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: For a portfolio in excess of $1 million, can you articulate any general principles for when you would opt for diversification within a sector rather than a single, concentrated holding? I tend to gravitate towards diversification in most instances, but as a result I have considerably more holdings than any of your model portfolios, and would like to reduce my positions and be more strategic in my approach to diversification.
Read Answer Asked by Peter on September 25, 2017
Q: Jim Rogers is calling for the worst bear market ever. In a recent interview, he said the following:

“When we have the bear market, a lot of people are going to find that, ‘Oh my God, I own an ETF, and they collapsed. It went down more than anything else.’ And the reason it will go down more than anything else is because that’s what everybody owns…”

“… If somebody can just take the time to focus on the stocks that are not in the ETFs, there must be fabulous opportunities in those stocks because they’re ignored… Some of them have got to be doing very, very well. And nobody’s buying them, because only the ETFs buy stocks.”

I’m curious to know what you think of these comments. Is he right that ETFs are bound to fall much more than stocks? Are some more at risk of a plunge than others? Also, if “ignored stocks” are better investments than the ones in ETFs, can you name a few examples? Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Brian on September 22, 2017
Q: I am a trader by obligation rather than by choice as I spend an important part of my time trading micro caps.
For obvious reasons these companies mostly have little or none revenues, expectations is all what is left.
However, there is another way of being sensitive to the balance sheet is expenses, and i am particularly sensitive to burn rates because that may be a key to future share offering with or without the dreaded warrant.
I just read this document: http://avc.com/2017/09/some-thoughts-on-burn-rates/?utm_source=Daily+AR&utm_campaign=871270e2bd-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c08a59015d-871270e2bd-140326233
Would you give me your opinion on its value for future reference.
Thanks
CDJ
Read Answer Asked by claude on September 22, 2017
Q: I refer Richard's question of Sept.19th
Would this work for a RRSP as well, combined my wife I have $877,000. Sell our stocks and buy equal amounts of these etf'e.
This would give us a nice income should we take it out.
Also have a larger amount in cash and TSFA based on your portfolios.
We are 60 and also have pensions and no debt
Thank you and have a great weekend.
Mike
Read Answer Asked by Mike on September 22, 2017
Q: I am amazed at how closely the D.J.I.A. and the SP 500 track each other.
The stocks in the Dow are picked by editors of the Wall Street Journal and are share price weighted so Proctor & Gamble has 4 times the weighting of GE.
The SP 500 is market cap weighted so Amazon which never makes money has 5 times the weight of Morgan Stanley which made $6 billion last year.
How can you explain this? Thanks
Derek

Read Answer Asked by Derek on September 21, 2017
Q: Hi team, looking for some advice for a small LIRA account 40k, that won't be touched for the next 15 years. I would like to grow this as much as possible at a medium risk level with maybe a small position in higher risk, thinking maybe Square? Canadian or US companies, doesn't matter. Current holdings are FID 669 which is going no where but down and EFA. I'm thinking to keep the EFA and sell FID to reinvest in growth.
Thanks for your advice
Read Answer Asked by Nancy on September 20, 2017
Q: If you had two or three hundred thousand dollars (not in an RRSP or TFSA), and you wanted to grow it aggressively for a period of about three to five years, how would you invest it, and what kind of a return would you expect? Would your answer be different if it was only fifty thousand? Assume that I don't need any income from the investment, that I have maximal tolerance for risk, and that I've already tried tulips but I was 380 years too late. Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Brian on September 20, 2017
Q: I am retired, age 65 and I am constructing a portfolio for dividend income which my aim is to have monthly dividend income for cycles 1,2 and 3 for dividend payments. This will be my main portfolio for income.Here is the portfolio I have put together for a unregistered account :
cycle 1: BNS,BCE,SU,TD,GSY,TRP,T
cycle 2: BMO,EMA,RY
cycle 3: FTS,ENB,MFC,SLF,TRI,SLF,NFI,CU-T,AQN,ATD.B,CCL.B
I would appreciate your opinion on this portfolio.Also, I'm sitting in cash in my TFSA and I am looking to possibly put some of these stocks in that account and would appreciate your recommendation on that as well.
Read Answer Asked by Jennifer on September 20, 2017