# What are you buying? 2021



## Investor87

R. Austin said:


> Considering dabbling in a little ZRE; would be a long-term hold so if it drops more, not the biggest issue.


I was thinking about real estate too, given that valuations are pretty good right now. After mass vaccine rollout and the pandemic behind us, it should bounce back. ZRE is a good choice given that it's an equal-weight methodology, so you have no overexposure to one sub-sector. The yield looks pretty attractive too close to 5%. Thanks for bringing this up!


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## Eder

Put my wife's & my own TSFA contributions into Fortis today to add to my huge existing position. The PE is a bit high but they have increased their dividend every year I have owned their shares...


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## Benting

TFSA : TD for me, RY for wife.


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## agent99

R. Austin said:


> Considering dabbling in a little ZRE; would be a long-term hold so if it drops more, not the biggest issue.


Last year, I decided we should have some additional real estate exposure (we have Riocan in taxable account and reluctant to sell because of low acb). I put about $5k each of XRE and ZRE into our TFSAs. Problem with these ETFs, is that you get the bad with the good. XRE down 18% and ZRE down 11.75% since this time last year. Even at current low REIT valuations, yields (4.75-5%) are not much better than the banks (4-5.25%) , so why buy REIT ETFs? Will they bounce back soon? Seems unlikely given the headwinds for many REITs and the less than stellar yields.

I hate to sell XRE/ZRE given the losses incurred. But that may be the smart thing to do. Perhaps replace with banks or utilities or aristocrats with history of dividend growth???? Good ideas welcomed!


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## james4beach

Bought 26k of XBB (bonds) today,
and 15k of CGL.C (gold)


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## gardner

james4beach said:


> Bought gold


Should have bought a 2021 thread...


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## fstamand

james4beach said:


> Bought 26k of XBB (bonds) today,
> and 15k of CGL.C (gold)


You're thinking sh*t will hit the fan with all this right wing extremist turmoil?


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## james4beach

fstamand said:


> You're thinking sh*t will hit the fan with all this right wing extremist turmoil?


No, has nothing to do with that. This is what I am required to purchase to maintain my asset allocation. I'll be buying some stocks too, but these were the major purchases.

Just standard asset allocation, nothing special.


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## moderator2

Here's a new thread. The previous one is here:









What are you buying? 2020


As per the What are you buying 2019: https://www.canadianmoneyforum.com/showthread.php/136542-What-Are-You-Buying-2019/page18 My order for BPY.UN was filled today at 23.60 ended the day at 23.44. This is my first addition from the Brookfield family. Have now placated my REIT replacement...




www.canadianmoneyforum.com


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## james4beach

I put in a couple limit orders to buy 10K of: XIU and ZSP


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## KaeJS

This market is nuts.

Been buying FTS and BCE...

I can't wrap my head around anything else right now.


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## Eder

Another GIC in RRSP matured...put the proceeds into Choice Property REIT.


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## KaeJS

Good "choice" 

I own quite a bit of them, too.


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## like_to_retire

Eder said:


> Another GIC in RRSP matured...put the proceeds into Choice Property REIT.


So you've decided to decrease your fixed income and increase your equity asset allocations.

ltr


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## Eder

like_to_retire said:


> So you've decided to decrease your fixed income and increase your equity asset allocations.
> 
> ltr


I think I already previously posted my plan of not buying any fixed yielding less than 2%. Too much risk.

I have had very good tolerance for volatility so don't suffer from sell off fever.

(And I prefer to drink Don Julio 1942 rather than Jose Cuervo in my fading years)


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## MarcoE

So far in 2021, I've been buying XRE, XBB, and ARKG.


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## james4beach

MarcoE said:


> So far in 2021, I've been buying XRE, XBB, and ARKG.


XRE is an interesting one for sure. Over 18 years it has performed at 8.9% CAGR (total return including distributions) which is very strong. That suggests this is a legit asset class with good long term returns.

You're also buying it 20% below its recent peak, so that probably is a fine entry point to buy more.


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## fryman

james4beach said:


> XRE is an interesting one for sure. Over 18 years it has performed at 8.9% CAGR (total return including distributions) which is very strong. That suggests this is a legit asset class with good long term returns.
> 
> You're also buying it 20% below its recent peak, so that probably is a fine entry point to buy more.


As someone who follows the advice of others(in spite of warnings of due diligence) I have owned VRE for years and still do. However I have to wonder if demand for office space is permanently diminished due to how well we have adapted to working from home. Does this not play a role in the REIT performance going forward?


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## agent99

fryman said:


> As someone who follows the advice of others(in spite of warnings of due diligence) I have owned VRE for years and still do. However I have to wonder if demand for office space is permanently diminished due to how well we have adapted to working from home. Does this not play a role in the REIT performance going forward?


I am sure it does. I have talked to business owners who have decided not to renew their leases or at least reduce the space rented. I have also talked to an employee of a large company who is in involved in the process of renting space in a new office tower. They are not filling that space at the rate they would like.

In time, this may change, but many see a new model of at least in part, having employees work from home. 

My feeling is that office space (and retail) REITs will affect the performance of REIT ETFs going forward. Some individual reits might do quite well. But choosing those requires a talent in stock-picking that I don't have


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## Investor87

james4beach said:


> XRE is an interesting one for sure. Over 18 years it has performed at 8.9% CAGR (total return including distributions) which is very strong. That suggests this is a legit asset class with good long term returns.
> 
> You're also buying it 20% below its recent peak, so that probably is a fine entry point to buy more.


I am bullish on the REIT space as well. I was looking at the top options for this and the final battle was between ZRE and XRE. 

What I noticed was that the fees are equal for both at 0.61%.

However ZRE has outperformed its competitor by 2.6% annualized for the past 5 years period, that's a cumulative 13%. After looking into it, guess what - the BMO one is an equal weight, which is a bit of both worlds between pure passive exposure and a little bit of active, keeping limits to different subsectors within the REIT space, which translates into its outperformance. XRE is pure passive market cap index.


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## agent99

Investor87 said:


> I am bullish on the REIT space as well. I was looking at the top options for this and the final battle was between ZRE and XRE.
> 
> What I noticed was that the fees are equal for both at 0.61%.
> 
> However ZRE has outperformed its competitor by 2.6% annualized for the past 5 years period, that's a cumulative 13%. After looking into it, guess what - the BMO one is an equal weight, which is a bit of both worlds between pure passive exposure and a little bit of active, keeping limits to different subsectors within the REIT space, which translates into its outperformance. XRE is pure passive market cap index.


At this time, retail and office space are likely underperforming. If these sectors are a large part of the index covered by XRE, then they will drag that ETF down. ZRE not so much because of the lower exposure because of it equal weight structure. 

If retail and office were on an upswing, then XRE would likely perform better. With either one, like most index based etfs, you get the bad with the good. Might be better to choose a few individual REITs? But only if you really think REITs are a better choice than other options.


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## Investor87

agent99 said:


> At this time, retail and office space are likely underperforming. If these sectors are a large part of the index covered by XRE, then they will drag that ETF down. ZRE not so much because of the lower exposure because of it equal weight structure.
> 
> If retail and office were on an upswing, then XRE would likely perform better. With either one, like most index based etfs, you get the bad with the good. Might be better to choose a few individual REITs? But only if you really think REITs are a better choice than other options.


Like you previously mentioned, I don't have the talent to pick them myself, and also prefer to pay one commission instead of multiple (my discount broker charges 10$ a trade).


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## nobleea

Bought some Intel. Gunning for a turnaround.


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## MrBlackhill

Bought FSV.TO at the beginning of the year.

Bought AHC.TO today.


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## MrMatt

nobleea said:


> Bought some Intel. Gunning for a turnaround.


No turnaround required IMO.
They have one of the best set of Price ratios in tech. 

The new product will be very competative, and they're specifically not focusing on gaming, which will hurt their consumer visibility. I expect them to remain a bit of sleeper.

I'm interested in the new Athena/EVO laptops coming up soon.


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## james4beach

MrMatt said:


> The new product will be very competative, and they're specifically not focusing on gaming, which will hurt their consumer visibility. I expect them to remain a bit of sleeper.


Slightly off topic I realize, but does anyone know where I can buy an Intel NUC computer? These are mini computers which work great as either desktops or media machines.

I see some of them on Amazon as "shipped from and sold by Amazon". Any idea if these would be authentic, brand new equipment directly from Intel? I don't really trust Amazon too much due to how frequently they swap between suppliers for listed items. Not an issue for a t-shirt but a much bigger concern for sensitive equipment. I would rather buy the NUC from another retailer, if I can find one.


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## MrMatt

james4beach said:


> Slightly off topic I realize, but does anyone know where I can buy an Intel NUC computer? These are mini computers which work great as either desktops or media machines.
> 
> I see some of them on Amazon as "shipped from and sold by Amazon". Any idea if these would be authentic, brand new equipment directly from Intel? I don't really trust Amazon too much due to how frequently they swap between suppliers for listed items. Not an issue for a t-shirt but a much bigger concern for sensitive equipment. I would rather buy the NUC from another retailer, if I can find one.


newegg
Canadacomputers

Dell Optiplex micros (3080 series)


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## Money172375

james4beach said:


> Slightly off topic I realize, but does anyone know where I can buy an Intel NUC computer? These are mini computers which work great as either desktops or media machines.
> 
> I see some of them on Amazon as "shipped from and sold by Amazon". Any idea if these would be authentic, brand new equipment directly from Intel? I don't really trust Amazon too much due to how frequently they swap between suppliers for listed items. I would rather buy the NUC from another retailer, if I can find one.


They have an amazing return policy in my opinion. Never had any issues. Just double check there isn’t a different policy for computers.


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## londoncalling

nobleea said:


> Bought some Intel. Gunning for a turnaround.


I have a couple orders in the queue for INTC at a much lower price than its current $53 range. Stink bids in for CNR, Royal Bank as well.
Have had an order on Choice Property that may hit soon as well.


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## MrMatt

nobleea said:


> Bought some Intel. Gunning for a turnaround.











Intel Unleashes Flurry Of New Processors At CES 2021, Hopes To Change Narrative


Intel late Monday introduced four new PC processor families targeting business, education, gaming and mobile applications. Intel stock rose on the news.




www.investors.com





Didn't have to wait long did you?


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## nobleea

MrMatt said:


> Intel Unleashes Flurry Of New Processors At CES 2021, Hopes To Change Narrative
> 
> 
> Intel late Monday introduced four new PC processor families targeting business, education, gaming and mobile applications. Intel stock rose on the news.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> www.investors.com
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Didn't have to wait long did you?


Hehe, crazy timing. Picked up a bit more yesterday morning as well.


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## nobleea

Bought some ATD.B on the drop this morning.


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## agent99

I added to our Telus holdings today. Brings allocation in telecoms to 13%. Utilities are about same. But Financials (mainly banks) are 44%, which is too high. We have only 2.5% in REITs and 4.6% in Energy. Rest is spread through industrials, transportation (EIF) & consumer (Unilever).

Sold ZDV (bought last time I was at a loss as to what to buy) in taxable account. Need to decide to add some non-bank stocks to help diversify our equities. Maybe some consumer staples.


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## londoncalling

nobleea said:


> Bought some ATD.B on the drop this morning.


That was quite the drop!


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## scorpion_ca

Buying XAW, VCN, XEF, XEC, ZRE, ZAG, ZPR and XEQT as part of DRIP.


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## Dilbert

Bought some more TRP and AQN.


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## nobleea

Bought some more AD, CGX, and ATD.B. Order in for more SPG as well.


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## londoncalling

londoncalling said:


> Have had an order on Choice Property that may hit soon as well.


Order filled today at $12.65. Needed to add a REIT to my TFSA as it is made up primarily of Canadian Banks, Pipes and Telcos.


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## james4beach

agent99 said:


> Sold ZDV (bought last time I was at a loss as to what to buy) in taxable account. Need to decide to add some non-bank stocks to help diversify our equities. Maybe some consumer staples.


Curious what you didn't like about ZDV? Was it because of what you mentioned about being too high in financials?

Other than ZDV's heavy weight in financials, it looks like a reasonably good dividend portfolio with decent holdings


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## peterk

Going to be buying XIU in my TFSA, SPY in my RRSP, VGRO in my wife's TFSA, and a BAL mutual fund in my wife's RRSP.

Posting this here now to try and commit myself to sticking to this plan... instead of just going ahead and buying a few individual stocks that lag the market like I usually do.


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## Spudd

peterk said:


> Going to be buying XIU in my TFSA, SPY in my RRSP, VGRO in my wife's TFSA, and a BAL mutual fund in my wife's RRSP.


I would just like to advocate for your wife and suggest that instead of you making trades on her behalf, you explain to her why you think those trades are valid, let her ask questions, make her own decisions, and make the trades herself. If anything were to happen to you it's important for her to understand how to manage finances.


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## agent99

agent99 said:


> I hate to sell XRE/ZRE given the losses incurred. But that may be the smart thing to do. Perhaps replace with banks or utilities or aristocrats with history of dividend growth???? Good ideas welcomed!


Well I did sell all XRE and ZRE at loss in TFSAs as well as some Riocan in taxable account with big gain (offset by selling ZDV at a loss). So cut overall Real Estate to 800 shares of Riocan .

Bought Telus (T) and Great West Life (GWO) in taxable accounts plus a little ENB.PR.I.

Bought small amount of AT&T (T) in my RRIF, just to use up US$ that had accumulated. 

Some corporate bonds, convertible debentures and GICs matured in 2020. I replaced them with a 5 year rate reset pfd ladder. and five perpetuals. Expected dividend yields on cost of over 5% for both types for at least next 6-10 years. Almost my investment horizon


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## AltaRed

james4beach said:


> Other than ZDV's heavy weight in financials, it looks like a reasonably good dividend portfolio with decent holdings


From my perspective, MER is brutal. Blackrock being greedy again vs their more recent XDIV offering (which however has underperformed). Can't support XDV from a matter of principle.


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## james4beach

AltaRed said:


> From my perspective, MER is brutal. Blackrock being greedy again vs their more recent XDIV offering (which however has underperformed). Can't support XDV from a matter of principle.


Good point, didn't notice the MERs were this high

XDV has 0.55%
ZDV has 0.38% which is more reasonable


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## agent99

I seldom buy ETFs. I bought ZDV because I probably didn't have a better idea on that day  Also, at my age, I thought I should maybe start to simplify our portfolio. Like many ETFs, with ZDV you get the good with the bad. Total return for 2020 was something like -4.0% vs 5.4% for index (XIC). It was a drag on our portfolio.


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## AltaRed

That is because value did poorly in 2020 and especially dividend stocks. Sometimes one wins and sometime one loses. slicing and dicing the broad market.

If one picks the broad market as in XIC, you neither over perform, nor under perform, the broad market.


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## agent99

AltaRed said:


> That is because value did poorly in 2020 and especially dividend stocks. Sometimes one wins and sometime one loses. slicing and dicing the broad market.


If you lump value/dividend stocks into one category, you are right. ZDV is a good example. They did poorly. 

My own mainly dividend portfolio did OK. Not great, but a positive return, not -4%. Our overall portfolio totally recovered despite low interest rates on FI side and us drawing our usual annual amount for living expenses. Luckily I didn't have much in ZDV.



AltaRed said:


> If one picks the *broad market* as in XIC, you neither over perform, nor under perform, the *broad market*.


Isn't that obvious???? That is why I used XIC for comparison purposes.


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## AltaRed

agent99 said:


> Isn't that obvious???? That is why I used XIC for comparison purposes.


OF course. That was my point too! Should I have added a smiley wink?


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## gardner

I finally managed top top up and rebalance my TFSA. Bought a combo of VDY, ZDV and ZAG.


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## peterk

Spudd said:


> I would just like to advocate for your wife and suggest that instead of you making trades on her behalf, you explain to her why you think those trades are valid, let her ask questions, make her own decisions, and make the trades herself. If anything were to happen to you it's important for her to understand how to manage finances.


I mean, I appreciate it, and yes I do plan on us making up wills and I need to better involve/explain to her how to login to the investing website, that's important... at the same time, some people (most people) have no interest, or extreme fear, of personal finance and investing stuff, are those people just SOL?... I think _I am_ being the advocate by getting her nudged into low cost BAL and GRO Etfs. Does that sound like a concerning investment plan to you? Is being pushed out of one's comfort zone by a loving relative towards a better place in life not a good and fortunate thing to experience?

What is the alternative? Millions of working Canadians, _especially _women, have most of their money sitting in chequing or maybe a GIC or HISA; and if they one day they get enough gumption, they book an appointment at the bank and end up in a "conservative" mutual fund making 4% nominally, paying a 2.3% fee, and taking home 1.7% for themselves. Would _the advocate_ suggest they carry on like this for their entire lives, because at least then they are comfortable and "making their own decisions?" I don't think so.


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## james4beach

gardner said:


> I finally managed top top up and rebalance my TFSA. Bought a combo of VDY, ZDV and ZAG.


I didn't want to take this thread off topic so I posted some stuff to this other thread,









ZDV - new dividend ETF


BMO's new dividend ETF started trading yesterday. How do people think this compares with XDV and CDZ? The MER at 0.35 is lower, and the yield is higher. It seems more attractive at first glance but are there any potential disadvantages compares to the other two?




www.canadianmoneyforum.com


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## Investor87

james4beach said:


> Curious what you didn't like about ZDV? Was it because of what you mentioned about being too high in financials?
> 
> Other than ZDV's heavy weight in financials, it looks like a reasonably good dividend portfolio with decent holdings


I agree with James. Dividends are also looked as a comeback asset class this year. I am buying some ZDV and ZWC (Cdn high dividends + covered calls), the yield on the latter - 7.9% is simply an offer I can't refuse.


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## Spudd

peterk said:


> I mean, I appreciate it, and yes I do plan on us making up wills and I need to better involve/explain to her how to login to the investing website, that's important... at the same time, some people (most people) have no interest, or extreme fear, of personal finance and investing stuff, are those people just SOL?... I think _I am_ being the advocate by getting her nudged into low cost BAL and GRO Etfs. Does that sound like a concerning investment plan to you? Is being pushed out of one's comfort zone by a loving relative towards a better place in life not a good and fortunate thing to experience?
> 
> What is the alternative? Millions of working Canadians, _especially _women, have most of their money sitting in chequing or maybe a GIC or HISA; and if they one day they get enough gumption, they book an appointment at the bank and end up in a "conservative" mutual fund making 4% nominally, paying a 2.3% fee, and taking home 1.7% for themselves. Would _the advocate_ suggest they carry on like this for their entire lives, because at least then they are comfortable and "making their own decisions?" I don't think so.


I'm not saying your investment plan is concerning, I was just concerned because it sounded like you didn't plan to involve or inform her, and just handle everything yourself. That's fine while you're alive and of sound mind, but the time for her to learn how to handle things is while you're young. If you wait until later in life when it seems like you might not be around, she might be too "set in her ways" to be willing/able to learn. That's what happened with my FIL and his wife. He is getting dementia and his kids just discovered he's been running up credit card debt for years without him realizing it. His wife is still of sound mind so normally one would think she would take over, but she's too timid from having spent 40 years having him take care of everything. 

You never know, you might be hit by a bus tomorrow. While sure, many people don't know/care about personal finance, your wife has the benefit of having you to teach her the ways. And it's to both your benefits for her to have that knowledge. 

My proposal was not for you to just throw it at her and say "have at it" but to teach her to fish, so to speak. Also, women tend to be more conservative investors so you never know, she might out perform you in the long run.  And once she's informed and aware, if she still wants you to handle the day-to-day, there's nothing wrong with that.

In my family I'm the more financially savvy one, I handle the bulk of the investing and I do the bulk of the taxes. But I make sure my husband is involved enough that I feel comfortable if I died, he'd be OK. I sit down to review the taxes with him and help me fill out his portion of them. I invest the joint funds (while keeping him informed when I make changes) but he invests his own TFSA/RRSP.


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## agent99

Investor87 said:


> I agree with James. Dividends are also looked as a comeback asset class this year. I am buying some ZDV and ZWC (Cdn high dividends + covered calls), the yield on the latter - 7.9% is simply an offer I can't refuse.


I have sold my ZDV in taxable account - Just have a little in TFSAs where i is easy to add small amounts from income. Once enough to buy something better, I will sell those too. ZDV has underperformed broader index as well as our own much narrower equity portfolio. It may do better going forward, but I can't see it beating individually picked stocks we own.

I don't own ZWC, but in past did hold a similar BMO ETF that promised better performance by implementing covered calls. These funds pay out much more than their portfolios generate in dividends. The covered calls can't account for the difference. It seems it has to come from growth in the portfolio. That may work if markets are growing or they are selling more units. I had a look at the distributions for tax purposes for 2019 (2020 not available yet). Over 50% of the distribution was Return of Capital. That is your own money being given back and it must be deducted from acb each year in a taxable account. From a tax point of view, ZWC might be OK in a TFSA where no taxes come into it. But overall I wouldn't buy it. Average annual Total Return over 3.8yrs since inception has been just 1.11% pa. ZDV a bit better at 2.63% pa (both assume distributions re-invested)


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## Benting

Bought BB. Still remember long times ago I bought this for $99 and sold for $102.


