mranski

they allow you to take the cash in your regular investment account, and put it in an investment savings account vehicle in the same account, it shows up like a stock or mutual fund.

it is all one account, cash, not margin . interest can get reinvested or not, by choice. other cash doesn't get automatically put in to the interest savings account if that is what you are asking. interestingly, it is manulife (within TD) that has the 1.3% account, TD's is 1.25.

You have to place it into an invest savings acct. But it is redeemable online before settlement , i think one day. And it is not separate from your waterhouse account. Mine is high interest acct, i have alot of cash, but i don't know what their threshold is between high interest and regular interest.

TD Waterhouse surprised me by offering 1.3% on my cash balance. I was getting money market rates or nothing so this seems decent. Do others get more or less interest on their cash balances?

Kelowna, BC. ... Vineyards, sunshine, lake, skiing. Sorry but the city is full!

I'm not convinced that wet gas pursuit is much of a solution. Propane and butane have limited markets and have to be subject to supply glut also. Alot of the extra revenue here has to be handling costs. Volume demand for NG , not the liquids is what is going to be needed to drive market price.

Loews to me is a good way to play this with the stability of conglomerate income. PMT is another one where the owning family has a good history of results and the price keeps tracking down. Might wait a few quarters for the really low prices and effect of expiring hedges to produce some even better entry points resulting from really poor results.

i have looked at this also. It is hard to get to one winner/loser out of the bunch. In spite of the poorer ROA figures, some of these banks have done well for long term holders with dividends versus comparable blue chips generally I think. I've gone with RY and BNS, and sold BMO and TD because of the us strategy and the extreme competitive situation there, and the history of bad us expansions. CM i hold a small position not sure what to do with it. With banks held in non reg accounts, to me it is hard to trade and pay cap gains tax and make the returns. I'm looking to hold and get the dividend and gain long term.

I'd say the party's over, music will stop now. This should be called Ackman's Presentation on CN and Hunter Harrison versus CP and Fred Green.

Berkowitz in the boardroom has some similarities to Prem in the RIM room. Not sure i like Prem there. Where do you draw the line? Confirming a bad investment, I think. If mgmt is poor, why are we buying the stock in the first place. Makes me want to hit the sell button on FFH. But the smart moves outweigh RIM on balance. A profitable sale or turnaround may save the day, poor odds i think.

so, if you are on vacation, and taking calls, it still looks to the client like they are calling the home office?

"Franchising can be, and often is, a wonderful business." For an example, look at MTY.

I think the cdn banks are a good place to be for an average return or better considering the dividend. I like the RBC and BNS strategies the best, Global Investing and Latin America respectively, as opposed to the BMO and TD usa expansion strategy. The usa retail strategy seems too competitive, with too many huge low cost competitors. With the Lifecos , I like Power the best, due to the family ownership and less of the Manulife Asia strategy. With interest rates, it is so hard to know. Superintendent of financial institutions appears to be saying that these rates are the new normal. Not convinced she knows, but if you get 10 year stretches of low rates, you have to wonder if lifecos are a good investment.

tom connolly, a retired finace prof writes a report at www.dividendgrowth.ca on this concept i think similar to what you are referring. However, there are a few very knowledge investors on the berkshire board that argue fairly convincingly that analyzing your current return based on original cost base is not the optimal investing approach. I can't recall the blogs off hand.

When I look at screaming bargains that are apparently available, and the market crash the media is relating, i don't see it on the large cap blue chips that i mostly follow. Nothing like 2008. Down but not screaming bargains. If anything, alot of them seem to be holding. I fell like we are on different planets. I think the depressed interest rate environment is a real risk longer term. Not as interesting as Greece bashing, but malingering nevertheless. I see some utility type dividend payers trading at close to 20 x. This is really high compared to historicals. There has to be a risk of loss of capital if interest rates rise and there is a movement to alternatives to dividends.

It looks like BMO Investorline has it now. https://www.bmoinvestorline.com/

Beerbaron, Who do you have your US$ RSP with? I am with Waterhouse, they do a partial solution with wash trades. They even setup your cdn account to automatically wash trade but for all the effort they put in to this program, they could have setup the US$ RSP. I don't think they want to do it. But even with wash trades, your US dividends are forced back to loonies. BMO appears to be coming with a new account. We should insist on this as investors. http://www.canadiancapitalist.com/bmo-investorline-to-allow-u-s-dollar-registered-accounts/

i have cash to buy bkb, and agree it has never been cheaper. One hesitation for me is the cost of foreign exchange and the currency risk. It is not appealing to convert cdn dollars and pay foreign exchange on a buy and a sell, (2% each way?) and then possibly eat some currency also if the US$ drops. It makes the return hurdle more difficult. I guess the US$ to Cdn could work in my favour, but it seems more likely it is going the other way.

Loews (L) ??

Boax, thanks for the insights from an insider. Regarding investing in China, I would appreciate your opinion on how effective you think Western multinationals will be marketing in China long term. Is it likely that more nationalism could emerage and restrict market penetration, and could domestic chinese companies come to dominate the market long term with price or product or intangible advantages? There seem to be alot of success stories for some (YUM comes to mind). But Coke and Danone had some quite negative joint venture experience.

The bubble doesn't make real estate investing attractive. I own a condo in Kitsilano, (near downtown)which would sell for $350,000 and gets $10,000 in rent. The cap rate is a joke.

The Bloc are reappearing as federal NDP. Change of brand and approach, similar ideas. The Bloc wasn't working for quebec voters. Harper minority, will fall soon, and become Layton lead coalition with Liberal support. Ignatieff and Harper will resign. Small chance of a Harper minority if winds blow against jack in the last few days.

The No Rice surprises me, we eat alot of rice and we are thinking it is pretty good for us? What's wrong with rice, it is a staple everywhere. i can understand the bread and pasta as they are more processed.

I concur on RCH and SJ. Really well run companies in simple to understand niche businesses. With SJ, the lack of moat always bothered me, but they seem to produce excellent results. Not sure cnr is more expensive most of the time. I'd throw out RBA and MTY as canadian equities of similar quality. I posted a brief comment on MTY on the Investment Ideas board. Not much response. RBA has a good writeup in Sequoia Funds I think, recent annual report. I'd call these way overpriced and slightly overpriced.

Don't know if it was intentional, but if i had to guess, i would say it was. Tanner Glass, a very intelligent guy if you hear him or read his blog said the NHL guys know where the turnbuckle is. Pacioretty i thought made a courageous comment to go against the league dogma, and suggesting Chara admit it was a mistake instead of denying it. NHL commissioners office is a joke. Like the luge olympian, better engineering should be done before not after. The best they can come up with is Colin Campbell doesn't adjudicate his son's games! Wow, great ethics, but what about the guys getting maimed on the ice.