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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: Looking for a Canadian stock or two that provides both a reasonable dividend and some growth. Please rate the above-noted stocks on a scale of 1-10 for both growth and risk over the next 12 months. Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Maureen on November 26, 2021
Q: How would you rate the following Canadian
banks for investing new money at the moment?

TD, BNS, RY, BMO, NA

Thank you so much,
Rita
Read Answer Asked by Rita on November 09, 2021
Q: What 4 dividend stocks or ETFs would you suggest for a long term hold to see the power of compounding
Read Answer Asked by Terry on November 08, 2021
Q: Hi there, I am looking to pick up a few positions. I am underweight in consumer cyclical, real estate, financials, energy, and US. I have no holding outside N.America. My investment profile is Balanced to growth-oriented.
I currently own the following in those categories:
ATZ, BRP, CELPH. COST, LULU, MG, PLC, TSU, X, RY, SLF
What stocks would you buy today?

As a side note, Is there a publication or investment service you would recommend, for US and international holdings?
Thanks for your advice.
Read Answer Asked by kevin on November 06, 2021
Q: Good day 5i Team, What's up with OSFI? The Canadian banks have been quite conservative during the pandemic but OSFI won't release them to give investors the dividend increase? They were heralded as the world's safest banks during the Great Financial Crisis, but somehow they will be last to increase dividends this time?. Even the banks in the EU and UK are released from holding additional funds. Do you have any good conspiracy theories? Keep up the great work and appreciate all you do for the little guys.
Read Answer Asked by Keith on October 26, 2021
Q: My 28yr old son is looking to build a diversified ETF portfolio with 100% equity exposure with a bent towards growth given his long investment horizon.  These will be spread across his TFSA, RRSP and Non-Registered accounts.  Since he will be contributing smaller amounts on a regular basis a zero commission platform such as Wealthsimple is appealing.  However, they charge 1.5% fee for all currency conversions making it only practical to hold Canadian traded ETF's.  As a result he is considering the following:

ZSP 40%
XIC 25%
TEC 20%
VIU 10%
VEE 5%

ZSP + XIC + VIU + VEE together create a mix of ETFs that are globally diversified and very similar to the structure of XEQT/VEQT.  Versus XEQT/VEQT This portfolio has a slightly lower weighted-average MER at 0.16% and also has 20% in TEC (in place of something like QQQ) which is more growth oriented. Here are how the sectors would be weighted with this portfolio:

Info 31%
Financial 15%
Cons Disc 11%
Industrial 9%
Healthcare 8%
Communica 7%
Cons Staples 5%
Energy 5%
Materials 4%
Utilities 2%
Real Estate 2%

These would be the top 10 holdings with this portfolio and these top 10 would account for 24% of holdings in this portfolio:

AAPL5.1% MSFT4.9% AMZN3.2% GOOGL1.8% FB1.7% GOOG1.7% TSLA1.5% SHOP1.4% RY1.2% NVDA1.2%

If this was you at 28, can you please comment on
- are the 5 ETFs he has chosen ones you would go with given his objectives, if not, what changes/substitutes would you make along with recommended % allocations?
- is his % allocation across the 5 appropriate or would you make changes? For example I thought there might be too much overlap between ZSP and TEC as they are both highly invested in AAPL, MSFT, AMZ and FB and he is looking at 60% going into these 2 ETF's. That may well be what you want at his age but  I wonder if he is better served by reducing ZSP to 25% -30% and TEC to 15% and add  the remaining 15-20% to CDZ or VGG (or something else?)
- given he will be making contributions to his TFSA, RRSP and Non-registered, which ETF would be best in which account and why? 

Thanks for all your help, 
Scott
Read Answer Asked by Scott on October 22, 2021
Q: With all the speculation about major dividend increases once restrictions are lifted, would investment in banks be a good short term strategy (hoping for a boost upon announcements), or has the expectation already been cooked into current prices? Any guesses as to who will announce the largest increase?
Read Answer Asked by Rick on October 22, 2021
Q: I wd appreciate your ranking of the Canadian banks.
thank you
Read Answer Asked by John on October 21, 2021
Q: Hello Peter,
For additional monies for a balanced approach, i was thinking of putting new monies into Nuvei (instead of Shopify), and rest into one of the banks. I already have Topicus. Does this make sense and if so, which bank would be best at current valuation? Fobi AI has had good news releases, yet stock tumbles. Any comments.. Thanks very much.
Read Answer Asked by umedali on October 14, 2021
Q: Can you give me a list of 5 Canadian and 5 US stocks that you would recommend with yields above 3%.
Read Answer Asked by Cory on September 16, 2021
Q: Retired, dividend-income investor who normally holds for the long term. I own a half position in Manulife and am down roughly 7%, including dividends. My long term plan was to sell MFC and rebuy a second Canadian Bank (I already have a full position in Royal Bank).

I have compared the various metrics (P/BV, P/CF, P/S, ROE, technicals, analysts estimates, etc.) for the above mentioned banks as well as against MFC.

Looking at the banks in isolation and already with a full position in RY, I've narrowed it down to either BNS (International exposure and current laggard due to Covid) or TD (more US exposure and 1 year laggard). Of the banks that I do not own, please rank them in order of the best total return over a sufficient period of time for Covid to have subsided (1-2 more years for improved vaccination coverage?). Do you agree with my rationale?

If you include MFC into the bank comparisons, where would you place MFC in the rankings? I have read to buy the banks when their P/E is < 11.0 and buy the insurance companies when their P/BV < 1.0. This would lead me to buy TD (P/E of 9.7) or keep MFC (P/BV of 1.0).

So...keep MFC versus take the loss in MFC and then buy BNS or TD? Your thoughts?

MFC is held in a taxable account and I have no problem taking a loss.

Thanks for your help....Steve
Read Answer Asked by Stephen on September 08, 2021
Q: I know that ranking banks often is like picking shades of the same colour. At this point in time do you feel there is any "clear" division amongst any of the banks for investing purposes? Can you give your order of preference and the magnitude of the gap between each choice.
Thanks,
Terry
Read Answer Asked by Terry on September 07, 2021