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## peterk

Spudd said:


> My proposal was not for you to just throw it at her and say "have at it" but to teach her to fish, so to speak. Also, women tend to be more conservative investors so you never know, she might out perform you in the long run.  And once she's informed and aware, if she still wants you to handle the day-to-day, there's nothing wrong with that.
> 
> In my family I'm the more financially savvy one, I handle the bulk of the investing and I do the bulk of the taxes. But I make sure my husband is involved enough that I feel comfortable if I died, he'd be OK. I sit down to review the taxes with him and help me fill out his portion of them. I invest the joint funds (while keeping him informed when I make changes) but he invests his own TFSA/RRSP.


Thanks Spudd - I mean - "I'm working on it". But really I never got too far all through our 20s on the teaching/learning/interest front with her, all while she was making money and young. Now we have a baby and she's busy there, obviously, nor earning money, so less important. And the more I make and more financially stable we become, the even less interest I think she'll have in it.

But yes my goal is something like getting her prepared for my eventual bus-running-over. 😝


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## james4beach

Bought some BBD.B, Bombardier.

Total speculation, the smallest position among all my speculative positions. Rationale in this post.


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## agent99

Back when he was on BNN with Amanda Lang, Kevin O'Leary once said - "Never buy aluminum tubes"! He was referring to Bombardiers products as well as others in similar businesses.

I never liked or agreed with him on much, but this one stuck! I think it could apply to airlines too. Seems to have turned out to be good advice.


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## MrBlackhill

agent99 said:


> Never buy aluminum tubes


I'm currently trying to decide whether or not I should buy CIA.TO as iron ore price soared, but iron ore price seems to have huge swings over the years.


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## Investor87

agent99 said:


> I have sold my ZDV in taxable account - Just have a little in TFSAs where i is easy to add small amounts from income. Once enough to buy something better, I will sell those too. ZDV has underperformed broader index as well as our own much narrower equity portfolio. It may do better going forward, but I can't see it beating individually picked stocks we own.
> 
> I don't own ZWC, but in past did hold a similar BMO ETF that promised better performance by implementing covered calls. These funds pay out much more than their portfolios generate in dividends. The covered calls can't account for the difference. It seems it has to come from growth in the portfolio. That may work if markets are growing or they are selling more units. I had a look at the distributions for tax purposes for 2019 (2020 not available yet). Over 50% of the distribution was Return of Capital. That is your own money being given back and it must be deducted from acb each year in a taxable account. From a tax point of view, ZWC might be OK in a TFSA where no taxes come into it. But overall I wouldn't buy it. Average annual Total Return over 3.8yrs since inception has been just 1.11% pa. ZDV a bit better at 2.63% pa (both assume distributions re-invested)


Fair enough for ZDV. Dividends have been out of favor for the past years, so that explains the underperformance compared to the TSX.

I hear you about ZWC, and those were my thoughts too previously, however the ROC in the distribution is actually not your money back. Let me find the source I used a couple of years back on the explanation I found and will get back to you.


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## james4beach

Investor87 said:


> Fair enough for ZDV. Dividends have been out of favor for the past years, so that explains the underperformance compared to the TSX.


How do you figure they are 'out of favor'? All I seem to ever hear about is dividend investing and DGI. This has been one of the most popular investment themes since interest rates dropped.


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## agent99

james4beach said:


> How do you figure they are 'out of favor'? All I seem to ever hear about is dividend investing and DGI. This has been one of the most popular investment themes since interest rates dropped.


I think Inv87 might have meant that the prices of dividend stocks haven't gained as much as some other stocks. You can see this if you compare price or even Total Return of ZDV (or XDIV) with say XIU or XIC for past year or two. Many including myself wouldn't expect that, but still prefer a steady reliable cash flow to risk of market volatility.


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## james4beach

agent99 said:


> I think Inv87 might have meant that the prices of dividend stocks haven't gained as much as some other stocks. You can see this if you compare price or even Total Return of ZDV (or XDIV) with say XIU or XIC for past year or two. Many including myself wouldn't expect that, but still prefer a steady reliable cash flow to risk of market volatility.


Ah that's a good point. Yeah, dividend stocks have done poorly for about a year.

I've noticed it in my 5-pack as well, which has been lagging a bit lately. It's not a dividend strategy but the holdings (RY, ENB, CNR, BCE, FTS) happen to be major dividend stocks. Trailing 1 year performance of my 5-pack is -1.6% whereas XIC index is 5.2%


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## doctrine

james4beach said:


> How do you figure they are 'out of favor'? All I seem to ever hear about is dividend investing and DGI. This has been one of the most popular investment themes since interest rates dropped.


The flavour of the day is to invest in stocks that have huge surges, especially but not limited to technology. Something moves up, people want in. And the more it goes up, the more people want in - fundamentals be dammed, and usually with conscious disregard. Stonks only go up. Who has time for 5% a year in dividends when something can move 30-100% in a day? That's 5-15 years of gains right there in 24 hours.


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## james4beach

doctrine said:


> The flavour of the day is to invest in stocks that have huge surges, especially but not limited to technology.


True (including Bitcoin) but this theme has only been around for 3-4 months I think. For aggressive tech, maybe only 10 months. I'm hopeful that it will run out of steam before things get too crazy.

It will be a good way to test each of our commitments to our strategy. A focused investor should be able to stick with their strategy, no matter what crazy things happen around them. A good investment plan should be able to survive both market catastrophes, and insane bubble FOMO.


----------



## james4beach

doctrine said:


> The flavour of the day is to invest in stocks that have huge surges, especially but not limited to technology.


I suspect this "sector" is being pumped by Goldman Sachs and Wall Street more generally.


----------



## Investor87

agent99 said:


> I think Inv87 might have meant that the prices of dividend stocks haven't gained as much as some other stocks. You can see this if you compare price or even Total Return of ZDV (or XDIV) with say XIU or XIC for past year or two. Many including myself wouldn't expect that, but still prefer a steady reliable cash flow to risk of market volatility.


Exactly. Dividends as an asset class have been neglected due to the the attractiveness of tech stocks madness. As we see tech becoming more and more overvalued, a return to dividends and value is starting to shape.

Back to the the main topic, some interesting new launches from BMO caught my attention, especially ZCLN - clean energy. I have read extensively on this sector and the consensus among hedge fund and money managers is that fossil fuels are inevitably on their way out. Will probably set a regular contribution into it, say 200$ monthly.


----------



## Investor87

james4beach said:


> I suspect this "sector" is being pumped by Goldman Sachs and Wall Street more generally.


Not even sure Wall street is pumping it, analysts are rating BlackBerry as a hold or sell, and yet it surges in one day based on some reddit hype. Many examples like this, must be the easiness to invest through these low cost online platforms coupled with the lack of homework done by investors.


----------



## Mechanic

I wonder if we will revert to our energy resource sector at some point ? It's taking forever for wind and solar to achieve any significant contribution to the demand and I just can't get my head around it ever being enough to meet said demand.


----------



## Rusty O'Toole

Still trading TQQQ as I have been for the last 3 years. Got stopped out of 4500 shares @ 98.5 two days ago, today bought 2000 @93. Will add more in the next few days.


----------



## james4beach

Bought some American Airlines, adding to a related position I have in the sector (Bombardier)


----------



## Benting

Ditch my boring treadmill, and bought Nintendo Switch console with Ring-Fit Adventure. Hopefully will have a bit more fun doing workout


----------



## Investor87

agent99 said:


> I have sold my ZDV in taxable account - Just have a little in TFSAs where i is easy to add small amounts from income. Once enough to buy something better, I will sell those too. ZDV has underperformed broader index as well as our own much narrower equity portfolio. It may do better going forward, but I can't see it beating individually picked stocks we own.
> 
> I don't own ZWC, but in past did hold a similar BMO ETF that promised better performance by implementing covered calls. These funds pay out much more than their portfolios generate in dividends. The covered calls can't account for the difference. It seems it has to come from growth in the portfolio. That may work if markets are growing or they are selling more units. I had a look at the distributions for tax purposes for 2019 (2020 not available yet). Over 50% of the distribution was Return of Capital. That is your own money being given back and it must be deducted from acb each year in a taxable account. From a tax point of view, ZWC might be OK in a TFSA where no taxes come into it. But overall I wouldn't buy it. Average annual Total Return over 3.8yrs since inception has been just 1.11% pa. ZDV a bit better at 2.63% pa (both assume distributions re-invested)



Here it is, the explanation for the return of capital:

Covered Call ETFs BMO ETFs treat the premiums earned from writing call options on portfolio securities as capital gains. While the premiums earned are paid out as part of the monthly cash distributions, the premiums are combined with the gains and losses from selling underlying holdings which may result in higher ROC on the T3 tax form. Note that “in-the-money options” do not decrease the value of the ETF, as the increase in value of the sold option is offset by the increase in value of the underlying portfolio holding at the same time. This means that we consider this good ROC, as the invested capital is not depleted.

Found it in their Tax FAQ on their dashboard.


----------



## Investor87

Rusty O'Toole said:


> Still trading TQQQ as I have been for the last 3 years. Got stopped out of 4500 shares @ 98.5 two days ago, today bought 2000 @93. Will add more in the next few days.


How long are you holding them? is this a day trading thing or you plan on a relatively longer term hold?


----------



## Rusty O'Toole

Investor87 said:


> How long are you holding them? is this a day trading thing or you plan on a relatively longer term hold?


Best described as swing trading. My preferred holding period is forever but if it tanks I am not going to sit there and take it like a little soldier, not when I can get out and back in for a $7 commission. Usual holding period is weeks or months depending on when the market kicks me out.
There is a certain signal I use. When a stock is dropping I wait for the signal to tell me it has turned around. Then I buy. Usually I put on a position in stages, buying more only when the last buy shows a profit. Always with a stoploss order and never risking more than 2% of my account. As the price goes up I keep raising the stoploss every week or 2 based on support levels. Then I ride it until the stoploss gets hit. Sometimes I get stopped out by a meaningless glitch like a few days ago when the tech stocks dropped because of the GME fiasco. Then I get back in when the coast is clear. When I get stopped out and the market turns sour I step aside until I get the buy signal again. I don't usually short them because we haven't had a bear market you could sink your teeth into except maybe the crash that took place a year ago and who saw that coming.
This is pure technical trading. I prefer trading TQQQ because it goes up fast, being 3X the NASDAQ which is basically tech stocks like Google, Apple, Netflix, Amazon etc. But it does not show too many wild swings, is not influenced by things like earnings announcements and other news that can kick individual stocks around.
Last year I made 49% on my account and could have made multiples of that if I wasn't so cautious but I hate to lose money and keep a pretty tight stop.
I have laid out my method 2 or 3 times in different threads on this board and got razzed for it so now I don't go into details unless asked. If you have any other questions go ahead and ask.

PS Am now long 4200 of TQQQ @ 95.06 average price. Closed today @ 97.12. Need to buy 500 more to complete my position, put in a bid this morning and raised it twice and never got hit which I take as a good sign. Will get them tomorrow.


----------



## Investor87

Rusty O'Toole said:


> Best described as swing trading. My preferred holding period is forever but if it tanks I am not going to sit there and take it like a little soldier, not when I can get out and back in for a $7 commission. Usual holding period is weeks or months depending on when the market kicks me out.
> There is a certain signal I use. When a stock is dropping I wait for the signal to tell me it has turned around. Then I buy. Usually I put on a position in stages, buying more only when the last buy shows a profit. Always with a stoploss order and never risking more than 2% of my account. As the price goes up I keep raising the stoploss every week or 2 based on support levels. Then I ride it until the stoploss gets hit. Sometimes I get stopped out by a meaningless glitch like a few days ago when the tech stocks dropped because of the GME fiasco. Then I get back in when the coast is clear. When I get stopped out and the market turns sour I step aside until I get the buy signal again. I don't usually short them because we haven't had a bear market you could sink your teeth into except maybe the crash that took place a year ago and who saw that coming.
> This is pure technical trading. I prefer trading TQQQ because it goes up fast, being 3X the NASDAQ which is basically tech stocks like Google, Apple, Netflix, Amazon etc. But it does not show too many wild swings, is not influenced by things like earnings announcements and other news that can kick individual stocks around.
> Last year I made 49% on my account and could have made multiples of that if I wasn't so cautious but I hate to lose money and keep a pretty tight stop.
> I have laid out my method 2 or 3 times in different threads on this board and got razzed for it so now I don't go into details unless asked. If you have any other questions go ahead and ask.
> 
> PS Am now long 4200 of TQQQ @ 95.06 average price. Closed today @ 97.12. Need to buy 500 more to complete my position, put in a bid this morning and raised it twice and never got hit which I take as a good sign. Will get them tomorrow.



I was thinking about the triple leveraged Nasdaq 100 too but I did some reading on the volatility decay effect when it's leveraged, which states that due to the daily reset of these products, they are constantly buying higher highs and selling lower lows, which if held in a longer term, can do some real damage. That's why I asked you hold long are you keeping it. I also have a friend that bought the same TQQQ 2 years ago and says that he still has it and is happy with it, however, by March 23rd of 2020, I bet he wasn't exactly happy with it. 

OTOH, I would never judge or criticize someone's style of investing, we could all learn from anyone, anywhere, pretty much anything. Thanks for the details.


----------



## Rusty O'Toole

A good reason to get out when it shows weakness. You can see the 'drag' on TQQQ when you compare charts, especially when the market is falling. I trade it because it is the most profitable, least volatile thing I have found. If there was something else that really moved in a consistent way without wild swings I would buy it. A real eye opener to me was the charts of some medical stocks after Obamacare was announced, they went straight up at a 45 degree angle for 2 years. Wish I could find a few like that.


----------



## james4beach

Rusty O'Toole said:


> PS Am now long 4200 of TQQQ @ 95.06 average price. Closed today @ 97.12. Need to buy 500 more to complete my position, put in a bid this morning and raised it twice and never got hit which I take as a good sign. Will get them tomorrow.


Your results are very impressive Rusty, congrats on your trading profits... it's undoubtedly been going great.

I am not writing this to rain on the parade. But about a year ago, you were posting and sounding very bearish and not to keen on stocks in general. Back then you were hesitating to take a buy and hold position into index funds or dividend stocks.

Today in contrast, you're actively trading that capital in a triple leveraged fund. There are definitely some serious risks to this activity. Have you considered "quitting while you are ahead"?

For example: to preserve much of your active trading profits, you could reduce your TQQQ trading to a tiny amount, maybe continue trading 50K. And then you could put the rest of your capital into the passive index ETFs, which as I recall, was your original idea. Just buy and hold the ETFs and let them pay you recurring monthly income. Perhaps ZDV + ZDY, which would pay about 4% yield or $20,000 a year on 500k capital.

With your larger amount of capital, thanks to your significant trading profits, your earlier idea of holding dividend ETFs... which was a very solid idea by the way... will now generate more income for you. And you still get to have more upside and gains while you continue trading the smaller amount in TQQQ.


----------



## Investor87

Rusty O'Toole said:


> A good reason to get out when it shows weakness. You can see the 'drag' on TQQQ when you compare charts, especially when the market is falling. I trade it because it is the most profitable, least volatile thing I have found. If there was something else that really moved in a consistent way without wild swings I would buy it. A real eye opener to me was the charts of some medical stocks after Obamacare was announced, they went straight up at a 45 degree angle for 2 years. Wish I could find a few like that.



I see. While I do admire your courage using TQQQ, I will be holding my ZQQ position for now, which brought me almost 20% annualized for 10 years now, which is preeeeetty good, also at one third of the cost (0.39% vs 0.95%)


----------



## Rusty O'Toole

A year ago the market was crashing. It bottomed on March 19. During the first 2 1/2 months of the year I owned 2 stocks and no ETFs and lost money. I got a buy signal in March and in the next 10 months made bank. I had the same trading method in place then that I use now. As time goes on I have more and more confidence that what I am doing works. Meanwhile the conservative, long term buy and hold blue chip stocks I bought in October 2019 never did much. I gave up on them last summer, sold one with a small profit and the other with a small loss. The plain fact is that having been an investor since the early seventies I have tried various methods of investing and none worked as well as what I am doing now.You may call it trading or speculating but it works. I would love to dump my money into some investment and forget about it except to draw a nice check every month but don't have enough money to do that (yet). Until then I will keep "working" 5 minutes a day in front of my computer.
Evidently you still don't understand what I do if you think it is risky. I told you I don't like risk and hate losing money. I never trade without a tight stoploss and only when the odds are overwhelmingly in my favor.
I hope this does not come across as too waspish. I appreciate your concern. It is a long time since anyone gave a damn what happened to me.


----------



## Rusty O'Toole

Investor87 said:


> I see. While I do admire your courage using TQQQ, I will be holding my ZQQ position for now, which brought me almost 20% annualized for 10 years now, which is preeeeetty good, also at one third of the cost (0.39% vs 0.95%)


Thanks for the tip. I tried to look up ZQQ and there is no such thing on the platform I use. They show /ZQQ21, 22, 23, and 24 which are 30 day Fed funds futures. Did I get the wrong symbol? What exactly are you referring to?


----------



## gardner

BMO Nasdaq 100 Equity Hedged to CAD Index ETF (ZQQ.TO)








ZQQ - BMO NASDAQ 100 Equity Hedged to CAD Index ETF | BMO Global Asset Management


Learn more about the BMO NASDAQ 100 Equity Hedged to CAD Index ETF (ZQQ) from BMO Global Asset Management and download the latest ZQQ fact sheet.




www.bmogam.com


----------



## james4beach

Rusty O'Toole said:


> Evidently you still don't understand what I do if you think it is risky. I told you I don't like risk and hate losing money. I never trade without a tight stoploss and only when the odds are overwhelmingly in my favor.
> I hope this does not come across as too waspish. I appreciate your concern. It is a long time since anyone gave a damn what happened to me.


The stop loss is a great idea of course. Though, as you know, it can't catch everything. Notably, a sharp drop before the open could potentially cause a huge gap down on TQQQ one day, triggering your stop at a very low price. That could shake you out of a position at a sharp loss even if it's a temporary or transient event.

There is precedent for this, very recently! On March 9, SPY opened down 7.7% from the previous day's close. So we know something similar could happen to QQQ, resulting in a potential *drop at the open* on TQQQ of 23% to 25%. On March 12 of last year, TQQQ opened down 20% from the last close. If you were long at the time, that would mean that when your stop triggers, you are selling down 20% or more ... not at your trigger price.

Just a risk to consider. I realize you are monitoring for signals to get out, but none of these signals are perfect.

On the other hand, this kind of thing may never happen to you. Or you may make so much in profits that even such a disaster scenario would only set you back a bit. And you may have already considered everything I wrote about... just checking.


----------



## Rusty O'Toole

james4beach said:


> The stop loss is a great idea of course. Though, as you know, it can't catch everything. Notably, a sharp drop before the open could potentially cause a huge gap down on TQQQ one day, triggering your stop at a very low price. That could shake you out of a position at a sharp loss even if it's a temporary or transient event.
> 
> There is precedent for this, very recently! On March 9, SPY opened down 7.7% from the previous day's close. So we know something similar could happen to QQQ, resulting in a potential *drop at the open* on TQQQ of 23% to 25%. On March 12 of last year, TQQQ opened down 20% from the last close. If you were long at the time, that would mean that when your stop triggers, you are selling down 20% or more ... not at your trigger price.
> 
> Just a risk to consider. I realize you are monitoring for signals to get out, but none of these signals are perfect.
> 
> On the other hand, this kind of thing may never happen to you. Or you may make so much in profits that even such a disaster scenario would only set you back a bit. And you may have already considered everything I wrote about... just checking.


Something like that could happen. I could get hit by a car crossing the street too. That has happened although not to me.
Anybody's stock could drop like it did in flash crashes 10 years ago, or like the whole market did in 1987. Those are the risks we all take. I won't bore you by naming all the old reliable blue chip stocks that lost 90% of their value because you already know about that. Not sure how you protect yourself from losses if you don't use a stoploss. I suppose you go by the old stockbroker's excuse "it's not a loss until you sell". If it's not it will do until a loss comes along.
So far the indicators I use have proven reliable. They keep me in the market when the going is good and out when it is better to be out.
I may get stopped out with a loss 1 time in 5 with a loss of 1%. The other 4 times I get stopped out with a profit of 10% or more. I leave it to you if those odds are in my favor. In January I made 14%. I could lay off the rest of the year and still do better than most funds. Last year I did not buy a share of anything until March 19 so a full year has not gone by. In less than a year my account is up 75%. If something happened like you describe I would not be happy but it would not kill me. And as I told you before this is my trading account, I have other accounts plus some real estate and other investments so am not going to need the food bank anytime soon.

Yes I considered that and a lot of other disaster scenarios before I got into stock investing. As I said before I hate to lose money. That is why I started small 3 or 4 years ago risking no more than $200 or $300 on a trade and gradually built up over time as I gained experience and confidence. I still don't think I know everything or that the market can't sock me over the head but I have found 1 thing that works. Have given up trying to explain it to anybody as no one seems to be interested, with 1 or 2 exceptions. Evidently a simple trading method that gives large gains with minimal risk causes cognitive dissonance. I know it did me, I had the clue years ago but never followed it up as it seemed too simple. I was wrong but it took years of investing experience to see it.


