no_free_lunch

What are peoples thoughts on the federal election and in particular how a win by the Democrats might impact the preferreds. Warren and Sanders are down so assuming a more centric candidate could the privatization still occur? In my mind the selloff was driven by the timelines stretching past the election and this is my concern as well. However there is huge and high probability upside if Republicans win so it is just a question of what these things are worth under the Dems to balance the odds making. Could court wins lead to some type of preferred redemption event even under a less friendly administration?

I put some funds (maybe 5%) into beutel goodman small cap (BTG104), series F. It has an expense ratio of 1.2% which is obviously high but much lower than competitors. If you look at their track record they have beaten the markets going back 5/10/20 years even with expenses considered. I am not sure it is so much that they are superior stock pickers, I think it is that they avoided energy / materials. I suspect this is the ballpark natural result if you invest in non fraudulent canadian companies and further reduce the energy/materials exposure. Otherwise I have found a couple investments. This was mostly the result of scanning the investments these various funds hold. So as usual I am hedging and will have to continue stock picking with a portion of my funds.

Have you ever been involved in the process of acquiring one of these products you mention? My experience has been that you are under tremendous pressure to get it right, you don't have adequate time to compare and you have other responsibilities. So if prices are at all comparable, it is so tempting to go with one of the larger competitors. I also think that a narrow moat is still a moat, they are still advantaged. Once you have market share you have significant operating leverage over your competitors. It's really hard for them to compete. They have higher costs and less reputation.

I think the EU members in general are dying. Frances GDP is also stagnant over the last decade. Maybe Germany and the Nordic countries aren't as bad off but I'm not sure that story is done. From an investment perspective I would stay far away from Italy. I read that stock market returns there were some of the lowest in the world during the 20th century. If things are getting worse then investors are that much more out of luck. To add to your demographic argument they have one of the lowest birth rates in the world. I am not going to sugar coat it, it will just get worse.

For my Canadian investments I actually want just about anything but the banks and O&G. Those Canadian banks are going to get wiped out like what happened in Europe. They really don't have a lot of equity relative to assets. Somehow we managed to avoid a RE crash but if we ever have one they are in big trouble. There are a lot of good quality small and midcaps that you have never heard of. Industrials, tech, consumer Staples, the railways, that sort of thing. That's what I want to own. I am going to find a fund that holds a bunch of those, throw some money in and walk away.

On BRK, I have about 7% in it. How do you determine how high to go? I know it is hugely diversified but can we really think of it as an ETF? Also, what of Warren's age, does it really not matter?

The mutual fund / etf debate comes down to my belief that most of the market is in a bubble and that value investing isn't dead. I know from my own investing experience that are still stocks that are ballpark reasonable, that is what I want to own. I don't want to own everything. I am hoping to find mutual funds that have similar style to myself. I have already seen a large divergence in small cap canadian stocks. There is an ishares etf xcs.to which has basically gone nowhere for a decade while many small cap funds are up 50-100%. I also have a small investment in one of the funds and had the same experience so I am not really cherry picking. It just makes sense when you look at the garbage in the etf vs what the funds are holding. The other way to look at it is risk reduction. We are financially far enough along that I don't need to swing for the fences, I can get by with singles. If I can find a fund that can use a garp or qarp strategy, I can see how that might have a tighter range of outcomes. I really don't care if I get 7% when the market gets 10% over the next decade, I just don't want to get a -2%. The other way to look at it, if we don't believe that a fund can out-perform then why are we on this site? Obviously we still believe there is alpha out there. It is not so much that I can't do the type of investing we do on this site or don't think that it will work. Like Lakesider I will continue to do some investing on individual high conviction names. For entertainment if nothing else. I just simply do not have time for a full portfolio. A small position is still like a years worth of saving so even small positions take me 4,5,6 hours and then there are dozens of positions that i research and drop. Just too much work.

I find it increasingly difficult / impossible to run my portfolio. It is simply too time consuming to research individual stocks given how diversified I like to be. I am looking for options. I am a Canadian investor. I know i should buy ETFs but I just don't like how popular they are. I feel that mutual funds are my best option. I am hoping someone can provide some good suggestions. Mawer and Beutel Goodman look interesting. Are there any other names people like?

Does anyone know how the $50 payout to Celgene is categorized as far as taxes? I assume it is not a dividend, is it return of capital?

