a retired, conservative, dividend-income investor with a well diversified portfolio, including a company pension, CPP, annuities, Fisgard Capital, and equities via RBC Cdn Equity Income, Sentry Cdn Income, Sentry Global REIT, ZLB, XIT, AS, ALA, AQN, BCE, BNS, CSH, CGX, ECI, FTS, PBH, PEY, ABT, RY, WCP, WSP and a small position in Sprott Energy. Looking under the hood, this portfolio has 33% of its value in non-Canadian assets, which is at my comfort level.

Question 1 = I know portfolio make-up is very personal, but when is there too much foreign content in a conservative retirement income portfolio? Adding ZWE pushes my foreign content over 35%.

Q2 = most of the distribution for ZWE is capital gains, ROC and about 30% interest income. I plan to put ZWE in my cash account...make sense?

Q3 = I already have roughly 22 securities, which is plenty enough for diversification. I am hesitant to add more, but I think ZWE makes a good fit. A second alternative would be to continue to "trim and add" as the allocation #'s make sense. A third alternative would be to simply add NFI to top up my industrial allocation.

Thoughts please...thanks. Steve

Q: Could you please comment on the latest news. Thanks

Q: I recall reading that ConoccoPhillips will be able to start selling their ~200 million shares in Cenovus sometime this November? Is that correct? If yes, do you anticipate this triggering a significant decrease in the share price?

Q: I have been reviewing HNL's financials and I find it difficult to determine the company's cash and cash equivalents at the end of Q2. I am concerned about the solvency of the company, its ability to continue the dividend and its prospects given the Alberta political and general sector risks. May I please have your insight.
With appreciation

Q: Please discuss share price issues in terms of the cost per share. Using CSU as a specific example, their price is nudging $700, which effectively means that an investor either has to have a rather large portfolio in order to buy in blocks of 100 shares and stay within reasonable "position" limits, or buy only part blocks, say 5 or 10 shares. Is there any real downside to buying such small partial blocks? What would make management NOT split the shares when certain levels are reached (such as my NA shares did not too long ago)?

Thanks for your continuing education!

Q: Hello

Are you able to explain why CIBC has been reluctant to stock split? Historically Canadian banks begin splitting close $100 price to become more affordable for Canadians. This is has not been the case last few years. Is there any discussions of a split in the horizon?

Thx
Jerry