----------



## Rusty O'Toole

james4beach said:


> There is precedent for this, very recently! On March 9, SPY opened down 7.7% from the previous day's close.


As you know I was out of the market, except for 2 blue chip, long term investment stocks. We discussed this at the time, I didn't like the look of things and hadn't bought a share of stock since October, and did not get in again until late March. The February crash is just the sort of thing I like to avoid. The indicators I use plus the stoploss keeps me out of trouble.

It seems a bit odd that you are worried about me suffering a 7.7% loss when long term buy and hold investors see much bigger losses than that. To me these "conservative" investors are the real gamblers, willing to lose half their money and stay in the game hoping for their luck to turn.


----------



## james4beach

Back to 'what are you buying '... I bought some silver today using MNS (equivalent to physical bullion)


----------



## Gator13

Added a bit more PPL earlier this week.

Added cash to HISA.

Also started passive positions in MAW104 & RBF1350.


----------



## gibor365

Gator13 said:


> Added a bit more PPL earlier this week.


Wanted to buy PPL and ACO-X , but both started to go up last week ...
Last month Bought and added UL, MRK, FTS, EMA, PM, LMT, MFC, POW, GWO


----------



## fplan

james4beach said:


> Ah that's a good point. Yeah, dividend stocks have done poorly for about a year.
> 
> I've noticed it in my 5-pack as well, which has been lagging a bit lately. It's not a dividend strategy but the holdings (RY, ENB, CNR, BCE, FTS) happen to be major dividend stocks. Trailing 1 year performance of my 5-pack is -1.6% whereas XIC index is 5.2%


Shopify is the reason why index funds/ETFs tracking TSX have a good year. Are you planning to add it to your 5pack ?


----------



## gibor365

fplan said:


> Shopify is the reason why index funds/ETFs tracking TSX have a good year. Are you planning to add it to your 5pack ?


To buy stock with P/E = 720?! No way!


----------



## james4beach

fplan said:


> Shopify is the reason why index funds/ETFs tracking TSX have a good year. Are you planning to add it to your 5pack ?


No, I am not planning to. I'm going to stick with picking large stocks from 5 specific sectors that have a long history in Canada.

Separately, I hold a position in XIT as part of my overall Canadian exposure, but it's only 1% of my total. If I gain more confidence that tech is going to stick around as a Canadian sector, I may add more XIT with time.


----------



## Investor87

james4beach said:


> No, I am not planning to. I'm going to stick with picking large stocks from 5 specific sectors that have a long history in Canada.
> 
> Separately, I hold a position in XIT as part of my overall Canadian exposure, but it's only 1% of my total. If I gain more confidence that tech is going to stick around as a Canadian sector, I may add more XIT with time.


Interesting, I never thought to see a Canadian tech sector ETF! Thanks for bringing this up James, the performance is super impressive for 2019 and 2020. Was that mainly Shopify?


----------



## james4beach

Investor87 said:


> Interesting, I never thought to see a Canadian tech sector ETF! Thanks for bringing this up James, the performance is super impressive for 2019 and 2020. Was that mainly Shopify?


XIT has been around a long time. Shopify is driving a lot of it, but many of Canada's tech stocks (CSU and DSG for example) have been incredibly strong as well.


----------



## Investor87

james4beach said:


> XIT has been around a long time. Shopify is driving a lot of it, but many of Canada's tech stocks (CSU and DSG for example) have been incredibly strong as well.


What's your opinion on it going forward? are those returns sustainable?


----------



## james4beach

Investor87 said:


> What's your opinion on it going forward? are those returns sustainable?


I doubt it's sustainable, but I think XIT will continue to perform strongly as long as we're in this equity / liquidity bubble.

I plan to hold it as long as the technical picture looks strong. My plan is to look at the relative strength of XFN, XEG, XIT and choose which is strongest. So if XIT loses leadership but XEG picks up strength, then I would hold XEG instead. It's a bit of a performance-chasing approach, with 1% of my portfolio.


----------



## gibor365

Investor87 said:


> What's your opinion on it going forward? are those returns sustainable?


I won't touch XIT at all, 65% of it - just 3 overvalued stocks and in total ETF has .... 10 stock! This Canadian IT sector ETF is a joke... Why not to buy QQQ instead?!


----------



## dcris07

gibor365 said:


> I won't touch XIT at all, 65% of it - just 3 overvalued stocks and in total ETF has .... 10 stock! This Canadian IT sector ETF is a joke... Why not to buy QQQ instead?!



I agree not a very well constructed ETF with just 3 holdings making up a large majority of the allocation. Personally I love buying ETFS because they help me diversify in a sector that I am allocating towards. Technology has definitely performed very well and is due for a bit of correction sooner rather than later. I have been doing some research on how to get good exposure to tech names without taking the same amount of market risk as QQQ or ZQQ. Came across *ZWT*, a newer ETF from BMO that has a covered call overlay and invests in a basket of about 60 US tech names. I am a big fan of getting paid while I wait so this is a great solution for me , a good diversified exposure to a sector I like and should there be a correction and volatility at least I will collect a descent yield while a wait for a recovery. If you haven't heard of it its definitely an interesting strategy check out this page:*Link to ZWT Site*


----------



## agent99

Today my order for a small RRIF position in VWAGY was filled. Bought more as something to fuel my interest in the evolving EV market than a real investment. I am betting (gambling?) on VW becoming the global leader in EVs before long. Pays a small dividend, but probably not much after withholding taxes.


----------



## Eder

Sold some of my Fortis preferreds after a nice run up...put the funds into more Fortis common stock.


----------



## gibor365

_Came across *ZWT*, a newer ETF from BMO that has a covered call overlay and invests in a basket of about 60 US tech names. - _be careful with those covered call ETFs, I had some not really exciting experience with them about 7-8 years ago when BMO just lunched them..
If you think that QQQ is too risky, just buy 50% QQQ and 50% VBAL or VCNS as an example Or check website ETF channel

_I agree not a very well constructed ETF - _what they can contract is Canada practically doesn't have IT  as well as several other sectors ...
If you invest in Canada, IMHO, better to stick to financials/lifecos , utilities, maybe REIT and commodities + Magna


----------



## Benting

Bought 200 shares CRON.


----------



## james4beach

Today I added money to my RRSP and bought some XBB (bonds) and CGL.C (gold) as part of my asset allocation plan.

Since bonds and gold have been relatively weak lately, my investment plan required me to buy those assets. Stocks are already above the target weight. Bonds are at a 8 month low, and gold is at a 11 month low. A good time to buy!


----------



## JWC

I've been buying CBDT (Empower Clinics) all week.


----------



## A_Penny_saved

Me too. Started at 0.61. I don’t know if there is any stopping of this one ...( i know there always is). Another penny stock I like is SPO, good concept....get in ground level. High volume lately ...


----------



## JWC

A_Penny_saved said:


> Me too. Started at 0.61. I don’t know if there is any stopping of this one ...( i know there always is). Another penny stock I like is SPO, good concept....get in ground level. High volume lately ...


Started buying CBDT at 0.71 after the Rexall deal and kept buying up to 1.20, done buying now, time to wait and watch. I have my asks at $10. 

CBDT is either going to be amazing or its the best pump n dump I've ever seen LOL.


----------



## Ricehammer4416

Long time lurker .... Read daily but my first post. Bought some TD bank for my RRSP.


----------



## Gator13

Started a position in CU as a long term hold.


----------



## Gator13

Picked up some DIR.UN to hold in TFSA's.


----------



## Gator13

Also started a position in GWO in taxable account. (Long term hold)


----------



## londoncalling

Started a position in 3M MMM:US today at $175.50


----------



## newfoundlander61

Used our cash in both TFSA's to add to AQN & Telus holdings.


----------



## Money172375

I think I’ll Move my MIC to Telus and BCE when MIC is bought out.


----------



## Ben Tunite

james4beach said:


> Today I added money to my RRSP and bought some XBB (bonds) and CGL.C (gold) as part of my asset allocation plan.
> 
> Since bonds and gold have been relatively weak lately, my investment plan required me to buy those assets. Stocks are already above the target weight. Bonds are at a 8 month low, and gold is at a 11 month low. A good time to buy!


Regarding Bonds, I'm 50:50 Bonds:Stock (MAW100:MAW120) and reviewing the multiyear (5,10,15,20 yr) performance of the MAW100 bond fund. I do worry about how they will perform with inflation, and as just witnessed know that they will underperform for a season with rising interest. Sometimes I wonder if I should allocate a portion of my bond money to a dividend aristocrat like FTS. Any thoughts?


----------



## james4beach

Ben Tunite said:


> Regarding Bonds, I'm 50:50 Bonds:Stock (MAW100:MAW120) and reviewing the multiyear (5,10,15,20 yr) performance of the MAW100 bond fund. I do worry about how they will perform with inflation, and as just witnessed know that they will underperform for a season with rising interest. Sometimes I wonder if I should allocate a portion of my bond money to a dividend aristocrat like FTS. Any thoughts?


How do you know we are going to have high inflation? What if we have low inflation instead?

And even if we do have high inflation, the market (current bond prices) might already be pricing in those inflation expectations.

Generally once a plan is formed, it's best to stick with the existing plan. No matter how you invest, whatever allocation you choose, every couple years something will make you question it and tempt you to change your investments. Even if you change your allocation today, something will change again in a year or two, and tempt you to re-think it and change it again.

I think it hurts investment returns to keep rethinking and changing the investment mix.


----------



## Ben Tunite

_"How do you know we are going to have high inflation? "_
not saying "high" inflation, just inflation as the economy gets back on track...some reading I've done says bonds don't keep up well.

I agree that staying the course is wise given bonds limited downside, but i have some new cash to deploy for a long term hold and am now scoping out adding some risk and holding a fortis-like regulated utility. The charts below compare XBB with FTS and start at various market highs for FTS over the past 16 yrs. I recognise that FTS performance is in an era of decreasing interest rates. I can live with that volatility for a long term hold, _assuming _its similar going forward, but I do need to better understand FTS's outlook and other risks


----------



## fstamand

Money172375 said:


> I think I’ll Move my MIC to Telus and BCE when MIC is bought out.


Might want to think of doing that soon, ex divs are march 10 and 12 respectively.


----------



## Investor87

Ben Tunite said:


> Regarding Bonds, I'm 50:50 Bonds:Stock (MAW100:MAW120) and reviewing the multiyear (5,10,15,20 yr) performance of the MAW100 bond fund. I do worry about how they will perform with inflation, and as just witnessed know that they will underperform for a season with rising interest. Sometimes I wonder if I should allocate a portion of my bond money to a dividend aristocrat like FTS. Any thoughts?


Inflation is on my mind too, I have been looking at ZTIP to use as a cushion in my portfolio, not only to protect my fixed income part from inflation but it's also short term so, should rates start to rise it wouldn't impact the short end of the curve as much.


----------



## MrBlackhill

Sold XIT to buy HBGD.

I decided to make a move today about all the cryptocurrency hype. I may be late and I may lose money at this point, but it's only a small position and I didn't decide to buy cryptocurrencies, but blockchain stocks.

As I wouldn't buy gold, but gold miners (even if gold bullions did better than gold, I think it's more about selecting the right gold miners), I decided to buy blockchain stocks. I bought an ETF because I'm not confident at valuating the blockchain stocks, but I like the tech.

And now, in the world of blockchain stocks and with all that hype looking very speculative to me, I didn't want to buy just one stock. I recall back in April 2020 I wanted to buy HIVE but I didn't. In hindsight, I should've. Today I bought an ETF because of the speculation risk and I don't know which one stock seems to be the better investment.

I went into blockchain stocks because I feel that if something goes very bad with cryptocurrencies, at least I'll own companies that own something physical : data centres, hardware, etc.

I had a small position in XIT that I bought back in April 2020 when I wanted some exposure to SHOP without buying into it. Now, I looked at XIT in retrospective and thought it had no use to me, but it was up about +50%. There's about 4-5 stocks in XIT which I like and I'll just go and buy them instead of buying the ETF. I already own 2 of those 4-5 stocks that I like in XIT. So I decided to sell XIT and buy HBGD. It's a swap from tech sector to mainly tech sector again, but concentrated to an industry, so a bit riskier. It comes with some geographic diversification, which I like.

I'll have even more blockchain exposure if ever I decide to buy another ETF like EDGE, which is all about the disruptive innovation hype, but I like it.

With all my luck, I guess it's my gold stock that will start performing instead of blockchain... My sentiment for gold is still pretty bullish, but I'll just diversify a bit with that blockchain ETF.

After all, the holdings all seem overvalued, all hyped, but anyways...


----------



## nobleea

Bought some more SU in the RESP.


----------



## Eder

I put my daughters RRSP contribution into CNR as part of her 6 pack strategy. That train never looks cheap but in 20 more years till she retires I think she'll be happy.


----------



## Numbersman61

I just purchased some Sun Life floating Rate reset preferreds of Sun Life (SLF.PR.J) in my non registered account. Rate is set quarterly at 90 day Canada T-Bill rate plus 141 basis points.


----------



## where's hunter?

new position in cve and added to ( average down ) longtime holding in suncor and baytex.


----------



## Gator13

March: Added more GWO, PPL, Mawer 104, RBF1150 & cash to HISA


----------



## agent99

Could have invested the cash, but bought new All Weather Tires and fancy rims for wife's car. (old alloy rims were leaking)


----------



## l1quidfinance

Numbersman61 said:


> I just purchased some Sun Life floating Rate reset preferreds of Sun Life (SLF.PR.J) in my non registered account. Rate is set quarterly at 90 day Canada T-Bill rate plus 141 basis points.


I'm curious as to your reasoning for this one. Looks quite expensive. Did you purchase as a speculative play on short term rates?


----------



## Numbersman61

l1quidfinance said:


> I'm curious as to your reasoning for this one. Looks quite expensive. Did you purchase as a speculative play on short term rates?


At current price, the yield is 2.62% but rate adjusts every quarter. I have excess cash which is earning next to zero. I do expect short term rates to increase.


----------



## Eder

Rate resets are the new Gamestop.


----------



## Numbersman61

Eder said:


> Rate resets are the new Gamestop.


We shall see. I have owned rate resets for many years and am pleased with my returns. it’s difficult to compare a heavily promoted flash in the pan common stock to preferred shares issued by major corporations including banks.


----------



## l1quidfinance

Eder said:


> Rate resets are the new Gamestop.


I wouldn't go that far. Although they have done well recently. I do own a few and I think pretty much everything is in the green now. 

The only floating rate I have is I TRP.PR.F It is one of the more liquid issues. You need to be careful with floating rate as they often have very very low volume. 

I was trying to find some value but most issues seem well priced at the minute.


----------



## Numbersman61

I chose the Sun life preferreds due to higher credit rating than Trans Canada (Pfd-2H compared to Pfd - 2L)


----------



## nobleea

Bought MGM back 10% lower than I sold it last week.


----------



## MrBlackhill

MrBlackhill said:


> I may be late and I may lose money at this point, but it's only a small position


Obviously it was a bad timing. I don't know why I bought it when I kept saying that tech was getting more and more overvalued and I called the drop after NASDAQ's 14,000. Since I wanted to swap XIT for HBGD, I should've simply sell XIT and wait a little bit...


----------



## gardner

Added a bit of MCD in the RRSP. It's near a 6 month low at the minute.


----------



## peterk

Rolled up 3 XOM calls from $35 to $50 (Jan '22).


----------



## 8ballcornerpocket

added to my income portion with ZAG. Also bought some ZRE.


----------



## nobleea

I think these ones have a bit of runway left for the year. Bought some more SU, INTC, TECK.B, WEF.


----------



## nobleea

Bought some more Teck.b again. I think this has 30%ish gain possible in 2021 if things continue with the economy.
It's too volatile for a long term hold.


----------



## james4beach

I bought a gold coin today. Prices looked attractive, have come down quite a bit since the summer high.


----------



## nobleea

Bought PLTR today for a short term momentum play. See if this works.


----------



## l1quidfinance

Picked up a little TC Energy. If I get burnt by this one it will be the last energy company in Alberta that I touch.


----------



## Ricehammer4416

Gambled on RBLX yesterday. Small position.. We'll see how it goes.


----------



## AltaRed

l1quidfinance said:


> Picked up a little TC Energy. If I get burnt by this one it will be the last energy company in Alberta that I touch.


You should be shaking in your boots based on the misnamed (and misleading) Stranded Fossil Fuel asset thread.


----------



## Eder

TC's pipes can be converted to transport unicorn flatulence, extending their usefulness.


----------



## l1quidfinance

AltaRed said:


> You should be shaking in your boots based on the misnamed (and misleading) Stranded Fossil Fuel asset thread.


You would think I should have learnt by now. But sometimes I'm just a sucker for yield. Those sweet dividends get me everytime and the fact they just raised it again simply melted my heart. 

I decided to ignore that other thread...


----------



## Fisherman30

Buying CGL.C. As James said, gold is pretty low.


----------



## Fisherman30

Bought some TRVL ETF. I think there is a tonne of pent up demand, and as airlines, hotels etc. start to report profits, the holdings of that ETF should start going up significantly.


----------



## Spudd

Bought Algoma Central (ALC) as a value play. Also, they say shipping is in big demand at the moment. I'm hoping this can be a long-term hold.


----------



## OptsyEagle

Spudd said:


> Bought Algoma Central (ALC) as a value play. Also, they say shipping is in big demand at the moment. I'm hoping this can be a long-term hold.


Although these are not shipping rates for the Great Lakes, I have been watching this chart lately, which is the daily charter rates for Panamax size ships for bulk shipping in the Pacific region. The Atlantic regions looks very similar. This industry seems to be coming out of a "perfect storm" scenario. In and around 2008 there was a big boom in shipping. Every shipping company ordered a lot of new ships, increasing supply dramatically. This really killed the shipping business over the next few years. Then new environmental regulations came in forcing many companies to scrap many of their older ships since they were not worth the upgrading costs. Then Donald Trump created a trade war. Then if that was not enough, hello Covid-19.

The good news is, all of that is behind them. The old ships are gone, as are many of their competitors. New orders for new ships are at a 17 year low right now. Donald Trump is gone and so is Covid-19 for the most part.

I think we are looking at a multi-year upturn. My favorite Bulk Shipper is Safe Bulkers, SB in NYSE, because it has the lowest daily cost of running their ships at around $4,000 per day, management owns over 50% of the company and all their ships are very new and meet all the new environmental regulations.





__





Panamax Round Trip North China via US West Coast | Hudson Shipping Lines







hudsonshipping.com


----------



## londoncalling

Initiated a position in Provident Financial Services at $21.55 US to replace PBCT. PFS is the holding company for Provident Bank which is a regional bank in the US northeast (NJ and Pennsylvania). 

PFS - Provident Financial Services, Inc. Key Metrics | Reuters

Rational

needed to add to US Financials and current cash position above normal IPS
Purchased in US$ RRSP account
History of dividend growth since 2003 (no cuts including the Financial Crisis)
Yield over 4% which is above its 5 year average and current inflation rate
Payout ratio below 70%
has paid special dividends in the past

Concerns

Has not increased dividend since 2019.
Negative EPS Growth


----------



## Eder

Added more Telus ...marked down 4% today. That's a year worth of dividends free.


----------



## fireseeker

Eder said:


> Added more Telus ...marked down 4% today. That's a year worth of dividends free.


Price dropped because of a $1.3B stock sale.


----------



## Eder

fireseeker said:


> Price dropped because of a $1.3B stock sale.


Ya...I like it when retail gets to buy at discount as well.


----------



## nobleea

Might start kicking the tires again on VIAC. A ridiculous near 60% drop over this week from $100 down to $40. A stock sale and some analysts saying they might not be able to execute on streaming. I sold most between 72-80. Looked stupid when it hit high 90's, but now looks like sheer brilliance. It's already bouncing back and I would expect next week would be strong green.


----------



## dubmac

added some Telus.


----------



## londoncalling

I didn't get an opportunity to look at the market until end of day. I would have enjoyed participating in the Telus discount sale. As such I have placed an order for next week to see if I can add to my position.


----------



## Eder

The offer closes Mar 31 then the over allotment closes 30 days later so lots of time. I bought today as Telus was going for below the private placement price lol.

btw I did a 5G speed test here in Ko Olina today....8mps.. barely decent 3G speed so I dunno if its worth building anything out if thats what it is. I'll bet Canadian 5G may actually work.


----------



## KaeJS

I also added to Telus yesterday at 25.2.
Can't wait for my April 1 dividend to hopefully drip some more before it goes back to $26+


----------



## dubmac

tomorrow could be interesting. https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/traders-glued-screens-set-volatile-165129468.html


----------



## dubmac

KaeJS said:


> I also added to Telus yesterday at 25.2.
> Can't wait for my April 1 dividend to hopefully drip some more before it goes back to $26+


Telus went ex-div on the 11th. You'll need to wait until July 1st to see the increase in shares show up to add more divies


----------



## nobleea

nobleea said:


> Might start kicking the tires again on VIAC. A ridiculous near 60% drop over this week from $100 down to $40. A stock sale and some analysts saying they might not be able to execute on streaming. I sold most between 72-80. Looked stupid when it hit high 90's, but now looks like sheer brilliance. It's already bouncing back and I would expect next week would be strong green.