If anything, I wish there were more threads like FNMA, you can learn an awful lot just by reading the thread and following the links. I try to read all of the non politics threads. If you cut out politics/general discussion there are actually not that many posts.

ISV.TO. I see returns as 5% dividend + 5-6% growth. The dividend should protect the downside. In a niche market. Just a 1% position.

Yes, thanks for sharing Saluki. I can see Chile being a good alternate retirement destination. The real estate is cheaper but I assume food, utilities, public transport, services are all cheaper as well. If you have citizenship and can get healthcare, even better.

I believe I could invest directly. I have an interactive broker account and have bought in other foreign markets. However, my preference would definitely be an etf. Having spent some more time on it, I am probably going to let this one pass. I just don't see what value has been created in chile over the past decade in equities. This concerns me as GDP growth has been okay. As frequently happens, it seems the gdp growth is not translating to equities.

Is time to invest in Chile? I have had the country on my "watchlist" for years, they are considered the most free market country in South America and yet are hitting economic issues and are now facing huge protests. Government debt is tiny, around 27% of GDP. Population demographics are not fantastic but it's still growing. The GDP per capita is still well below most European countries or Canada/US, so at least in theory there is still plenty of catch up that can be done. If you look at the chile etf ECH, it is right around 2009 lows. However the dividend yield is still only around 2.5% so based on that simple metric, not so cheap. Is anyone else looking at this, can anyone recommend a good way to play it?

Viking talked about this in another thread. What appears to be happening, is life insurers will push for higher premiums (and therefore lower combined ratios) to offset the weaker investment income.

NHI. Just a defensive pick. Trying to put a bit of my cash to work.

This is great Kab. Thanks for posting. I came so close to LNR back when it was below $40 but just didn't pull the trigger. It is still cheap on FCF basis but it's hard having seen the run-up. Maybe I will have another look. Already own MO and MOTR. I will have a look at ULTA. It doesn't seem cheap at all but I will do some digging.

I don't know about taxes as I hold it in tax free accounts. It's about 70% CMHC bonds, 20 provincial binds, 10 bank bonds. The cmhc is backed by the government of Canada. Probably more risk than money markets.

I agree with both of you. So many variables. In my case I am far enough along that my "stake" is not really replacable and close enough to my retirement amount that it's not worth reaching. I am making the assumption that most people here are fairly far along with their portfolio. Take this survey with a grain of salt, just one data point.

I don't do well with bull markets and I am holding more and more cash these days. I usually run 20%, dropped down to 15% during the december crash but I back up to around 25%. Just curious where others are at. Also curious what people use for cash alternatives. In Canada I mainly use xfr.to.

As far as betting odds, you should be looking at the odds of Warren winning the democratic ticket. She is heavily favored, her odds are more than double that of Biden who is ranked second. Only once she becomes the official candidate will we get good odds data on her chance of winning the election. At this point, there is a very real chance it is Warren on the ticket. I also think this is very appropriate for an investing board. If Warren is elected you are crazy to invest in a number of different sectors. In particular, I sold out of Fannie preferred's mainly due to the timeframe stretching out past the election.

I'm not sure about Germany but the Nordic countries havhaved a very different taxation policy than what Warren is proposing. Their corporate tax rates are comparable to the US but personal tax is much higher in particular for the middle class. So Warren will reference these countries when it suits her but ignore the details she doesn't care for. I think this Nordic model makes more sense. You want health care? No problem but you are gonna pay via your taxes. There needs to be some more personal responsibility, you can't just push it all in business. Why would anyone want to start a business, why would they want to ramp up hiring?

Sd, Do it. I will point out that you talk and talk but the carbon tax is now in effect and we aren't doing likewise to our imports. You are going to have to do this because these carbon taxes are going to work their way through the cost structure and affect all natural resources and manufacturing too. It will affect the east eventually and we all know that cannot be.

I guess I don't quite follow how shifting to these external producers is going to help canada's environmental impact. It just seems like a big lie so that we can pretend we are doing something when really we just outsource the pollution. The only way to prevent that is to impose the environment regulations on the way in.

Tarriff's are very much in our control, just like a carbon tax is in our control. You can spin it any way you want but you aren't helping the environment if you just start replacing Canadian goods with foreign goods that don't have a carbon tax on them.