skip to content
  1. Home
  2. >
  3. Investment Q&A
You can view 3 more answers this month. Sign up for a free trial for unlimited access.

Investment Q&A

Not investment advice or solicitation to buy/sell securities. Do your own due diligence and/or consult an advisor.

Q: I initially purchased these preferred shares when they were yielding over 7% for income in my RRSP. Today they are yielding over 9% as the price has fallen considerably. Normally I would be concerned with an investment yielding 9%, but ECN.PR.A have a minimum dividend (6.5% for $25 face value). Do I have reason to be concerned or do you see this as a buying opportunity especially since they have the minimum dividend guarantee (as long as the dividend is being paid)?
Read Answer Asked by Robert on December 31, 2018
Q: MX stock appears to be strongly correlated to oil & gas price. Would you agree ? If so, do you expect this to continue in the long term ? Please comment.

Also, do you know why methanol usage appears to be mostly from Asia (more than 70% based on the November 2018 investor presentation - page 37) ? Thank you!
Read Answer Asked by Pierre on December 31, 2018
Q: Hi there,

I own a position in AQN and would like two of these 5 in a balanced portfolio. This would be for an extremely long term hold. Which 2 would you prefer and why please?

Thanks and Happy New Year
Read Answer Asked by Tim on December 31, 2018
Q: Can you please comment on the payout ratios and free cash flow of these companies. As they are both growing and acquiring other companies, I thought the payout ratio was low. How would you rate their capital allocation over the last few years (cash flow, debt vs issuing new shares) ? Thank you!
Read Answer Asked by Pierre on December 31, 2018
Q: Happy Holidays,
can I get your thought on the following:
1. why is ZID-T recent performance decent and FIH.U poor?
2. why is ZID-T recent performance decent and SP500 index poor?
I'm curious why ZID performance is relatively good as of late.

thanks
Read Answer Asked by Ian on December 31, 2018
Q: I'm in China for a few weeks, and I am astounded at the payment system. The only place I've been able to use my Visa card is Starbucks. For me, everything else is cash, because I am not set up for the point-of-sale system here. Aside from the few foreigners paying cash, this is truly a cashless society. Each vendor has a scan code sticker - Purchasers use their phone, scan the code, and pay the bill in one easy step. Do you know which companies are behind this system?
Read Answer Asked by Kim on December 31, 2018
Q: Hello. I just want clarification on what KML announced. So after the 3 for 1 stock reverse on Jan 4th, they will pay a special $11.40/sh dividend? So will the new stock price go from $15/sh to about $40-45, and they will be paying out 28% Dividend? What am I missing here or misunderstanding? Thank you!
Read Answer Asked by Paul on December 31, 2018
Q: Can you please provide a list of 5 US stocks which have been unduly punished in the recent market turmoil and could be poised for a bounce back over time. Thx
Read Answer Asked by Vineet on December 31, 2018
Q: In my daughter's RESP i have TD, PBH, TSGI, GUD, AX-UN, ECN and 8 years to go.
I have 7000 I can deploy. I would like to add a stable dividend payer with upside potential. Could you suggest one or two companies? I was thinking of BEP.UN
(I decided against diversification into VIG as per my last RESP question).
Read Answer Asked by JR on December 28, 2018
Q: My mother, presently retired (almost 80) has a little bit of extra savings that I would like to invest in very safe businesses (she has no equity investments at the moment). I am not anticipating much upside, as safety is more important; however, with recent market turmoil there has been no place to hide. As a result a lot of companies, both big and small, both profitable or not, both stable or not have all seen their evaluations erode.
Can you please provide the names of 5-6 Canadian companies preferably in more than on sector (along with a few words explaining why you like these companies) that pay dividends (the higher the better but should not be the only determining factor), that you feel are good companies (and have demonstrated this quality for many years, possibly decades), that have eroded in price for little/no reason and have a good chance of recovering their lost market value.
As an aside, I sometimes feel (without having done any historical analysis) that these are the winners in the long run. They tend to be stable, are of low risk, consistently have some growth, regularly return money (dividends) to their owners, may buy back shares,... And if bought at the right price become pretty good investments with limited risk.
Thank You and Happy Holidays :) !
Read Answer Asked by Walter on December 28, 2018