Time to put money where my mouth is. Bought 500 at 44.89 today. P/E is under 12 at this point. Might dip lower short term, but I'm pretty sure green is more likely.


----------



## Fisherman30

nobleea said:


> Time to put money where my mouth is. Bought 500 at 44.89 today. P/E is under 12 at this point. Might dip lower short term, but I'm pretty sure green is more likely.


I jumped in on this too yesterday. My exit point will be about $55 hopefully.


----------



## londoncalling

Topped up my position in Telus at 25.15 today.


----------



## james4beach

Bought more gold, CGL.C today

A nice drop in the last few months, letting me add more to my portfolio at a good price. Sure beats buying stocks at all time highs.


----------



## zinfit

I have maintained a laddered bond portfolio for 20 years. I had a corporate bond mature. I did a check on the RBC inventory and wasn't excited about the minuscule yields. I used these funds to buy BAM.PR.B with a current yield of 3.6% . It is a floater and should do well if we are in a rising rate environment. I fully appreciate this is not a fixed rate investment. Extraordinary times require different choices. I bought a fair chunk of Enbridge and Pembina reset preferred last summer and they have been excellent investments. I am sure with the dividends I am over 50% for returns. I continue to hold them because the yield is over 6% and the rising interest rate sentiment is still bullish for the price.


----------



## fourtwenty

US cannabis companies, bought more CRESCO Labs this past week. Gonna be a wild ride but if they de-criminalize or legalize federally I think there is excellent potential. Not for the faint of heart.


----------



## nobleea

Bought some more VIAC this morning.


----------



## nobleea

Also bought some VIAC calls (Jan '21, ITM).


----------



## nobleea

Bought some more SPG.WT for a short term trade. In at 0.165 last week. Looking to exit in the 0.20-0.25 range (sold some today in that range, but most to go yet).
Very low volume on this one.


----------



## peterk

Rolled SPY calls up and out --- from 310 Jan'22s to 350 Jan '23s. Much safer now.

Being forced to bank capital gains frequently with the constant need to roll DITM Leaps (at least once per year) kinda sucks though. Just holding stocks for years, maybe decades, is definitely a huge bonus for deferring taxes.


----------



## nobleea

Bought some more VIAC. 3rd largest holding now.


----------



## londoncalling

Opened a 1/2 position in US financial Citizens Financial Group. US banks took a bigger hit today than I expected so I am currently in the red. I expect this stock to expand from its current regional presence to other areas of the US over time.


----------



## Ricehammer4416

Grabbed some CVE. Just 300 shares nothing drastic. Looking like it has some serious upside soon enough.


----------



## agent99

zinfit said:


> I have maintained a laddered bond portfolio for 20 years. I had a corporate bond mature. I did a check on the RBC inventory and wasn't excited about the minuscule yields. I used these funds to buy BAM.PR.B with a current yield of 3.6% . It is a floater and should do well if we are in a rising rate environment. I fully appreciate this is not a fixed rate investment. Extraordinary times require different choices. I bought a fair chunk of Enbridge and Pembina reset preferred last summer and they have been excellent investments. I am sure with the dividends I am over 50% for returns. I continue to hold them because the yield is over 6% and the rising interest rate sentiment is still bullish for the price.


I had a rate reset called in wife's RRIF, so looking for a replacement. I never look at floaters, but your post prompted me to a look at BAM.PR.B .

Thought I would document it here: Trading at 12.15 to 12.30. Dividend is 70% of prime - 1.715% (0.7*2.45) for first Qtr 2021. If shares are trading at $12.30, yield is 3.49%. Since 2004, the Prime Rate has varied between a low of 2.25% in April 2009 and 6.25% in July 2007. Given that inflation target is 2%, what could we expect looking ahead say 5 years ahead? 3%, 4% ?? (2.58% predicted for year end 2022 and 4.95% in the long term). Using 4%, this pfd will yield 2.8%, That won't likely look that good to new buyers. If they want 1% over prime (as they do now), that will be ~5%. Price of shares might stay about the same? If bought now, the yield would increase from 3.49% to 5.69% as prime goes from 2.45% to 4%. Not much chance of capital gains.

So, not too exciting to me at current pricing. - a perpetual, with similar risk and current yield of ~5% might be a better buy? I am still looking!


----------



## KaeJS

Bought more T @ 25.58...
3 cents off the day's low.


----------



## DigginDoc

Added to Telus as well and MAW104 in my TFSA today.


----------



## fstamand

Initiated a position in NTR.to at 66.62
and a large position in CNQ.to for a quick flip.


----------



## KaeJS

Added 20 SU @ 25.40 to my long term position.


----------



## londoncalling

Started a position in CNR today @ 135.68. I have another order at $129.18 and would pick up a 3rd tranche around $120. Perhaps I overpaid( I don't think so but others may) but I have been missing adding CNR or CP to the stable since I started DIY in 2012. Not looking to make any other buys aside from CNR presently.


----------



## agent99

londoncalling said:


> Started a position in CNR today @ 135.68. I have another order at $129.18 and would pick up a 3rd tranche around $120. Perhaps I overpaid( I don't think so but others may) but I have been missing adding CNR or CP to the stable since I started DIY in 2012. Not looking to make any other buys aside from CNR presently.


Likely a good move. I don't own either, but wish I did. Years ago, I did own CP, but must have sold it. Probably when they were having problems. CNR would suit our RRIFS, but no new cash there to buy equities.


----------



## MrBlackhill

I believe CNR has been the absolute best TSX stock for 25 years now.


----------



## KaeJS

1 single CNR share today @ $134.91.


----------



## AMABILE

KaeJS please explain why only one single share .


----------



## My Own Advisor

Would like to buy more than 1 single share here  $CNR.

I have $AQN, $BLK, $REI.UN and a few others on my watch / buy list for 2021.


----------



## KaeJS

AMABILE said:


> KaeJS please explain why only one single share .


Because I am tapped out financially.
I have everything invested (other than my cash reserves/safety net). I don't have any capital to deploy unless I dip into my reserves or use leverage, and I'm just not going to do that.

I add $70/day to my investment account.
So I can buy 1 CNR share every 2 days, currently.


----------



## KaeJS

My Own Advisor said:


> Would like to buy more than 1 single share here  $CNR.
> 
> I have $AQN, $BLK, $REI.UN and a few others on my watch / buy list for 2021.


Same!
I think AQN under 20 is a steal.


----------



## newfoundlander61

KaeJS said:


> Because I am tapped out financially.
> I have everything invested (other than my cash reserves/safety net). I don't have any capital to deploy unless I dip into my reserves or use leverage, and I'm just not going to do that.
> 
> I add $70/day to my investment account.
> So I can buy 1 CNR share every 2 days, currently.


But you have a trading fee each time don't you?


----------



## KaeJS

No, I use WealthTrade. It's free.


----------



## newfoundlander61

KaeJS said:


> No, I use WealthTrade. It's free.


That works


----------



## Eder

Added more CNR today at $133 & change.


----------



## james4beach

Bought more gold using CGL.C


----------



## fireseeker

james4beach said:


> Bought more gold using CGL.C


Even though MNT is at a 2.5-3% discount?


----------



## james4beach

fireseeker said:


> Even though MNT is at a 2.5-3% discount?


This is inside my TFSA. The consideration in this account is that I do rebalancing in here. Since CGL.C has the tighter bid/ask spread I think it's more useful for that purpose.

I hold the MNT in an account where I can just sit on it for a long time without any need to place additional trades.


----------



## Mechanic

Added a few shares of TWTR to my unreg. Good price right now at 52.82 after a 15% drop on Friday due to lower than expected growth. May add some more if it drops further.


----------



## KaeJS

Bought a share of CP at 460.
Getting more before the split in 10 days.


----------



## nobleea

Bought some more VIAC at 37.78.


----------



## zinfit

I notice all commodities from lumber to canola to oil are on a bullish upswing. I figure we are at the early stage of a cyclical bull market. If right how could a person play this in a registered account or accounts?


----------



## james4beach

zinfit said:


> I notice all commodities from lumber to canola to oil are on a bullish upswing. I figure we are at the early stage of a cyclical bull market. If right how could a person play this in a registered account or accounts?


It could also be a false start, so be careful. It's going to be pretty hard to time a commodity bull market.


----------



## agent99

zinfit said:


> I notice all commodities from lumber to canola to oil are on a bullish upswing. I figure we are at the early stage of a cyclical bull market. If right how could a person play this in a registered account or accounts?


You may be a bit late to the game. Forest products, iron and steel, oil all have already had significant gains in 2021, presumably with expectation of increased profitability down the road. There may still be opportunities, but not sure where.


----------



## Eder

A commodity bull used to signal the end stage of a bull market...not sure it still does with low interest rates in spite of rampant inflation. I agree...easy money was made in winter...maybe some gold producers have room to run since that's about the only commodity not hitting highs.


----------



## Rue Shamrock

Bought full position on BABA today under $220.


----------



## Benting

Bought 300 BB, my favourite short term fun


----------



## fstamand

Backed up the truck on PPL.to @ 37.58 for a quick flip


----------



## KaeJS

1 CNR
1 MFC
1 XEQT

All for the long term buy and hope account.


----------



## Ricehammer4416

CVE, AQN. 

Looking at Kinross but haven't pulled the trigger yet.


----------



## MrBlackhill

Bought RPI-UN.TO, FOOD.TO, DXG.TO and PHA.V.


----------



## KaeJS

Ricehammer4416 said:


> CVE, AQN.
> 
> Looking at Kinross but haven't pulled the trigger yet.


Almost bought more AQN today, too.
Some good prices on that one.
It's kind of high in my allocation, though. It's about 3% of my portfolio so I decided against adding more at this time.


----------



## scorpion_ca

HCLN, ZCH, ZUT, ZEM and TEC.


----------



## Observator

Started to buy some DLR yesterday. Will gradually add more if CAD continue to strengthening against USD.

Bought more GOAT too.


----------



## Rue Shamrock

TCEHY, and watching AQN closely.


----------



## Mechanic

Bought some GSY for a quick flip. Also added some RFC for a longer term hold, as well as some CPX for divs.


----------



## KaeJS

Got some AQN at $18.38


----------



## dubmac

me too. AQN yesterday and today.


----------



## fstamand

same, loaded up on AQN. No brainer


----------



## londoncalling

Bought a second tranche of CNR.TO @ 129.18.


----------



## gardner

Added to CNR, just enough to get to an even board lot. Seems like a good price today.


----------



## KaeJS

More CNR for me, also. @ 128.69


----------



## peterk

Wow - What a good day for us.

I doubled up on CNR (100 shares now) for 128.30 this morning!


----------



## james4beach

I bought some CMHC bonds, which are AAA federally backed government bonds, maturing in 2031 with a coupon of 1.10 and yield of 1.82%

These are great in a taxable account because they are discount bonds, paying a low coupon. Much of the return will come in the form of capital gains. So the after tax yield is far better than a GIC.

I routinely buy government bonds with low coupons in my non-registered account, and I think this is a juicy one.


----------



## Gator13

james4beach said:


> I bought some CMHC bonds, which are AAA federally backed government bonds, maturing in 2031 with a coupon of 1.10 and yield of 1.82%
> 
> These are great in a taxable account because they are discount bonds, paying a low coupon. Much of the return will come in the form of capital gains. So the after tax yield is far better than a GIC.
> 
> I routinely buy government bonds with low coupons in my non-registered account, and I think this is a juicy one.


James, please correct me if my understanding is wrong. 

In your scenario, my marginal tax rate would be applicable on 1.10% and the balance of 0.72% would be treated as a taxable gain.

$1,000 investment
$11 interest: after tax $5.11 (53.53% tax rate)
$7.20 capital gain: after tax 5.27 (26.76% tax rate)
$10.38 total after tax (1.038%)


HISA (1.25%)
$1,000 investment
$12.50 interest: after tax $5.81 (53.53% tax rate)
$5.81 after tax (0.581%)


----------



## james4beach

Gator13 said:


> In your scenario, my marginal tax rate would be applicable on 1.10% and the balance of 0.72% would be treated as a taxable gain.


I think what you said here is right. The 1.10% annual coupon is the only part which is taxable interest income (the highly taxed part). Of that overall yield, the other 0.7% is a capital gain. This is on an annual basis, anyway. There's also the small effect of what to do with the coupon payments over the following years.

But I know for certain that this 1.10% coupon is the only part that gets the big tax bill; it shows up on the T5 slips.

I've heard many people say that this effect is quite minor and doesn't add up to a lot of savings, but if someone already holds individual bonds in a portfolio, I don't see any harm in going for these discount bonds, with the low coupons. The ZDB fund uses this strategy as well.


----------



## Covariance

Gator13 said:


> James, please correct me if my understanding is wrong.
> 
> In your scenario, my marginal tax rate would be applicable on 1.10% and the balance of 0.72% would be treated as a taxable gain.
> 
> $1,000 investment
> $11 interest: after tax $5.11 (53.53% tax rate)
> $7.20 capital gain: after tax 5.27 (26.76% tax rate)
> $10.38 total after tax (1.038%)


Agree with the overall theme - discount bond is better after tax, however the math is a little more complicated than your breakdown. The yield to maturity (1.82%) assumes reinvestment of the coupon interest (1.1%) on each payment date at 1.82% until 2031 which you are unlikely to earn. Most significantly there is the tax leakage leaving only 5.11 to reinvest, rather than $11 assumed. So, part of the expected 1.82% total return is not likely to be realized.

In addition, as noted, a small part of the total return (1.82%) is this interest earned from reinvestment of the coupon interest. Therefore the capital gain is not just the difference between the two percentages.

Easier to calculate the expected capital gain by use of the clean price you will pay for the bond. If you hold to maturity your gain is the difference between this price and par.

Also, worth noting if you buy the bond between payments you will pay accrued interest. This is “interest paid” and should be used to reduce interest earned on your taxes in the first year.


----------



## Gator13

Thanks very much for the concise explanation. The advantage over a HISA really dwindles because the interest available to reinvest is less than half (in my case).

It would be great if the CDIC limit was increased and eliminate the need to open multiple accounts.


----------



## james4beach

Covariance said:


> Easier to calculate the expected capital gain by use of the clean price you will pay for the bond. If you hold to maturity your gain is the difference between this price and par.


Thanks for the detailed explanation, that really covers the complications.

The price of the bond is roughly 93.60. For for $10k face value, one pays $9360 and there is a guaranteed $640 capital gain at maturity.


----------



## londoncalling

Initiated a 1/2 position in Verizon (VZ) at $56.20 in my RRSP. Currently at 6% cash in equity portion of overall portfolio. Have set some sell orders in place but still waiting for the limit price to be hit.


----------



## gardner

nil


----------



## KaeJS

More AQN today for me.


----------



## Covariance

james4beach said:


> Thanks for the detailed explanation, that really covers the complications.
> 
> The price of the bond is roughly 93.60. For for $10k face value, one pays $9360 and there is a guaranteed $640 capital gain at maturity.


Happy to help. While bonds are fixed income the math is anything but simple. The CMHC guarantee and the capital gain illustrated by your price is a no brainer if one is planning to hold 10 year bonds to maturity.


----------



## Covariance

Gator13 said:


> Thanks very much for the concise explanation. The advantage over a HISA really dwindles because the interest available to reinvest is less than half (in my case).
> 
> It would be great if the CDIC limit was increased and eliminate the need to open multiple accounts.


Happy to help. I didn't really focus on the HISA. Re; the conclusion - wouldn't the HISA also be subject to tax leakage? If so, I believe the CMHC covered bond is still superior (subject to the assumptions given). The capital gain component is additional return and is both taxed at a lower rate, and deferred really helping the bond.


----------



## Benting

Benting said:


> Bought 300 BB, my favourite short term fun


Sold all BB for 45% gain in 16 days 

Bought TD, my long term fun !


----------



## zinfit

Bought 12k of Capital Power and 12K of Emera with the proceeds from a bond redemption. I am deviating from my traditional fixed income holding percentage. I refuse to invest bond proceeds back into a bond with a 2% yield. Utilities will become my default option for fixed income.


----------



## agent99

zinfit said:


> Utilities will become my default option for fixed income.


This is sort of a no-win situation. Fixed income rates are so low that they have a negative real return. As inflation kicks in (It seems to be already), rates will slowly increase. But I would like to see at least a percentage point or more over the inflation rate before going back to bonds or GICs. 

Problem with higher yielding alternatives like regulated utilities is that their share price will drop as rates increase. To some unknown degree and well before full effect of inflation is present. The 4 or 5% yield might look attractive, but the Total return might eventually be low or even negative. 

I own a lot of utilities, but will keep a close watch. They do still offer a significantly higher yield than most fixed income. But then so do the banks!


----------



## MrBlackhill

Invest in utilities, financials, consumer staples during inflation.


----------



## agent99

MrBlackhill said:


> Invest in utilities, financials, consumer staples during inflation.


Which utilities are included in that INFL ETF he talks about?

I talked about regulated utilities. Ones where their input costs will go up yet they are unable to increase their prices. Or at least are unable to increase their dividends. As a result, share prices must drop if their yield is to remain competitive with increasing interest rates. As a result, Total Return drops.

If you want another opinion: Rick Stuchberry discusses interest rates and utility stocks


----------



## MrBlackhill

agent99 said:


> Which utilities are included in that INFL ETF he talks about?
> 
> It talked about regulated utilities. Ones where their input costs will go up yet they are unable to increase their prices. Or at least are unable to increase their dividends. As a result, share prices must drop if their yield is to remain competitive with increasing interest rates. As a result, Total Return drops.
> 
> If you want another opinion: Rick Stuchberry discusses interest rates and utility stocks


Good point, INFL has no utilities stocks. The main sectors of that ETF are materials, financials and energy.


----------



## Ricehammer4416

Bought more AQN and a bit more K.


----------



## nobleea

Bought more VIAC and INTC


----------



## Dale

Bought SIGA this AM


----------



## james4beach

james4beach said:


> I bought some CMHC bonds, which are AAA federally backed government bonds, maturing in 2031 with a coupon of 1.10 and yield of 1.82%


It seems that my broker also finds my new bond very attractive, because even though this *isn't* a margin account, they have borrowed the bond out of my account.

My statement shows that they have borrowed 92% of my government bond. Only 8% of my position is shown as 'segregated' in my account. This is the only security in my account they are borrowing.

I have seen this happen to stocks I hold in a margin account, but it's the first time I've seen it happen with a bond in a non margin account. Has anyone seen this before? Are brokers allowed to do this?


----------



## agent99

Bought $20k CNR yesterday, but today used up remaining small amount of spare cash to buy a higher risk corporate (Morguard) that yields 3.5% with ~3 yr call/maturity. Holding position!


----------



## Gator13

Covariance said:


> Happy to help. I didn't really focus on the HISA. Re; the conclusion - wouldn't the HISA also be subject to tax leakage? If so, I believe the CMHC covered bond is still superior (subject to the assumptions given). The capital gain component is additional return and is both taxed at a lower rate, and deferred really helping the bond.


The HISA would also be subject to the tax leakage, but with the HISA rates slightly higher, the difference would be very, very thin, not to mention the long yield to maturity of the bond.


----------



## peterk

Adding more to DW's RRSP - Tangerine 60/40 BAL fund. We're slightly above the overall portfolio 70/30 Allocation so should just be saving cash... but her RRSP needs money this year for deducting (pregnant again so won't be working next year). Keeping it all going into the Tangerine BAL account is the simplest, even if it ups our stock allocation a bit too high.


----------



## Benting

Sold enough of TD to buy 20 shares of SHOP.


----------



## londoncalling

Topped up my position in AQN.TO @ 18.50 averaging up from my original purchase price and ACB of 5.74. I do have some concerns regarding current debt levels and hope the plans to address them are followed but have owned followed this stock for a decade or longer.


----------



## londoncalling

Initiated a 1/2 position in MFC.TO today at 23.82. The only insurer holding I have is by way of POW and needed to increase allocation to this sector due to the recent run up in commodities.


----------



## MrBlackhill

I bought more KL.TO today.

I think their fundamentals are sound, the context is good (inflation) and I plan to hold long, so the remaining aspects to check were the technicals.

I believe I bought just a few days too soon, but I hope it's still a good entry point, though it could've been better since today we are in the red and I bought in the morning. I guess we may continue to go down a bit before shooting back up and that's why in retrospect I believe I bought too soon.

How I analysed the technicals:

RSI was low at 40, but again I think it's going even lower
50D SMA is about to cross the 200D SMA on the upside, but it's not there yet, hence I should've waited a bit more
MACD should reverse soon
Same analysis applies to Gold, but with stronger technicals
I believe there is some long-term support line around $42 and $44, so maybe I should've waited a bit more. But anyways, I'm actually averaging down compared to when I bought in April 2020.

In the end, a few months from now, I hope that this slightly bad timing of a few days will be meaningless. I hope I'm not wrong with my long-term expectations.


----------



## Numbersman61

Bought some TPZ a short time ago. I like the connection with Tourmaline and the business plan - nice dividend yield.


----------



## james4beach

I bought more gold (using CGL.C) and GICs this week.

The GIC was Manulife Bank, 5 years, at 1.60% which is higher than any high-interest savings account in the country.


----------



## AltaRed

But not as high as 5 year GIC rates from the same website. Not that I am buying GICs any more.


----------



## AltaRed

AltaRed said:


> But not as high as 5 year GIC rates from the same website. Not that I am buying GICs any more.


I probably should have put that comment in context. As I motor through my '70s, I see less reason to hold "fixed term" products like GICs, debentures and bonds, if for no other reasons than: 1) management of the portfolio (renewals) and competence (odds of stroke or heart attack increase with age, and 2) lack of an efficient secondary market should I, or my POA/Executor, have to sell thee holdings. Simplification is the order of the day. By late 2025, I will have fully unwound my GIC/bond ladder, replaced with a single holding of VCNS.


----------



## MrBlackhill

james4beach said:


> The GIC was Manulife Bank, 5 years, at 1.60%


I still don't get why you lock your money for 5 years at 1.60% when your main portfolio is the Permanent Portfolio which never had such low returns over any 5-year period.


----------



## james4beach

AltaRed said:


> But not as high as 5 year GIC rates from the same website. Not that I am buying GICs any more.


I don't like the kind of business many of those lenders are involved in. I am not comfortable with the safety of those sketchier, mortgage-focused banks. I am aware of CDIC deposit insurance. This is for money that I don't ever want to have to worry about, and that means not worrying about bank insolvency or how the CDIC is going to handle my "brokered deposit" (which was actually quite messy in the US when the FDIC tried to restore brokered CDs).

Documents I've found from the CDIC also indicate that they are a bit unclear about how they will handle GICs within discount brokerages. I'm sure they will figure it out, just as the FDIC did, but there is some uncertainty around that process because it's very new.

During the 2008 crisis, I never once looked at (for example) my TD issued GIC paying 3.1% and thought to myself, why oh why didn't I get an extra 0.2% at a lower grade lender. High returns aren't the point here, at least for me.



MrBlackhill said:


> I still don't get why you lock your money for 5 years at 1.60% when your main portfolio is the Permanent Portfolio which never had such low returns over any 5-year period.


This *is* the Permanent Portfolio. This GIC that I just bought is within that Permanent Portfolio construction. I have a 50% fixed income component, which is a mix of bonds and GICs. All my GICs "live inside" the Permanent Portfolio.

Both the GIC and gold purchases I just posted are the "microscopic" view, the little pieces of the portfolio. The aggregate, big picture is the Permanent Portfolio. One always has to look at this aggregate picture to see the important story: this is performing at 7.2% CAGR over the last 5.3 years, with minimal volatility and minimal drawdown during the COVID crash.

Hope that makes sense, but happy to answer more if that's not what you meant.


----------



## MrBlackhill

james4beach said:


> I have a 50% fixed income component, which is a mix of bonds and GICs. All my GICs "live inside" the Permanent Portfolio.


I thought you kept it simple buying only XBB. It would do better than those GICs. Or why not hold XSB instead of GICs? My understanding of the PP requires to buy something like 25% XLB and 25% XSB which I thought you simplified with 50% XBB instead. I feel like GICs doesn't fit as they are even more conservative and if ever you need money during a huge crash, you're locked for 5 years as opposed to simply selling XSB for instance.

Not?


----------



## james4beach

MrBlackhill said:


> I thought you kept it simple buying only XBB. It would do better than those GICs.


I hold XBB as well, but it's XBB and GICs together which make up my 50% fixed income allocation.

From the numbers I looked at, I think the performance of the two combined will be roughly the same as XBB. I've even repeated the 20 year back-testing using 5 year GICs and it hardly made any difference in the overall outcome. I will not suffer any performance loss due to GICs.

Why not hold XSB? GICs are sure to have superior performance as you can see by their yields. XSB has a yield to maturity 0.91% so my GIC at 1.60% has a much better return, and that relationship has held over many years. GICs yield more and therefore have higher returns.

I have enough liquidity due to the bond holdings (including in non-reg) so I'm not concerned that GICs are locked in.

_Or maybe I can state it anther way:_

Remember that the most accurate estimate of a bond ETF's future performance is the yield to maturity. I know from first hand experience that 5 year GICs frequently yield more than XBB, and they are always very similar. So replacing some XBB with 5 year GICs is not going to harm the long term returns. The Permanent Portfolio will have a similar outcome whether it's only XBB or mixed with GICs, and I've confirmed this using historical data.


----------



## MrBlackhill

james4beach said:


> I think the performance of the two combined will be roughly the same as XBB


So why you bother buying GICs? What's the purpose of combining XBB+GICs instead of all XBB?


----------



## james4beach

MrBlackhill said:


> So why you bother buying GICs? What's the purpose of combining XBB+GICs instead of all XBB?


GICs are more tax efficient in non-reg and the tax handling is simpler as well, since they just generate a straightforward T5 without any concerns about distributions, ACB, phantom distributions, and T3 slips sent at the last moment.

As you know, they are also less volatile than XBB. So I think the XBB+GIC combination will have about the same long term performance as XBB, but with less volatility.

That results in a superior risk-adjusted return, which makes the XBB+GIC combo a superior investment to just XBB, as long as someone can tolerate the loss of liquidity.


----------



## Spudd

When the GIC doesn't pay out until 5 years from now, do they send you a T5 annually so you know how much to put on your tax return?


----------



## Eclectic21

Spudd said:


> When the GIC doesn't pay out until 5 years from now, do they send you a T5 annually so you know how much to put on your tax return?


If it is a non-registered account (aka taxable) then yes.





You, Your GIC and Your T5


Answering your questions on T5/RL-3 and NR4 tax slips.




www.cibc.com





Unless the FI screws up. 

Cheers


----------



## james4beach

Spudd said:


> When the GIC doesn't pay out until 5 years from now, do they send you a T5 annually so you know how much to put on your tax return?


Yes, they calculate the interest accrued for the year and include that on the T5.


----------



## dubmac

I'd encourage anyone looking to buy into the market to read Gordon pape's article in the G&M. 
*Gordon Pape: Here’s what I expect for the TSX in the second half of 2021* - may be behind a paywall.
He recommends financials (I assume banks etc), as well as gives a nod to industrials (I assume magma, linamar??) , and tech stocks (Lightspeed). Says banks will increase divies by double digit % when they are given the nod by the superintendent of financial institutions. 
He suggests that Oil and Oil co's will stay flat for the remainder of the year....but he liked CNQ.
I also read somewhere that REITS are expected to improve given the mood to lift restrictions.


----------



## nobleea

Bought a bit more VIAC and TECK.B to see what happens the rest of the year.


----------



## Gator13

james4beach said:


> The GIC was Manulife Bank, 5 years, at 1.60% which is higher than any high-interest savings account in the country.


Between individual and joint accounts, we have 6 HISA accounts. Rates vary from 1.20 to 1.55. All taxable, some for upcoming tax payments.

I am not comfortable locking in at 1.60 for 5 years with inflation the way it is.


----------



## AltaRed

In a weak moment last Fall, I locked into a 1.61% GIC for 5 years in my RRIF and a month thereafter regretted it. That is when I made the decision to stop buying any of this shite and consolidate into VCNS instead over time. Intention is to live dangerously on this portion of my portfolio which is more an annoyance than of meaningful value. 😁


----------



## gibor365

Gator13 said:


> Between individual and joint accounts, we have 6 HISA accounts. Rates vary from 1.20 to 1.55. All taxable, some for upcoming tax payments.
> 
> I am not comfortable locking in at 1.60 for 5 years with inflation the way it is.


It’s especially depressing when some my GIC got matured with 3.7% rate ☹. Now I have more than 500k in Tangerine with 1.5% HISA... and soon 2 another GIC with high rate are matured. I’m tempted to decrease my Cash/FI allocation below 40% and buy some split pref with high protection and CEF that paying same dividends for ages and yielding from 5.5 to 9%


----------



## like_to_retire

gibor365 said:


> It’s especially depressing when some my GIC got matured with 3.7% rate ☹. Now I have more than 500k in Tangerine with 1.5% HISA... and soon 2 another GIC with high rate are matured. I’m tempted to decrease my Cash/FI allocation below 40% and buy some split pref with high protection and CEF that paying same dividends for ages and yielding from 5.5 to 9%


Yep, preferred shares, CEF's, et al.

Put your capital at risk and the yield goes up commensurate with the risk. Simple equation.

Myself, when I put my capital at risk, I buy equities. For my fixed income allocation I buy fixed income where the capital is safe.

Simple.

ltr


----------



## AltaRed

Retail investors seem to keep forgetting the purpose of the fixed income component of their asset allocation. 

It's about safety AND re-balancing. The latter done on an opportunistic basis is what adds to portfolio returns, not the actual return (yield) on fixed income itself.


----------



## OneSeat

AltaRed said:


> Retail investors seem to keep forgetting the purpose of the fixed income component of their asset allocation.
> 
> It's about safety AND re-balancing. The latter done on an opportunistic basis is what adds to portfolio returns, not the actual return (yield) on fixed income itself.


Alta could you please explain this a little more - maybe with a theoretical example.
Are you saying that ETF managers "sell" some FI and "buy" more equities at lower prices - maybe all in house?
Thanks.


----------



## AltaRed

I am not referring to ETFs at all but the same principle would apply to Asset Allocation ETFs as it does to personal portfolios. The best way to summarize it is: selling high the asset class that has out performed and buying low into the asset class that has under performed. As explained in Finiki and MoneySense. 

I used the word opportunistic in my prior post because as Tom Bradley says in the MoneySense article, getting portfolio return boosts work only if either bonds have a real return and/or the portfolio has gotten skewed enough (equities crashing significantly) such as March 2020 or the 2008-2009 crisis that the significant divergence really does make a difference. 

For the most part, the fixed income component of the portfolio provides safety in an equity market crash by making invested capital available if needed at what still would be market prices that have held up much better than equities. Assuming one's fixed income component is in investment grade holdings, not high yield junk bonds.

The Asset Allocation ETF providers do the same thing, buying and/or selling one or more of the underlying 5-7 holdings to keep the equity/bond split even.


----------



## gardner

Gave up on BPY-UN, sold for cash today and used the cash to add to my ZRE holdings. I am still light on RE, particularly since RE's been a dog the last two years.


----------



## AltaRed

gardner said:


> Gave up on BPY-UN, sold for cash today and used the cash to add to my ZRE holdings. I am still light on RE, particularly since RE's been a dog the last two years.


That is the cleanest solution assuming the cap gains hit, if any, isn't a huge obstacle. It is certainly less messy.


----------



## gibor365

gardner said:


> Gave up on BPY-UN, sold for cash today and used the cash to add to my ZRE holdings. I am still light on RE, particularly since RE's been a dog the last two years.


I also adding to my REITs... recently added to SRU, now has limit price to add to PLZ


----------



## KaeJS

Added some CP this week at just over 90.


----------



## CJ1472

I recently added to my REITs for those sweet dividends - however I also read Rich Dad Poor Dad for the first time this year - if you still haven't read it and don't have time to read a book right now check it out completely free through Amazon Audible and listen to it - Amazon.com: Rich Dad Poor Dad: 20th Anniversary Edition: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! (Audible Audio Edition): Robert T. Kiyosaki, Tom Parks, Brilliance Audio: Audible Audiobooks


----------



## Gator13

Picked up some XHU


----------



## james4beach

Gator13 said:


> Between individual and joint accounts, we have 6 HISA accounts. Rates vary from 1.20 to 1.55. All taxable, some for upcoming tax payments.
> 
> I am not comfortable locking in at 1.60 for 5 years with inflation the way it is.


HISA rates have dropped even further. According to this chart, just about all the HSAs are 1.25 or less. So you've lost your higher rates.

Ignoring stocks and talking about your fixed income allocation: are you sure you wouldn't rather lock in 1.60 or 1.70 in a 5 year? To really do better than this, you would have to *actively* jump between cash and GICs over the coming years. That's pretty hard to do. Most people cannot trade that kind of situation successfully.

With bond yields declining now, my guess is that GIC yields will soon decline as well.


----------



## Gator13

james4beach said:


> HISA rates have dropped even further. According to this chart, just about all the HSAs are 1.25 or less. So you've lost your higher rates.
> 
> Ignoring stocks and talking about your fixed income allocation: are you sure you wouldn't rather lock in 1.60 or 1.70 in a 5 year? To really do better than this, you would have to *actively* jump between cash and GICs over the coming years. That's pretty hard to do. Most people cannot trade that kind of situation successfully.
> 
> With bond yields declining now, my guess is that GIC yields will soon decline as well.


I am sure and have no interest (excuse the pun) in locking in for 5 years at those rates. At a 0.4% rate difference amounts to less than $200 per year after tax per $100k. I will stay liquid and see where the market heads.


----------



## JM1983

Just bought more Ethereum at $1780.


----------



## newfoundlander61

Replaced my previous holding of AW.UN with TRP this morning, purchased 425 shares.


----------



## Rue Shamrock

KWEB at US$55 due to low valuation.


----------



## zinfit

Bought 12k of Cargojet inside my TFSA. It has strong prospects for growth, has a strong relationship with e-commerce especially Amazon . Has also developed its business internationally and with the US. It also has a pretty strong moat when it comes to quick overnight deliveries for time sensitive products. I restrict my Canadian stock purchases to my TFSA. In the rest of my portfolio my holdings are US stocks. A lot more growth and diversity with the US markets.


----------



## MrBlackhill

Bought TTR.V

Curious to see how this will go.


----------



## Ponderling

I equal weight cdn equities so I have about 9% across 11 sub indicies on the TSX. So currently th way things have turned we are a bit light in financials, industrials and utilities. So current likelys are RY, LIF, and more CPX that we already own.


----------



## Chrysaphius

CJ1472 said:


> I recently added to my REITs for those sweet dividends - however I also read Rich Dad Poor Dad for the first time this year - if you still haven't read it and don't have time to read a book right now check it out completely free through Amazon Audible and listen to it - Amazon.com: Rich Dad Poor Dad: 20th Anniversary Edition: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! (Audible Audio Edition): Robert T. Kiyosaki, Tom Parks, Brilliance Audio: Audible Audiobooks


He doesn't invest in stocks. He is anti stocks.


----------



## newfoundlander61

Ponderling said:


> I equal weight cdn equities so I have about 9% across 11 sub indicies on the TSX. So currently th way things have turned we are a bit light in financials, industrials and utilities. So current likelys are RY, LIF, and more CPX that we already own.


I like CPX, purchased a full position at $28.90 on 22 Sep 2020, nice dividend as well.


----------



## Gator13

Bought more ALA, FTS and TRP last week.


----------



## damian13ster

Bought some CTS.TO at 10.15 after earnings drop.
Added to CHR.TO


----------



## zinfit

I know in the age of disruption most feel quite content with bank stocks and believe they have a very strong moat. Non the less the USA fintechs stocks have been showing extraordinary growth in both revenues and earnings. One of the larger fintechs showed a 12 fold growth in earnings. Rocket mortgage is doing a rocket business in mortgages. Square is doing very well in all departments. Lightspeed a Canadian tech is growing in sync because of its payment technology. If these outfits are growing and taking market share who are the losers in the the banking and financial sector?


----------



## gardner

zinfit said:


> If these outfits are growing and taking market share who are the losers in the the banking and financial sector?


Mostly the consumer, but the retailer as well. Payment processors just skim a little more off the transaction. The credit card issuers (banks) still take the same slice as usual, possibly more. Someone like Lightspeed will steal a little directly from the retailer up front, then take another taste as the transactions flow through. The retailer generally just compensates by upping prices to the consumer. Her majesty gets and extra taste too.


----------



## zinfit

gardner said:


> Mostly the consumer, but the retailer as well. Payment processors just skim a little more off the transaction. The credit card issuers (banks) still take the same slice as usual, possibly more. Someone like Lightspeed will steal a little directly from the retailer up front, then take another taste as the transactions flow through. The retailer generally just compensates by upping prices to the consumer. Her majesty gets and extra taste too.


Square is doing a lot of banking services for small and midsized business operations and growing it a very fast clip. Pal Pal is another often overlooked which is growing at a good clip and expanding its operation.


----------



## gardner

Started using my IPL proceeds to buy PPL.


----------



## m3s

gardner said:


> Mostly the consumer, but the retailer as well. Payment processors just skim a little more off the transaction. The credit card issuers (banks) still take the same slice as usual, possibly more. Someone like Lightspeed will steal a little directly from the retailer up front, then take another taste as the transactions flow through. The retailer generally just compensates by upping prices to the consumer. Her majesty gets and extra taste too.


It took a long time for people to "cut the cable" I knew all along I didn't want cable tv or phone lines and I refused to pay for them. However they made it very difficult for as long as they could and the general population was very slow to change old habits. Once 100 monkeys discovered netflix and voip we were off to the races

Same thing is happening now with banks and silly financial intermediaries. I know I don't want them but I have to deal with them because the general population hasn't realized we can do far more efficient transactions if we want to. We can cut the cable, or the banks, as soon as we get that hundredth monkey effect


----------



## zinfit

m3s said:


> It took a long time for people to "cut the cable" I knew all along I didn't want cable tv or phone lines and I refused to pay for them. However they made it very difficult for as long as they could and the general population was very slow to change old habits. Once 100 monkeys discovered netflix and voip we were off to the races
> 
> Same thing is happening now with banks and silly financial intermediaries. I know I don't want them but I have to deal with them because the general population hasn't realized we can do far more efficient transactions if we want to. We can cut the cable, or the banks, as soon as we get that hundredth monkey effect


there is a lot of pressure on the Canadian regulators and government to change the regulations and rules to allow the emerging fintechs to be able to compete with the banks on a level playing field. The younger people don't have the attachment to banks that old-timers have.


----------



## zinfit

I had about 10000 US sitting around . I split it between Googl and Twillio. I think Googl is a very strong and diversified big tech. The list of their various operations is impressive. Gmail, Google search, You Tube, their alliance with Shopify, their hardware business[Motorola], Android, the Cloud business and more. They keep generating amazing revenue growth and FCF and they have an gigantic pile of cash on the balance sheet. I bought Twillio because it is a top pick by the highest rated US analysts at Oppenheimer and Sandler Piper. It is a cloud software company whose technology allows users to optimize their usage of the cloud. Their growth in revenues in the latest quarter was 66%. Brian Swartz the Oppenhiemer top dog has a top tier average in picking the home run hitters. It is fun to take a flyer on this type of stock once in a while. The key is to hold them rather then taking a quick profit. I made that mistake with Shopify.


----------



## agent99

I have had $18k sitting in RRIF for a month or so from a called pfd (or bond, I forget!)

Anyway, only pipeline I have is TRP. So I bought 200 in RRIF and will likely use this as part of my RRIF withdrawal in January. I have had 700 TRP in taxable account for years. Simple minded view, is that existing pipelines should do OK (especially gas) with few new ones getting approved and no real alternatives.

I bought more MAW104 with the extra $6k, Using it to soak up odd amounts in the account.


----------



## Gator13

Picked up more FTS & ALA.


----------



## gardner

Added to PPL on the current dip. I am mostly back to where I'd been with IPL. I think I will see what Q3 looks like before adding the last 20%.


----------



## Eder

Had a large GIC in RRSP mature...bought Mawer 104 with the proceeds. REIT's are pretty slim pickings as are most investments that will beat inflation.


----------



## zinfit

gardner said:


> Added to PPL on the current dip. I am mostly back to where I'd been with IPL. I think I will see what Q3 looks like before adding the last 20%.


I own this stock. The analysts have raised concerns about some parts of their operation and it shard to find any bullish sentiment among this crowd. I have been thinking of moving to Keyera and/or Gibson . I have read some positive reviews for both. For now I am sitting still . Did PPL complete the purchase of IPL ?


----------



## gardner

zinfit said:


> Did PPL complete the purchase of IPL ?


No. Brookfield bought IPL.


----------



## AltaRed

PPL gets a rap for overreeaching on growth and development ideas....resulting in write downs (as in their petrochemical JV and their Jordan Cove LNG JV). The former may have been a good idea while the latter never was a good idea. Now they have a proposed JV with Haisla First Nations for an LNG plant on the BC coast. Another really dumb idea that never should see the light of day.

I am a shareholder for now but don't think too much about the CEO's exuberance. That would be a fair knock on them by the investment industry. They need to dial back and simply build on to their core business.


----------



## KaeJS

Bought some ACO.X and RCI.B to add to existing positions.


----------



## zinfit

Bought more IronNet yesterday at 27.It is trading today at 44 .Some days luck is on your side.This company provide high level cybersrcurity to business and public agencies.Many of the senior management had extensive experience in the US NSA.. I.also bought two natural gas stocks..The break even price for the average NG operation is 2.5 dollars.The unit price of NG is over 5 dollars.In Europe and some Asian markets it is over 20 dollars. My stocks picks were TOU and ARC Resources. RBC has these two as their two top picks in this sector. The price to cash flow for these two stocks is extraordinary and very positive. A cold winter will put more pressure on NG prices.


----------



## gardner

I signed up for some Chorus Aviation 5.75% Debentures on the new issue. We'll see if I'm allocated any.


----------



## nobleea

Also bought some TOU at 41.13. See what happens in the fall and winter.


----------



## AltaRed

gardner said:


> I signed up for some Chorus Aviation 5.75% Debentures on the new issue. We'll see if I'm allocated any.


I was tempted but unsecured debentures with a firm that is weighed down by debt and because this issue is very subordinate per


> The Debentures will be direct, senior unsecured obligations of the Company and will rank: (i) subordinate to all existing and future senior secured and other secured indebtedness of the Company, but only to the extent of the value of the assets securing such secured indebtedness; (ii) _pari passu_ with one another and equally in right of payment from the Company with all other unsubordinated unsecured indebtedness of the Company except as prescribed by law; and (iii) senior to any other existing and future subordinated unsecured indebtedness of the Company. The Debentures will rank _pari passu_ with the Company's 5.75% senior unsecured debentures due December 31, 2024.


can be concerning. 

Any time I see unsecured subordinate debt issuance, it is important to analyze the company. I have bought such debt twice in recent years, from ENB and CPX and felt safe enough given the captive income. Five years can be a long time with a 'struggling' company.


----------



## zinfit

nobleea said:


> Also bought some TOU at 41.13. See what happens in the fall and winter.


Its great stock. I still think at this stage ARC Resources has better upside. Anyways I have both.


----------



## james4beach

I'm thinking I might do an RRSP contribution soon, and the money would go into my bond fund. The weight has dropped in the portfolio.

I'm hoping that bonds fall a bit more in the coming days, but either way, I'll be buying more bonds.

No reason to buy stocks as they have been incredibly strong and are already above the target weight in the portfolio.


----------



## fstamand

Bought 500 BNS @ 75.91... could not resist lol


----------



## james4beach

Bought more bonds to bring my RRSP back to the target 50% allocation.

With the recent hyper rally in stocks I have been below my bond target. So I'm doing some rebalancing.

I sold from my USD stash to do this. The ratio of USD to bond prices is the most attractive going back a full year so I think this is a good time to convert
USD --> CAD cash --> bonds

@MarcoE @hfp75 @librahall


----------



## zinfit

fstamand said:


> Bought 500 BNS @ 75.91... could not resist lol


Good luck. On my scorecard for banks its not my choice. I am not excited about their heavy exposure to Mexico and South American .


----------



## fstamand

zinfit said:


> Good luck. On my scorecard for banks its not my choice. I am not excited about their heavy exposure to Mexico and South American .


It was a quick flip.


----------



## investor65

Started a position in Freehold Royalties. Bot at 9.545. 
Will buy more if it drops to 9.00. 

Added to my BCE at 64.80.

Added to my BIP.UN at 71.27.


----------



## KaeJS

zinfit said:


> Good luck. On my scorecard for banks its not my choice. I am not excited about their heavy exposure to Mexico and South American .


Really?

That is what I love about them.


----------



## zinfit

KaeJS said:


> Really?
> 
> That is what I love about them.


If you had owned over the past10 years you had a bank stock that seriously underperformed the other 4 big banks.


----------



## Eder

All the more likely that BNS is due to out perform if history is repeated.


----------



## KaeJS

zinfit said:


> If you had owned over the past10 years you had a bank stock that seriously underperformed the other 4 big banks.


"Past performance is not indicative of future performance."

They are my largest holding out of the Big 5


----------



## investor65

I would be careful on going in big on BNS.
It's been a laggard for over 10 years. 
What I do is just buy ZEB, buy on dips, then just convert them to the big 6 banks in equal weights to avoid the MER.


----------



## zinfit

KaeJS said:


> "Past performance is not indicative of future performance."
> 
> They are my largest holding out of the Big 5


I can come up with at lot of factors pointing towards the future success of individual banks. TD for example didn't waste capital investing in Mexican retail. It build a very strong and successful retail network in the USA. It also has a much stronger and successful Canadian operation. Its ROE and ROC is much better then BNS. I can also say the same in many respects for RBC . RBC has also been very successful with its capital markets operation and like TD their ROE and ROC is much better then BNS. Perhaps you can persuade me by pointing to BNS operations that are beating the benchmarks for the other banks. Over the longterm the bank with the strongest operations that constantly generates high ROE and ROC will outperform.. BMO and CM are somewhere in the middle. I see indications that CM is improving its operations . I haven't seen that with BNS.


----------



## investor65

I bot an initial position of BIR at 6.3445.
Although I have some energy stocks, this is my first natural gas pureplay. It's production is unhedged. I hope to buy more on pullbacks.
I'm bullish on energy. Misguided ESG policies have caused a shunning of energy stocks.
FRU SU CNQ BIR PEY TOU

Added some CNR at 147.19.
I'm surprised it's still low because of the looming proxy fight. Barry Schwartz of Baskin Wealth said he would support TCI in its fight.

Edit: Please excuse the multiple subsequent posts. It was a problem with a Chrome extension I'm using and have rectified it.


----------



## investor65

Repeat post. I have asked admin to delete.


----------



## investor65

Repeat post. I have asked admin to delete.


----------



## zinfit

investor55 said:


> I bot an initial position of BIR at 6.3445.
> Although I have some energy stocks, this is my first natural gas pureplay. It's production is unhedged. I hope to buy more on pullbacks.
> I'm bullish on energy. Misguided ESG policies have caused a shunning of energy stocks.
> FRU SU CNQ BIR PEY TOU
> 
> Added some CNR at 147.19.
> I'm surprised it's still low because of the looming proxy fight. Barry Schwartz of Baskin Wealth said he would support TCI in its fight.


I have avoided energy stocks like the plague for the past 7 years. The case for buying high quality NG producers is compelling. I have been redeploying cash into this sector. Come January I can see some outsized gains. Great mind think alike


----------



## KaeJS

Made some buys yesterday:

SAP
RCI.B
SIA
REI.UN


----------



## londoncalling

Curious as to your decision to buy SIA and REI.UN if you would be so kind to share your rationale. I do not follow the stocks but am looking to add to my real estate holdings. Why those 2? and why now?


----------



## KaeJS

londoncalling said:


> Curious as to your decision to buy SIA and REI.UN if you would be so kind to share your rationale. I do not follow the stocks but am looking to add to my real estate holdings. Why those 2? and why now?


SIA - this company has had some hiccups in the past, but they are decent. Right now they are mainly suffering due to the whole covid thing and the fact that there is vacancies and not every room they have is filled. They are profitable, but they did lose money for the year 2020. But this will change. Before covid they were in the $18-19 range. They have a 6% yield. Buying around $15 is a fair price. I also own CSH.UN.

REI.UN - they are worth $25. $22 is a decent price. Once again, they are hit by covid due to stores closing and lower traffic. People make the case that retail is dead, but I do not think so. If you feel like retail is dead, you should stay away. Most of their portfolio is in malls/shopping centres and retail, but they are moving to more residential real estate to diversify. I can't see this being a bad thing in the future.

The best buy is SAP, imo.
$32? Cheap. It's gonna be $35 again.
Super safe, low volatility, low risk investment. You can buy now at $32 and probably within 6 months sell at $35 and collect a dividend or two along the way...


----------



## londoncalling

KaeJS said:


> SIA - this company has had some hiccups in the past, but they are decent. Right now they are mainly suffering due to the whole covid thing and the fact that there is vacancies and not every room they have is filled. They are profitable, but they did lose money for the year 2020. But this will change. Before covid they were in the $18-19 range. They have a 6% yield. Buying around $15 is a fair price. I also own CSH.UN.
> 
> REI.UN - they are worth $25. $22 is a decent price. Once again, they are hit by covid due to stores closing and lower traffic. People make the case that retail is dead, but I do not think so. If you feel like retail is dead, you should stay away. Most of their portfolio is in malls/shopping centres and retail, but they are moving to more residential real estate to diversify. I can't see this being a bad thing in the future.
> 
> The best buy is SAP, imo.
> $32? Cheap. It's gonna be $35 again.
> Super safe, low volatility, low risk investment. You can buy now at $32 and probably within 6 months sell at $35 and collect a dividend or two along the way...


Thanks @KaeJS I agree that SAP is a good bargain right now. I have a decent weighting in that sector but would consider jumping in below 30. For a nice swing trade in at 32 and out at 35 makes a lot of sense. Most commercial will be switching to mixed use over time.

Cheers


----------



## investor65

zinfit said:


> I have avoided energy stocks like the plague for the past 7 years. The case for buying high quality NG producers is compelling. I have been redeploying cash into this sector. Come January I can see some outsized gains. Great mind think alike


 Only a few months ago I said I was done with energy stocks bc of the high volatility. But now that I've done more research I feel energy is the place to be. The main indexes are sky high, but energy is still a bargain. I think we have a huge multi year bull market in energy because of a lack of investment because of misguided ESG policies. Renewables just are not reliable. Russia has exploited this and now Europe is in big trouble going forward.
Can't take the credit for my energy picks though. I'm following my brother's recommendations who works in the energy industry and a friend who's an astute investor who is making a huge bet on energy. I also read Eric Nuttall's excellent analysis.


----------



## newfoundlander61

Oil will still have its place for quite a few years to come as the green energy push will take much longer to make a big impact on the oil sector.


----------



## AltaRed

newfoundlander61 said:


> Oil will still have its place for quite a few years to come as the green energy push will take much longer to make a big impact on the oil sector.


I don't disagree but valuation metrics such as P/E, P/CF, etc. will remain subdued because of the overall belief oil is on its way out (or is at least a mature industry). Traders could (and will) make considerable money in this cyclic sector but that is just the way it is. So many on CMF were falling all over themselves to buy into the sector up to 2015 or so and then went deathly quiet, only to come awake again in 2021. 

I wonder how long the current buzz will last in this 'up' cycle. Two years? Five years? Ten years? It will partially depend on just what post #327 has said in regard to the degree of global push (legislative and otherwise) that occurs. There will be hiccups along the way such as what the UK is currently experiencing with its lack of wind power in 2021, closing of coal plants and now a natural gas shortage. Move too fast and one shoots oneself in both feet.


----------



## Gator13

We picked up more FTS and POW. Started a position in H. All purchased as long term holds.


----------



## like_to_retire

Gator13 said:


> We picked up more FTS and POW. Started a position in H. All purchased as long term holds.


Yeah, POW is a funny one for sure. It rolls along for so many years without advancing an inch and I was ready to abandon it, and then it's up 66% total return in the last year. And I see that Morningstar still has its fair value at $44.12 today. Go figure.

ltr


----------



## zinfit

Bought Cenevous and Whitecap Resources. Based on current and expected production and the current price for oil and gas the stock valuation is extraordinarily low. I have avoided this sector for seven years . In the the last couple of weeks I have bought ARC Resources and TOU along with these two. When I look at the market all I see is stocks that are at nosebleed levels and all-time highs with many having no connection to the underlying financials. These four do not fall in that category. I guess I am going in for a short term hold as cyclicals are not the best long term holds.


----------



## investor65

Here's what I did today. It was only energy stocks.

I closed out of Freehold Royalties. I did this because it had a nice profit, but bc I recently discovered the best way to invest in energy - Eric Nuttall's ETF (NNRG). His funds destroy XEG (the energy index ETF). Why own FRU when I could own NNRG which has better performance and more diversification? So I basically I swapped out of FRU into NNRG. I might buy FRU again in the future because of the big monthly dividend (6%)

I also sold half of my Birchcliff holding. I made a nice profit in both BIR and FRU and decided to take profits and get into the safer NNRG. I think this is prudent. Nat gas stocks may keep going up amidst the European shortage. But they look overextended for now. If BIR goes down I'm happy, if it goes up I'm happy.

I also bot some Suncor. SU has run up alot the last 5 days. But I'm a bit bummed bc I've been looking at this for a while and it got away from me. Oh well, it's okay because my FRU and BIR investment caught this same move. I will keep adding to this. The dividend increase seems imminent.

Also bot some Cenovus because it's a Nuttall pick and bc it looks pretty overvalued. But NNRG is gonna be a main investment for me going forward. I'm probably not gonna outperform Eric Nuttall lol.


----------



## investor65

(Sorry for the accidental repeat post. Problem with browser extension. Admin please delete.)


----------



## james4beach

Fun to see that energy stocks are coming back into fashion again. Reminds me of the good old days. I just hope people remember how insanely cyclical that area is ... potentially huge gains, followed by huge losses when it turns down.

Look at natural gas! Was $2.30 at the start of this year, now $5.75 in a powerful uptrend. Lots and lots of fun.

Since I implicitly already get tons of resource exposure just by owning the Canadian dollar, I don't go out of my way to buy extra energy. When resources and energy are strong, all Canadians ... including those owning cash & bonds ... benefit anyway.

With my 50% in fixed income (all CAD), plus 20% gold, that's enough commodities exposure for me.


----------



## fstamand

Not very long ago, USO went to almost 0. Very cyclical indeed.


----------



## hboy54

Energy stocks are indeed fun of late. Not buying now though, the best time to buy was last year. Which I did. Now is the time to sit on my hands and see how the world unfolds over the next few years.


----------



## doctrine

james4beach said:


> Look at natural gas! Was $2.30 at the start of this year, now $5.75 in a powerful uptrend. Lots and lots of fun.


$5.75 here is cheap. Try $30-40 in Europe and Asia. That is $200 a barrel in oil/energy equivalency. Utilities are starting to buy oil to burn for electricity as a substitute wherever it is possible. An energy supply crisis is coming once the oil stocks start running low (they are already getting low).

By any valuation measure, energy stocks are at multi-decade lows despite 50-100%+ returns. Oil is at a 7 year high and there is no reason not to think it gets to an all time high eventually. Natural gas is already there. Energy is only 2% of the S&P 500 and was 15-20% in the 2000's.

I added CPG and ARX to my oil portfolio recently-ish, now holding SU, CNQ, ERF, CPG, and ARX.


----------



## jargey3000

james4beach said:


> With my 50% in fixed income (all CAD), plus 20% gold, that's enough commodities exposure for me.


james- care to share what vehicles you're using for your 50% FI?....I'm in the market...


----------



## james4beach

jargey3000 said:


> james- care to share what vehicles you're using for your 50% FI?....I'm in the market...


Happy to share. I hold both GICs, in a 5 year ladder, and units of the XBB bond fund. (I hold some other government bonds too but these are the main ones).

I hold XBB in my RRSP since it's not very tax efficient.

In my non-registered account, I hold a GIC ladder in a discount brokerage account. It's very easy to buy new GICs to keep the ladder going, in a discount brokerage.

If I wanted to hold the bond ETF in a non registered account, instead of XBB, I would instead use ZDB which is a tax efficient version of the same thing.


----------



## MrBlackhill

Bought TXG, EIF, NWC, DBM. Just having fun trying to move into small cap value.


----------



## londoncalling

I had never heard of DBM so I looked it up. Based on previous posts I am led to believe these are not long term positions but as stated a value play.


----------



## MrBlackhill

londoncalling said:


> I had never heard of DBM so I looked it up. Based on previous posts I am led to believe these are not long term positions but as stated a value play.


Yes, that's my intent.


----------



## zinfit

Over the past four weeks I have been putting money into some oil and gas stocks. Some in Canada and some in the USA. I have tried to focus on companies who have a strong position in natural gas. The Canadian stocks are TOU , ARX, Whitecap and Cenovus. The US stocks are Diamondback, EQT and ConocoPhillips. So far the returns have very good. The supply of NG in the US is 17% below historic levels heading into the winter. Europe is facing a big time shortage. Because so many institutions are not free to provide financing to the fossil fuel industry expanded drilling its not taking place. Societies refusal to allow for pipeines has an effect as well. There is an excellent supply/demand situation for the industry. I figure all of these stocks are strongly positioned to profit from this situation.Whitecap is a slightly different story .


----------



## Mechanic

I think there will be a resurgence in the O&G industry in a few years. Green energy isn't going to fill the need and we will be forced to fall back on our plentiful resources. I could be wrong but we'll see. Just wait till all the electric vehicles start needing batteries and motors, we can't generate enough power, the infrastructure can't support the charging and the landfills start filling up.


----------



## zinfit

Right now natural gas is the best product for home heating . I never understood the hostility of the climate change crowd in opposing NG. Changing coal power plants to NG plants seriously reduced GHGs.


----------



## Eder

It would be interesting to put 10k into the top 10 junior oil companies in Alberta...their shares are volatile, spreading the risk should result in out performance. Most likely judged by production cost, balance sheet,proven reserves and PE. Which other metrics am I missing.
The only one I'm familiar with is Bonterra. Bonterra Energy Corp (BNE-T) Quote


----------



## Mechanic

zinfit said:


> Right now natural gas is the best product for home heating . I never understood the hostility of the climate change crowd in opposing NG. Changing coal power plants to NG plants seriously reduced GHGs.


The climate change crowd seems to have blinders on. If Canada doesn't produce the resources, other countries will increase their production to fill the demand. Plus, reducing our emissions is not going to change the world climate for the same reason, as other countries will increase theirs. The only losers will be Canadians and Canadian corporations, all taking a financial hit. Glad I'm retired from trying to run a business and make a profit but sad that my kids and grandkids are going to be taking the hit.


----------



## Eder

We've been losing since our ballerina gained power...looks like no end therefore no solution in sight.


----------



## AltaRed

We have had this discussion multiple times before. The domestic (primarily OECD) green crowd really is as dumb as a fence post and dense as a blacksmith's anvil. 

I have no problem with the CC initiative undertaking economic effort to reduce consumption wherever it may be, but it is complete heresay to constrain supply. It just pops out elsewhere. Look at what the war on prohibition, drugs and prostitution gave us. Nothing but push production to the unsavory.


----------



## zinfit

what is really dumb from an environmental standpoint is importing oil from the Middle East. Giant oil tankers moving oil across the Atlantic emitting extreme levels of GHGs and than coming into the Saint Lawrence. Their must be family compact easterner interests that explains this stupidity. SNC does a lot work in that area of the world. You scratch my back back and I scratch yours? in the world of Quebec politics how could that be possible?


----------



## AltaRed

The import picture is far more based on economics than conspiracies. There are no economics in moving Canadian crude past Ontario (or perhaps Montreal). The more economic option is moving oil from the eastern seaboard and up from PA et al. The Valero (Ultramar) refinery at Levis actually does get some oil from the West via the pipeline they built from Montreal years ago but it is only a portion of their supply. It is also a light oil refinery so cannot handle much heavy feedstock.

It is obvious offshore crude can be landed at Irving in Saint John far cheaper than anything that can come from the west, i.e. it is cheaper to ship Gulf of Mexico oil to Saint John than to being a single barrel from the West. It is also a light oil refinery. The bigger question is the mix of US feedstock that currently goes into the Montreal and Southern Ontario area from the likes of the Bakken et al. I don't think we can get too tore up about US or Middle East imports into Atlantic tidewater.

Canada has bigger issues to deal with right now with the Line 5 problem across Michigan.That may actually result in re-configuring a TC gas pipeline through the Canadian shield to oil for an all Canada pipeline to Ontario if the Biden WH is too beholden to the Michigan Democratic governor. I think TC is already struggling to keep their gas mainline at full capacity into Eastern Canada. We need to put the big Energy East idea to bed. It is a fairy tale. The industry needs to be more subtle about a potential TC Energy conversion instead.

2020 is not a good year for comparison but there has been far too much misinformation about Canadian oil imports. The real story is Good news about Canada's crude imports the oil patch would rather you not know - iPolitics


----------



## zinfit

AltaRed said:


> The import picture is far more based on economics than conspiracies. There are no economics in moving Canadian crude past Ontario (or perhaps Montreal). The more economic option is moving oil from the eastern seaboard and up from PA et al. The Valero (Ultramar) refinery at Levis actually does get some oil from the West via the pipeline they built from Montreal years ago but it is only a portion of their supply. It is also a light oil refinery so cannot handle much heavy feedstock.
> 
> It is obvious offshore crude can be landed at Irving in Saint John far cheaper than anything that can come from the west, i.e. it is cheaper to ship Gulf of Mexico oil to Saint John than to being a single barrel from the West. It is also a light oil refinery. The bigger question is the mix of US feedstock that currently goes into the Montreal and Southern Ontario area from the likes of the Bakken et al. I don't think we can get too tore up about US or Middle East imports into Atlantic tidewater.
> 
> Canada has bigger issues to deal with right now with the Line 5 problem across Michigan.That may actually result in re-configuring a TC gas pipeline through the Canadian shield to oil for an all Canada pipeline to Ontario if the Biden WH is too beholden to the Michigan Democratic governor. I think TC is already struggling to keep their gas mainline at full capacity into Eastern Canada. We need to put the big Energy East idea to bed. It is a fairy tale. The industry needs to be more subtle about a potential TC Energy conversion instead.
> 
> 2020 is not a good year for comparison but there has been far too much misinformation about Canadian oil imports. The real story is Good news about Canada's crude imports the oil patch would rather you not know - iPolitics


If it isn't economic it seems strange that Irving Oil was shipping oil from the Canadian west coast through the Panama canal to its east coast refineries . From an environmental standpoint I would think moving oil by pipeline is a clear winner over shipping by tanker. At the end of the day I wish we were in a situation were the market would decide whether something is viable rather than politicians .


----------



## AltaRed

zinfit said:


> If it isn't economic it seems strange that Irving Oil was shipping oil from the Canadian west coast through the Panama canal to its east coast refineries . From an environmental standpoint I would think moving oil by pipeline is a clear winner over shipping by tanker. At the end of the day I wish we were in a situation were the market would decide whether something is viable rather than politicians .


Those few tanker loads from both the West Coast and GoM were a test for risk of security of supply in event covid disruptions starved Irving of imports and/or crude by rail from USA








Irving applies to use foreign oil tankers to ship Canadian crude to Saint John


With the price of Canadian crude at or near historic lows, Irving Oil has plans to tap into that supply for the Saint John refinery, but some eyebrows have been raised over how they plan to bring the crude to New Brunswick.



atlantic.ctvnews.ca












Alberta oil shipped through Panama Canal to Atlantic Canada to avert COVID-19 threat to energy supply


Irving Oil is transporting Canadian crude oil by tanker through the Panama Canal and the Gulf of Mexico to its Saint John refinery in an effort to offset any impact COVID-19 might have on its supply.




theconversation.com





Lastly, the heavy discounts to landlocked AB oil helped narrow the cost disadvantage. That was not politically based....though Energy East is. That all said, it s not clear the amortization of a hugely expensive Energy East could compete economically with marine shipping of oil from any source....depending on how much of TC's gas mainline could be converted inexpensively.


----------



## agent99

zinfit said:


> Right now natural gas is the best product for home heating . I never understood the hostility of the climate change crowd in opposing NG. Changing coal power plants to NG plants seriously reduced GHGs.


It depends on how you define "best". Burning natural gas emits CO2 just like any fossil fuel does. Just a bit less than oil because of higher furnace and production efficiency. It might be less expensive than other options, but that does not make it "best".

In most of Canada, electricity is the best product for home heating based on lower CO2 emissions. This because the majority of our power is hydro or nuclear based.

Electricity is more expensive if used directly, but ground or air source heat pumps can boost efficiency to 200-300%. Improving new and existing home energy efficiency will further reduce energy needed (e.g. net zero homes or improved insulation etc). Updated building codes will, before long, require us to go in this direction.

Another benefit of heat pumps, is that they also provide cooling in summer. Natural gas can't do that 

Disclosure: We have heated and cooled our home for over 10 years with an air-source heat pump. It has required zero maintenance. Our overall electricity usage was cut in half. We previously had baseboard electric heating and a separate A/C unit.


----------



## AltaRed

I agree heat pumps will eventually be the answer in most cases, but even today's higher tech heat pumps are marginal in much of Canada's heartland where it routinely is below zero in winter months. They are still a rarity in the BC Interior despite considerable gov't and BC Hydro subidization, and geothermal is not an option either in most locations. It will be high efficiency NG heating in BC for decades to come at least anywhere other than the Lower Mainland and coastal areas such as Prince Rupert. We've briefly looked at a heat pump as compared to a new high efficiency gas furnace, but will look more closely as we approach the time for furnace replacement.

The old heat pump systems didn't cut it. We damn near froze one winter in Washington, DC with a heat pump (in the early '90s). Could not get the house past 65F on some days and the system would have to shut down every several hours to defrost.


----------



## Eder

Green power for home heat in Canada is filed under unicorn farts. Pure theatre.


----------



## damian13ster

The entire environmental anti-pipeline movement has never been about ecology. It is all about money.
Pipelines are significantly cheaper, cleaner, faster, safer than rail or tankers. 
There is not a single argument not to build as many as we practically can, other than politics.
Future sources of energy, such as hydrogen, will also need pipelines.


----------



## zinfit

agent99 said:


> It depends on how you define "best". Burning natural gas emits CO2 just like any fossil fuel does. Just a bit less than oil because of higher furnace and production efficiency. It might be less expensive than other options, but that does not make it "best".
> 
> In most of Canada, electricity is the best product for home heating based on lower CO2 emissions. This because the majority of our power is hydro or nuclear based.
> 
> Electricity is more expensive if used directly, but ground or air source heat pumps can boost efficiency to 200-300%. Improving new and existing home energy efficiency will further reduce energy needed (e.g. net zero homes or improved insulation etc). Updated building codes will, before long, require us to go in this direction.
> 
> Another benefit of heat pumps, is that they also provide cooling in summer. Natural gas can't do that
> 
> Disclosure: We have heated and cooled our home for over 10 years with an air-source heat pump. It has required zero maintenance. Our overall electricity usage was cut in half. We previously had baseboard electric heating and a separate A/C unit.


not everyone has access to cheap hydro electricity. Power plants that have converted from coal to gas cut emissions by 50%. Folks using electric cars or heating homes based on electricity have significantly reduced their carbon footprint. The same can be said for exports of LNG to markets like China. I understand it is a carbon producer but it produces carbon at much lower rates then other fossil fuels.


----------



## agent99

AltaRed said:


> I agree heat pumps will eventually be the answer in most cases, but even today's higher tech heat pumps are marginal in much of Canada's heartland where it routinely is below zero in winter months.


Our Mitsubishi air source heat pump heats a 1650sq.ft part of our home served by heating/cooling ducts. We do not need supplemental heat until the ambient temperature drops below *minus 23degC*. It's hard for some to understand how -23C air can heat a house  But it does.

At that limit temperature, the COP has dropped to ~1.3 vs the average for the heating season of ~2.0. We have had our unit for over 10 years. It replaced our baseboard heating as well as our central A/C. A ground source unit would have been even more efficient, but installation would have been costly. 

A heat pump may be hard to justify as a retrofit for a gas furnace, but certainly an option for new construction or for those with baseboard electric or perhaps even an oil furnace & tank. It would provide a significant reduction in carbon emissions over gas or oil.


----------



## agent99

zinfit said:


> not everyone has access to cheap hydro electricity. Power plants that have converted from coal to gas cut emissions by 50%. Folks using electric cars or heating homes based on electricity have significantly reduced their carbon footprint. The same can be said for exports of LNG to markets like China. I understand it is a carbon producer but it produces carbon at much lower rates then other fossil fuels.


We are not talking about _cheap hydro_. We are talking about electrical home heating with a very low carbon footprint. Way better than burning natural gas from that viewpoint. Even on a cost basis, gas prices won't always be at their current low levels.

In Canada as a whole, about 82% of our electricity is based on hydro, nuclear or renewables. Only 8% is from natural gas.

Here in Ontario, we no longer use coal and only 3% of power generation is from natural gas.

Overall, electricity generation contributes comparatively little to carbon emissions and will be even less as the the coal fired stations still operating in some provinces are closed down. 

Combustion of natural gas and other fuels in homes and in industry has a high contribution to carbon emissions. Apparently about 1/2 our homes are gas heated. Others still burn oil and wood. This needs to be corrected, and there are plans in place to do just that.


----------



## londoncalling

agent99 said:


> We are not talking about _cheap hydro_. We are talking about electrical home heating with a very low carbon footprint. Way better than burning natural gas from that viewpoint. Even on a cost basis, gas prices won't always be at their current low levels.
> 
> In Canada as a whole, about 82% of our electricity is based on hydro, nuclear or renewables. Only 8% is from natural gas.
> 
> Here in Ontario, we no longer use coal and only 3% of power generation is from natural gas.
> 
> Overall, electricity generation contributes comparatively little to carbon emissions and will be even less as the the coal fired stations still operating in some provinces are closed down.
> 
> Combustion of natural gas and other fuels in homes and in industry has a high contribution to carbon emissions. Apparently about 1/2 our homes are gas heated. Others still burn oil and wood. This needs to be corrected, and there are plans in place to do just that.


although an interesting debate most definitely off topic. perhaps a mod could move this to a new thread?


----------



## agent99

👍👍
Good idea. Or just let it die.


----------



## londoncalling

Added to my position in Verizon Communications (VZ:US) @53.04. Could have saved over a $1 per share had I not changed my order yesterday.


----------



## zinfit

londoncalling said:


> although an interesting debate most definitely off topic. perhaps a mod could move this to a new thread?


I might be more appropriate as a separate topic but it is very much related to the supply/demand issues being experienced and the very high price for NG and my rational for buying NG stocks. I don't if you are a moderator .If you aren't you don't have to follow these postings.


----------



## KaeJS

Bought some more RCI.B

Looks oversold today and I jumped in at 57.90.
Earnings next week.


----------



## Kilbarry20

ZEN (Graphene), presently on the VSE. At my age, approaching 7 decades fast, I do not normally speculate in whacky Mining Stocks! I stick to my knitting in the Day Trading of conservative, Blue Chip Canuck Dividend Equities

Just the Dips Ma’am.

However, my B In Law, started quacking about this thing a year ago, when it was about $0.65/. Of course, I did not get in, as he had, waiting until the $3-$4 mark. I now own about 4k shares in our 2 TFSAs.

What is it? You could find a post about it right here, from 2012, when some pumper was extolling its purported, wild upside. Let’s just say that Mgt. Team is no longer with us. 🙄 The new team, believed that they had/have discovered a number of historical, MEDICAL successes with this revolutionary substance- Graphene.

With great patience, both Mgt. & Investors awaited for Health Canada to give the thumbs up for their PPE Mask, proved 100% effective against Covid. In late September, they got it! And are now pursuing the FDA approval, as well. They intend to coat all manner of PPEs, including Gloves with this stuff. On hand, they presently have 6 metric tonnes of it. To give you an idea of how much $ they have on hand, ONE GRAM is sufficient for half a football field’s coverage.

And, they also believe they have created an instant Viral Blood test- also seeking approvals.

Here are some highlight scribbling from an investor from their recent conference:



> * zenguard FULL patent soon, provisional patent now
> - GLOBAL provisional patent
> 
> all in on Healthcare focus
> "NO DEBT" by the firm
> Zenguard now/aptamer soon/treatment further away
> Treatment
> 
> incredible promise
> very positive anecdotal evidence and efficacy
> longer time frame
> already know its incredibly safe and may have 30-40 applications
> 
> HVAC news coming soon, HC approval of zenguard is very important to this application
> HC approval creates many opportunities
> zenguard full capacity Q4 this year, 9.6billion masks per year
> - there are reasons (unstated) for this capacity level
> * masks are highest level, gold standard
> - Level 1 medical device, level 3 surgical mask
> *HC approval affects international potential alot, many other countries support HC approval (I think that's what he said...)
> 
> there is interest around the globe
> theraputic testing has stared on a number of specific conditions - looking good
> hopefully phase 1 human trials sometime next year
> Risks (Greg's background is risk mgmt)
> 
> supply chain: relying on 3rd party materials
> zen wants vertically integrate as much as possible
> 
> huge future opportunities, more patents being filed
> US Mask Sales approval? need FDA approval, 510K application process, in order to Make CLAIMS about the masks, 4-6month process, well into it now, but its new and novel and often require new testing....
> coating could be applied to an N95 mask if
> HC approval required for aptamer covid detection, its a medical device, putting together an application, work on final tests and optimizing first, no tight/hard timelines on this as yet, HC might be around a couple of month turnaround....


In addition to multiple Patents, their application to join the big time- NASDAQ, went in yesterday.

Check it out.,


----------



## zinfit

Bought Merck . Has a strong pipeline with good patent length. A good dividend. Has some interesting new products that could be cleared. A treatment for Lung non-small cancer and a antivirus covid treatment in pill form. We have a lot of older people who need prescription drugs and MRK is one of the biggest providers and a leader in developing new drugs. Also bought Salesforce . It is the leader in that segment and has an outstanding record of making great acquistions. It is the leader in providing customer service management to businesses of all sizes.


----------



## damian13ster

Added FFH. P/B is low. It is warranted based on past mistakes, but they seem to be clearing their mistakes, recent investments have paid off handsomely, and value of Digit seems to be discounted. 
Insurance business is also improving operating metrics and is valued lower than its peers.


----------



## nobleea

Bought some more INTC on the drop today.


----------



## FairTrade

VIXY at $17.43
I like my holdings but earnings in general earnings haven't been impressing me. Also, companies have been coming out with caveats about future prospects- shipping bottlenecks, trouble finding employees, inflation causing consumers to spend less...
Short term insurance.


----------



## AltaRed

FairTrade said:


> VIXY at $17.43
> I like my holdings but earnings in general earnings haven't been impressing me. Also, companies have been coming out with caveats about future prospects- shipping bottlenecks, trouble finding employees, inflation causing consumers to spend less...
> Short term insurance.


None of that really matters. There are always low spots in earning seasons and too much focus on the short term is detrimental to long term gains.


----------



## zinfit

Bought some Zimmer . It hasn't't done much for the past two years . Rational for buying is the pent-up backlog for knee ,shoulder and hip replacements. They are the leader in such devices with over 33% of the market.


----------



## nobleea

Bought some RCI.B on the drop this morning.


----------



## Eder

If the shares puke another 5% I'll be in for more as well.


----------



## KaeJS

Eder said:


> If the shares puke another 5% I'll be in for more as well.


Unlikely they go below $55.


----------



## james4beach

I think I'll buy another 5 year GIC in a few days.


----------



## like_to_retire

james4beach said:


> I think I'll buy another 5 year GIC in a few days.


Amazing how much GIC rates have increased this year. I look at my ladders and I have an Equitable Bank @1.22% that I bought the first week in January. Now GIC's are over 2%.

ltr


----------



## Benting

Added more 'Shop' by selling all (small numbers) my CNR.


----------



## Gator13

We added more Hydro One & started a position in Atco.


----------



## zinfit

like_to_retire said:


> Amazing how much GIC rates have increased this year. I look at my ladders and I have an Equitable Bank @1.22% that I bought the first week in January. Now GIC's are over 2%.
> 
> ltr


Inflation is running at 4% plus and the interest on the GIC is fully taxable. When bonds and GICs mature I reinvest in the fixed income sector. I know it is riskier but I put into low risk utilities like Fortis or preferred shares which I believe are in the right spot given the current macro situation. Floating rate preferreds and certain resets .


----------



## agent99

james4beach said:


> I think I'll buy another 5 year GIC in a few days.


Risky move James. Think about that. It's kind of a bold move 

By the way, I suggested to my wife that maybe we should sell our whole portfolio and buy GICs. May not quite cover inflation, but we could draw them down for the next 20 years and still have some money left over. Of course I was joking! But it would work. Something she could do one day.


----------



## KaeJS

Gator13 said:


> We added more Hydro One & started a position in Atco.


Atco is a decent buy at these levels.
I've been adding small amounts here and there in the 40's.


----------



## agent99

zinfit said:


> I know it is riskier but I put into low risk utilities like Fortis or preferred shares which I believe are in the right spot given the current macro situation. Floating rate preferreds and certain resets .


I have quite a bit in preferreds, but right now everything has been bid way up. Most issues are trading at a premium and well over par. I have some cash to invest, but still looking. 

On another subject, I bought a couple of balanced funds more as a learning exercise than anything. Not too impressed. XBAL for example. This has about 63% equity 37% fixed income. At current price it has a distribution yield of 1.4%. That seem kind of pitiful. We could do double that with a handful of bank stocks and some GICs. Sure unit price has increased, but the gain has had a downward trajectory for past 3 years. 5.5% TR since inception. Like overall markets, looks like it is ready for a correction. 

Nothing looks too attractive these days


----------



## james4beach

agent99 said:


> Risky move James. Think about that. It's kind of a bold move


Ironically, having a solid fixed income component (enough to handle any market drawdown) allows me to comfortably take risk elsewhere in my portfolio.

Having some super safe stuff allows more confident risk-taking, helping me stick with my portfolio over the long term without disruptions or capitulation.

I've had many friends and coworkers over the years who thought (like you) that bonds and GICs were dumb. They ended up taking way too much risk in their portfolios, and many have since given up or disrupted their portfolios. One of my best friends sold ALL his equities during the 2020 crash.


----------



## MrBlackhill

Super happy that everyone seems to be buying products from Equitable Bank... Because I'm a shareholder of EQB.TO


----------



## Covariance

james4beach said:


> Ironically, having a solid fixed income component (enough to handle any market drawdown) allows me to comfortably take risk elsewhere in my portfolio.
> 
> Having some super safe stuff allows more confident risk-taking, helping me stick with my portfolio over the long term without disruptions or capitulation.
> 
> I've had many friends and coworkers over the years who thought (like you) that bonds and GICs were dumb. They ended up taking way too much risk in their portfolios, and many have since given up or disrupted their portfolios. One of my best friends sold ALL his equities during the 2020 crash.


Holding diverse assets that reduce portfolio volatility (risk) is the name of the game. Obviously we would want all the assets to individually produce great returns. But that's not reality. What matters is how the combo works together.


----------



## like_to_retire

zinfit said:


> Inflation is running at 4% plus and the interest on the GIC is fully taxable. When bonds and GICs mature I reinvest in the fixed income sector. I know it is riskier but I put into low risk utilities like Fortis or preferred shares which I believe are in the right spot given the current macro situation. Floating rate preferreds and certain resets .


You're changing your asset allocation then. Certainly Fortis isn't fixed income..

ltr


----------



## agent99

james4beach said:


> I've had many friends and coworkers over the years who thought (like you) that bonds and GICs were dumb.


James, I only think they are dumb when they have yields lower than the target inflation rate. IOW, guaranteed to have a negative total return.

I actually have something like $70k in GICs maturing in '22, '23, '24 & '25. Some were short term bought during initial covid crash just as a holding position. Yields are from 2.3% to 3.29% which considering BMOIL do not have attractive GIC rates, did not seem too bad for the purpose.

I loved GICs back in early 1980's when one we had yielded 16% and beat the CPI by almost 4%!

I know you understand these things in principle, but anyone buying GICs n recent times should be aware of the effect of inflation and taxes on real returns. Chart below from Mackenzie article shows just how long a periods GICs had negative Real Returns.


----------



## james4beach

Covariance said:


> Holding diverse assets that reduce portfolio volatility (risk) is the name of the game. Obviously we would want all the assets to individually produce great returns. But that's not reality. What matters is how the combo works together.


Yes, exactly. And what matters in the end is the whole portfolio (the combo) and how that is behaving.

In a diversified portfolio, almost by definition, you won't always be holding every optimal asset. If you really could predict which assets were optimal from the outset, you would be the most skilled active manager on the planet.

In the real world, that kind of active management is rarely successful. Look at Ray Dalio for instance. For two years now, he's been talking about how bonds should be avoided. In the mean time his flagship actively managed fund (Pure Alpha) is doing terribly. So people like Dalio talk a big game about being smart enough to pick & choose assets, and pretends he can trade in and out of bonds, but his actual results... suck.


----------



## KaeJS

Actually, what matters in the end is coming out on top.

If you're investing in bonds or GICs, it's actually more intelligent to spend the money on material things you want or experiences with the ones you love.


----------



## agent99

> If you really could predict which assets were optimal from the outset, you would be the most skilled active manager on the planet.


James, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to predict a negative real return on GICs, given current rates.


----------



## zinfit

like_to_retire said:


> You're changing your asset allocation then. Certainly Fortis isn't fixed income..
> 
> ltr


I have I am looking at a 75/25 ratio. Fixed income has three bearish issue inflation, taxes and a good chance of rising interest rates.


----------



## AltaRed

I think folks need to accept investors hold GICs for a multiple of reasons, all of which have been discussed numerous times. They are intelligent enough to know they are often under water post-inflation, post-tax. It gets weary hearing people denigrating those that choose to do so. Le it be.

I no longer buy GICs myself but I have a healthy cash reserve in HISAs earning 1.15-1.25% (half that of a GIC ladder). I won't take a back seat to anyone for choosing to do so.

P.S. I am running about 85/15


----------



## Covariance

If there is a large bill due in the not to distant future it’s quite prudent to put the cash in a GIC. Maturity matched to the bill date and cash equal to present value of GIC. With that out of the way get back to making money on the portfolio and not worrying about it.


----------



## newfoundlander61

Added to my TFSA AQN holdings this morning.


----------



## agent99

Covariance said:


> If there is a large bill due in the not to distant future it’s quite prudent to put the cash in a GIC. Maturity matched to the bill date and cash equal to present value of GIC. With that out of the way get back to making money on the portfolio and not worrying about it.


That makes sense if you have upcoming expenses with knows timing. 

We shouldn't mix up *cash* for living expenses and *investments*. 
Cash in wallet, bank accounts, HISAs, short term money funds or GICs all good for cash. But they are not investments.


----------



## zinfit

like_to_retire said:


> You're changing your asset allocation then. Certainly Fortis isn't fixed income..
> 
> ltr


I should mention I have put some money into US dollars and purchased Vanguard Inflation Protected Short Term Securities . If we get 5% inflation I should have that covered. I believe there are Canadian securities that provide some inflation protection.


----------



## KaeJS

newfoundlander61 said:


> Added to my TFSA AQN holdings this morning.


Same.


----------



## AltaRed

agent99 said:


> That makes sense if you have upcoming expenses with knows timing.
> 
> We shouldn't mix up *cash* for living expenses and *investments*.
> Cash in wallet, bank accounts, HISAs, short term money funds or GICs all good for cash. But they are not investments.


Most cash should count as part of one's investments albeit a revolving chequing account for monthly cash flow spend is one that I also exclude. Those who calculate a portfolio return without their HISA (and other) short term accounts included are overstating their CAGR performance. As an example, much of my 15% fixed income (cash reserve) allocation is in HISA accounts and I would be remiss not including them in my annual CAGR performance (it obviously depresses CAGR performance). I accept that as a drag because it brings certainty, just like insurance. I could do the alternative, i.e. keep all such funds invested in higher return vehicles, and take the risk of higher volatility when I need to access the funds.


----------



## fstamand

KaeJS said:


> Same.


Same as well. No brainer.


----------



## Gator13

We also added more AQN today.


----------



## Mechanic

Bought some AQN and RCI.B today


----------



## AltaRed

AQN's offering to buy Kentucky Power with a secondary offering @ $18.15 is not sitting too well with the market. However, that may be just a knee jerk reaction. 

AQN's foray into Kentucky where AEP recently lost a regulatory bid to invest money to keep a plant operating to 2040 is an interesting poke into the dungeon. While Kentucky looks to be progressive in shedding its coal fired plants, the loss of mining jobs could have political consequences. Certainly that is so in West Virginia where Joe Manchin is the achilles heel in Biden's plans to retire coal plants. WV is in a time warp and I suspect politics will resist coal plants in WV from shutting down for some years to come.


----------



## londoncalling

I also picked up some AQN.TO today from a long standing order in my LIRA account at 17.85. Will journal over to US$. With the purchase AQN will become my 2nd or 3rd largest equity position. I read the news last night about Kentucky Power and found it quite interested and suspected a drop in price. 

I appreciate the commentary @AltaRed on the coal situation in WV. I have a colleague that calls WV home even though he works in NV and has for quite sometime. We often talk about this dying industry and its importance to their economy. He and I often comment on the cultural, political and economic parallels we share despite the distance between us. The renewable transition will definitely see major headwinds in states like WV..


----------



## Benting

Benting said:


> Added more 'Shop' by selling all (small numbers) my CNR.


What is going on with 'Shop' ?
My heart sinks when I heard the quarterly report and the US premarket down 5% this morning !
Now I just checked, the stock is up almost 7% ?


----------



## Covariance

Benting said:


> What is going on with 'Shop' ?
> My heart sinks when I heard the quarterly report and the US premarket down 5% this morning !
> Now I just checked, the stock is up almost 7% ?


If you have a valuation that is dependent on future results - well into the future results (as opposed to cashflow today). And you publish results that are less than expected, but are forecast to be a temporary and a non-recurring set back, then your valuation doesn't change much. Because, well your valuation is all in what is going to happen in the future. The challenge of course is tomorrow will be yesterday in two days.


----------



## Mechanic

Added some LCID. Bought ENS on dip.


----------



## londoncalling

Topped up my holding in Manulife (MFC.TO) today at 24.58 in my TFSA.


----------



## Johnny199r

XIU and XUU as usual.


----------



## londoncalling

Added to my position in Enbridge today at 50.84.


----------



## nobleea

Bought some Magna a few weeks ago.


----------



## Kilbarry20

nobleea said:


> Bought some Magna a few weeks ago.


Bought & Sold Magna 10x since July- ALL at a Profit. Some with the Div too.

One of the most live, sound, Stocks on the TSX.

Love it.


----------



## londoncalling

Added to my position in Intertape Polymer at 19.85 US. Cash position now back around 10%.


----------



## londoncalling

Topped up TRP (TC Energy) in my TFSA today at $60.24. Aside from an outstanding order for MMM:US. This should be the end of my purchasing for the year aside from my regular RESP purchases of VEQT.


----------



## peterk

A little bit more ENB @ <$50.


----------



## KaeJS

londoncalling said:


> Topped up TRP (TC Energy) in my TFSA today at $60.24. Aside from an outstanding order for MMM:US. This should be the end of my purchasing for the year aside from my regular RESP purchases of VEQT.


I did this the other day but paid a little more. 60.43.

Bought some ARE today as well at 16.73


----------



## james4beach

I like to do my rebalancing in December, so it's a bit early (and I'm waiting) but I'll be buying more bonds and GICs soon.

XBB's yield to maturity is now 2.1% and 5 year GICs also pay around 2.2%

There's no reason to buy stocks, since I'm already way above target weight on my stock allocation due to their strong performance. I might also buy some gold coins or bars in the coming months. @MarcoE


----------



## Eder

With tax loss season starting everyone should have a Christmas list of fallen angels to buy. Mine most likely will be more AQN. Its important to wait till prices drop of course.


----------



## londoncalling

londoncalling said:


> Topped up TRP (TC Energy) in my TFSA today at $60.24. Aside from an outstanding order for MMM:US. This should be the end of my purchasing for the year aside from my regular RESP purchases of VEQT.


And my order for MMM was filled this morning at 174.22.


----------



## Mechanic

Had an open order that filled on some MFC this morning. Should have had my bid lower


----------



## londoncalling

Mechanic said:


> Had an open order that filled on some MFC this morning. Should have had my bid lower


I was thinking(albeit very briefly) the same thing about my purchases made over the last while including MFC. We have to remind ourselves as stock pickers that you pick the price you are comfortable with buying at and you don't fret if it goes lower. You also shouldn't get excited if the order doesn't get filled. Otherwise how confident are you in the price you chose. Longer term it is quite inconsequential. I certainly would be in a better position today if I had held off with my buys till today but I also made some sells in the past while that are lower from my exit price. Sometimes in the short term it's a win, sometimes it's a loss. As a former sports coach, I used to tell the players, it doesn't matter what the score is right now as much as what the score is at the end of the game. This worked if we were winning or losing I am not saying it isn't inconsequential, just temporary.

I am now looking to tap some funds from liquid savings should the market continue to trend downward. Perhaps next week's bank earnings reports will provide decent dividend increases while the market has a risk off day.


----------



## nobleea

Bought some more ENB just under 50.


----------



## AltaRed

Waiting on DLR to hit $13 before converting a bunch of USD to CAD. The loonie typically swoons in times of market turmoil so making an assumption that could happen next week


----------



## newfoundlander61

Used up the cash in both of our TFSA's to add positions in AQN & SU.


----------



## Gator13

Added to our positions in H, AQN, FTS & ALA.


----------



## nobleea

Bought some more Tourmaline.


----------



## Eder

I'm waiting for more pain to come next week after a weekend of Covid scarient stories on the msn. Hope to finish my AQN position then.


----------



## KaeJS

More Rogers for me...

I sold $59 calls this week for $0.65 which worked out well and then I also bought some today in the open market at 58.57.


----------



## KaeJS

Bought more Rogers...

Also sold some $58 Calls and $57 puts.


----------



## gardner

I bought some more XIC and ZAG. Seemed like a good opportunity.


----------



## Beaver101

Not sure if this has been posted elsewhere and in the event it was this is a repeat:

Annual TFSA contribution is/remains as $6,000 for next year 2022. New year shopping for sure then.


----------



## KaeJS

More Saputo.
More Rogers.


----------



## MrBlackhill

Beaver101 said:


> Annual TFSA contribution is/remains as $6,000 for next year 2022.


It should've been rounded up to $6,500 due to inflation. The initial $5,000 back in 2009 is now worth $6,278 in 2021 and they decided not to round it up to $6,500 for 2022. I guess they don't want people to save more.


----------



## Beaver101

MrBlackhill said:


> It should've been rounded up to $6,500 due to inflation. The initial $5,000 back in 2009 is now worth $6,278 in 2021 and they decided not to round it up to $6,500 for 2022.


 ... I haven't done the future value to account for inflation so assuming your # is correct there $6,278 wasn't round up to $6,300 meaning no round up to $6,500 either. Let's see what happens in 2023 if the TFSA is still available.



> I guess they don't want people to save more.


...yeah, I guess so especially it's 'tax-free'.


----------



## james4beach

Bought a shiny new 5 year GIC today


----------



## MrBlackhill

Bought MKP, DBM, EQB, VCI and WELL.


----------



## Mechanic

ZPH and INC.UN in my unreg.


----------



## peterk

Bit more MFC @ 23.20 bought with building up dividends. Shuffled around to put this is my TFSA instead of unregistered. The dividend for MFC is getting big, the taxes aren't great. I can't sell it from unregistered though since my ACB is $19, cap gains would hurt too much.


----------



## KaeJS

peterk said:


> Bit more MFC @ 23.20 bought with building up dividends. Shuffled around to put this is my TFSA instead of unregistered. The dividend for MFC is getting big, the taxes aren't great. I can't sell it from unregistered though since my ACB is $19, cap gains would hurt too much.


This is not a jab at you (I also own the company) but I am genuinely curious as to your thoughts on how MFC is going to continue to grow with rates so low (and likely to stay subdued).

It's to my understanding that insurance co's like this largely benefit from higher rates.

Are you worried we may not see the same level of growth that MFC has seen over the last couple decades?


----------



## RICARDO

KaeJS said:


> This is not a jab at you (I also own the company) but I am genuinely curious as to your thoughts on how MFC is going to continue to grow with rates so low (and likely to stay subdued).
> 
> It's to my understanding that insurance co's like this largely benefit from higher rates.
> 
> Are you worried we may not see the same level of growth that MFC has seen over the last couple decades?


Can't say I regret selling MFC back in 2014 @ $17.25
It hasn't really done anything much since then other than pay dividends.
Would have been nice to buy the dip in 2020

RICARDO


----------



## gardner

I added to my PPL and am now back where I had been with IPL before the takeover.


----------



## scorpion_ca

So far bought 5,590 shares of BMO MSCI China ESG Leaders ETF (ZCH) throughout this year. Be greedy when others are fearful.


----------



## nobleea

Took a gamble on MESA after a big drop this morning. Short term hold.


----------



## KaeJS

scorpion_ca said:


> So far bought 5,590 shares of BMO MSCI China ESG Leaders ETF (ZCH) throughout this year. Be greedy when others are fearful.


I've been buying China ETFs, too.
But why ESG?


----------



## MrBlackhill

ZCH is not ESG, where have you seen this @scorpion_ca ?

EDIT: Oh wow, they changed the name of the ETF


----------



## KaeJS

I don't understand the hysteria over ESG investments.

It doesn't make sense to me.


----------



## Mechanic

A few shares of LCID


----------



## AltaRed

KaeJS said:


> I don't understand the hysteria over ESG investments.
> 
> It doesn't make sense to me.


Nor I. It is a way to extract more MER out of ideological idealists. At least some of them may under perform as well due to 'inefficient' money chasing red herrings...er, I mean ideological but not necessarily economically sound ideas.


----------



## londoncalling

It's just marketing. I remember socially conscious investment mutual funds being offered over 20 years ago.


----------



## scorpion_ca

KaeJS said:


> I've been buying China ETFs, too.
> But why ESG?


I don't know exact reason but BMO has changed the ZCH objective on Dec 3. I like it as its more diversified now. Previously it had 59 holdings but now it has 165. Also, they are not buying ADRs in US exchanges instead they are buying in HK exchanges. No need to worry about delisting of Chinse stocks in US exchanges.

Previously,

The BMO China Equity Index ETF (ZCH) has been designed to replicate, to the extent possible, the performance of the S&P/BNY Mellon China Select ADR Index (Index), net of expenses. The ETF will gain exposure to the broad Chinese equity market by holding a basket of American Depository Receipts.

Now,

The BMO MSCI China ESG Leaders Equity Index ETF has been designed to replicate, to the extent possible, the performance of the MSCI China ESG Leaders Index (Index), net of expenses. The ETF invests in Chinese companies that have higher MSCI ESG ratings than their peers.


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## scorpion_ca

AltaRed said:


> Nor I. It is a way to extract more MER out of ideological idealists. At least some of them may under perform as well due to 'inefficient' money chasing red herrings...er, I mean ideological but not necessarily economically sound ideas.


Fortunately, BMO has dropped the Management fee from 0.65% to 0.60% when they switched to MSCI China ESG Leaders Index.

Benchmark Info - The MSCI China ESG Leaders Index is based on the MSCI China Index, which includes large and midcapitalization stocks across China. The Index aims to capture the performance of securities that have been assigned higher ESG ratings by MSCI relative to their peers and targets 50% of the market capitalization within each sector. The Index excludes securities of companies that earn significant revenues from tobacco, alcohol, gambling, conventional weapons and civilian firearms, any controversial weapons, significant generation of nuclear power as well as companies involved in severe business controversies. The portfolio is weighted by market capitalization and is re-balanced quarterly. 

Fund Benefits

Designed for investors looking for growth solutions
Designed for investors looking to align their values with their investments using a best-in-class approach
Exposure to diversified Chinese equities


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## KaeJS

Interesting.
Thanks for the reply.

I have mainly been buying XCH... Which is just basically the top 50 large caps.


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## scorpion_ca

KaeJS said:


> Interesting.
> Thanks for the reply.
> 
> I have mainly been buying XCH... Which is just basically the top 50 large caps.


 I think the MER of XCH is greater than the MER of ZCH. That's the reason, I didn't buy XCH.


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## james4beach

AltaRed said:


> Nor I. It is a way to extract more MER out of ideological idealists


ESG is likely a (global) bubble plus marketing hype.

Wall Street is also exploiting the label, just slapping it on anything that suits them. Call anything you want ESG and then charge higher fees. Lots of misrepresentation happening. The SEC has started looking into it.



KaeJS said:


> I don't understand the hysteria over ESG investments.


I think it's a bubble area, along with crypto coinz, Fintech, SPACs, tech startups, Electric Vehicles


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## Mechanic

Bought a few shares of OGN this morning


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## londoncalling

@Mechanic is that the Canadian metals OGN or the US health care OGN?


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## Mechanic

londoncalling said:


> @Mechanic is that the Canadian metals OGN or the US health care OGN?


US Organon


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## Retiredguy

scorpion_ca said:


> So far bought 5,590 shares of BMO MSCI China ESG Leaders ETF (ZCH) throughout this year. Be greedy when others are fearful.


So what did you buy in 2020. Hardly seems to me that in 2021 others (have been) fearful.


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## AltaRed

Mechanic said:


> US Organon


Why? Not picking on you specifically, but generally speaking, posting about a buy without context on why you are doing so doesn't really mean much of anything to anyone here


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## scorpion_ca

Retiredguy said:


> So what did you buy in 2020. Hardly seems to me that in 2021 others (have been) fearful.


I am in accumulation stage and I didn't have enough cash for investment in early 2020. We had $120k for down payment and we should have bought ETFs with it. Our portfolio was down around $130K in March, 2020 and we didn't sell anything at that time. We bought the following ETFs in Feb/Mar 2020.

My account plus $11k worth of DRIP


ETFQuantityAmountZRE398​ $ 10,113XEC825​ $ 19,313XEF400​ $ 10,914ZPR136​ $ 1,075VCN102​ $ 2,845

Spouse account plus $1k worth of DRIP


XAW464​ $ 12,244

Chinese stocks are on sale this year. The 52 week high of ZCH was $42.69 in Feb 2021 and now it's selling at $20-$21. We may not like Chinese Govt. but Chinese companies are not going anywhere. Ray Dalio, Stephen Schwarzman, Jeremy Grantham and Charlie Munger are investing heavily in China. This is one of the reasons I want 10%-15% of our portfolio in China.


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## Mechanic

AltaRed said:


> Why? Not picking on you specifically, but generally speaking, posting about a buy without context on why you are doing so doesn't really mean much of anything to anyone here


Ok. Bought it on spec for growth. Will likely be a swing trade. I like the look of the charts and see an upside.


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## Mechanic

Added to my SU and ENS today. I see growth in this sector and took the opportunity to add to my growing income streams


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## damian13ster

Added to PKK.CN - absolute gamble. Financial look to good to be true. If SEC validates them and allows NASDAQ listing, it will rise, and quickly.


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## KaeJS

CSH.UN

The LTC companies have been beaten down.

Also bought some XCH for the China play.


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## james4beach

I bought some gold coins today from one of the big banks.

Gold spot market is 1800 USD/oz, the Maple Leaf coins were 1890 USD which is only 5% premium to spot bullion price. That's the cheapest retail markup (premium) I've ever seen going back at least 15 years.

It's probably a good time to buy gold, while it's unpopular (buy low).


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## nobleea

Bought some BMO. Banks seem like a safe long term bet.


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## Eder

I bought more AQN using up dividend funds in my TSFA to generate even more dividends.

Rumor has it BMO is looking at a large purchase in the USA...likely why it has dumped a few bucks last couple days.


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## KaeJS

nobleea said:


> Bought some BMO. Banks seem like a safe long term bet.


Ugh...

I almost did this today at 134.70.
Decided to wait.
Hopefully I didn't make the wrong move.


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## Kilbarry20

KaeJS said:


> Ugh...
> 
> I almost did this today at 134.70.
> Decided to wait.
> Hopefully I didn't make the wrong move.


Cdn. Banks are cash cows & even better for short term trading! VERY volatile and hugely safe long term.
Bought and sold 500 x CM twice in 2 days last week, for a $2k profit!
I was out or I could have done the same with TD. Almost ANY dip of the big 4 is worthwhile !

And don’t forget the run ups to the ExD day. CM is Christmas Eve @ $1.61/ & TD is JA7 @ $0.89. BNS is [email protected] $1.00.

Looking to take another stab at CM if it drops on the Opening tomorrow.
In n Out in < 24 hours for another +$1200 on the Dip!

DE22. Total trades in a week on CM- 4. Profit: +$3995. 
And 1 more for the $805 Dividend Road @ $146.74


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## scorpion_ca

More ZCH for us.....


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## KaeJS

KaeJS said:


> Ugh...
> 
> I almost did this today at 134.70.
> Decided to wait.
> Hopefully I didn't make the wrong move.


Did a small nibble today at $131.
Glad I waited.
Would love to see this back at $125.

Also added more to my CSH position at $10.80


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## newfoundlander61

Was thinking that this may be a good time to take a position in CNR, opinions welcome. This would be a new addition for me in this sector for a long term hold.


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## like_to_retire

newfoundlander61 said:


> Was thinking that this may be a good time to take a position in CNR, opinions welcome. This would be a new addition for me in this sector for a long term hold.


For the long term why not CP instead, especially for the KCS deal. The dividend is lower and so is the P/E, so perhaps along with KCS they have more growth potential. I own both, so that's another way to go.

ltr


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## newfoundlander61

Good point with CP or just owning both.


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## Eder

Buying quality businesses on a pull back is pretty standard for long term investors. CN dropping $10/share because a potential employee didn't want the job seems like a pretty good spot to me. No opinion on CP.


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## peterk

james4beach said:


> I bought some gold coins today from one of the big banks.
> 
> Gold spot market is 1800 USD/oz, the Maple Leaf coins were 1890 USD which is only 5% premium to spot bullion price. That's the cheapest retail markup (premium) I've ever seen going back at least 15 years.
> 
> It's probably a good time to buy gold, while it's unpopular (buy low).


How "off the grid" is buying gold coins from the banks? What's the process like - Do they identify you as a customer in a special way beyond just bank card and here's your receipt? Is there a gold purchase "registry" / reporting process that you're aware of J4B?

I feel if I'm gonna buy gold as real physical metal, kept in my house, one of it's main reasons is so that it's a secret.


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## james4beach

peterk said:


> How "off the grid" is buying gold coins from the banks? What's the process like - Do they identify you as a customer in a special way beyond just bank card and here's your receipt? Is there a gold purchase "registry" / reporting process that you're aware of J4B?
> 
> I feel if I'm gonna buy gold as real physical metal, kept in my house, one of it's main reasons is so that it's a secret.


I've only ever bought the gold through the banks I do business with. They know who I am, because I identify myself using the debit card. I don't know what kind of tracking they have, but they certainly have a record of the purchase. I don't think there's any registry but perhaps they report the purchase to the CRA? I don't know.

If I ever sold gold, I would report the capital gains so the tracking never bothered me. I track my gold trades the same way I track my stock trades, with an ACB.

I don't keep my gold at home. Some people do, but you'd probably want to have a good quality safe.

If you want more anonymity you can also buy gold through a private shop such as a coin dealer. You could phone a reputable coin shop in your city and ask what identification (if any) is needed to buy gold.


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## FinancialFreedom

Thinking of buying Tencant this week once my Norbit's Gambit finishes going through. This would be in addition to my relatively large Alibaba position I already have. Anyone else holding Tencent? I liked it better before they sold their stake in JD.com but still think it has good upside over the next few years, being the largest company in China. I don't think they are as undervalued as Alibaba though.


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## MK7GTI

I'm buying 2 oz. of gold through my bank first week of January. Also looking to start a position in Walmart and Home Depot over the next few weeks as well.


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## damian13ster

1896 Liberty Head 20$ gold coin - first venture into trying alternative investments. Has a bit of a premium over the gold weight in it.


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## james4beach

I bought more ZSP, the S&P 500 index ETF


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## scorpion_ca

We bought more ZEM and ZCH...Ex-dividend day was yesterday and price dropped to 52 week low.


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