Final reminder: Next week I will write the Ask me Anything” blog.
If you wish to have a question answered, post them below. I have already begun writing the blog with a few questions, and have room for a few more.
As a reminder:
Please keep the questions of interest to all readers. I don’t answer questions on peoples favorite pet-stock. That’s what I do on BNN. I’d prefer sector questions, or questions on the REALLY widely held stocks if there is a single stock question, but again, I’d rather stick to themes. So asking about oil stocks might be great, but not about your favorite junior. Countries, commodities, sectors, and widely held and followed positions are all acceptable.
Have a great weekend!
29 Comments
Hi Keith,
first of all miss your appearances on Market Call – my question is: I know you have said to invest in 1/3
– one, when the S&P500 reaches its 200 Day Moving Average – which it has – another 1/3 when it stays there for 3 weeks and the other 1/3 ( I believe ) when things get back to relatively normal. Is this still your plan. Have you put the first 1/3 into play yet ?
thanks
John
Hi Keith, what are your thoughts on preferred shares. I guess my question is more about interest rates. Do we continue lower for longer until deflationary pressures implode the whole system or do you see any chance of rising rates. My timeline being years out. Thanks
My question… the S and P 500 had an interesting few days in early April. On April 1 it gapped down then consolidated for 2 days looking like a pause before another sharp drop. Then on Apr 6 it had a gap up. This few days pattern effectively formed an island reversal. My question… what happen over the weekend Apr 4 and 5 to prompt the reversal Apr 6? Was this when the fed stepped in? The reversal led to the several week rally after, when the news was still very bad.
Thanks… and very much appreciate your blog.
John A
John–probably not a question that broad enough for the ASK blog–so I’ll do my best here: I can’t recall if the Fed announced anything in the time period you note. Lets just say that its pretty darned likely that it was some Fed Fertilizer that spurred the reversal.
Hi Keith,
Last week there was an article by Forbes. They indicated that June 5th indicated the start of an island reversal and that June 11th confirmed the island reversal. Could you talk in general about Island reversals? They seemed to indicate that the island reversal was a sell signal to the market, but then also to watch the S&P close for Friday to see if it closed below 3031.5 as that would be a stronger sell signal, which it didn’t.
Yet, here we are this morning with markets poised to sell off at open.
What are your views about an island reversal as an sell off indicator? Are they generally an accurate indicator of a sell off?
Thanks Keith
Hi Keith. I’m trying to figure out if the COVID crash is an unusual bear market pattern or an outsized correction. If it’s a huge correction, how do we go higher from here given the economic backdrop? If it’s a bear, we have many months of pain still ahead of us.
I’m thinking that the outcome of the presidential election is far less certain than it was before the pandemic and that the market will react negatively to growing support for the Democrats. Do the technicals tell you anything about whether we have a significant downdraft in the seasonally weak September period? Or do we just continue sideways for the rest of the year? Thanks!
Hi Keith and John, I have been keeping a few notes during this historic period. On Sunday April 5th Trump said it looked like COVID-19 was starting to level off. On the 6th the DJI went up 7.7%.
Always enjoy everything you share Keith, thanks!!
And now the news has changed to increased cases. This is certainly a head-turner.
Keith, are you a fan of factor-based ETF investing?
I can probably address this here: Pardon my wishy-washy answer, but the fact is that factors can be good, or bad. Things change in the market. But there’s no doubt that a well researched factor-based strategy will work very well for significant periods. Until they don’t. So, I don’t mind them so long as the costs are low enough. And I’d keep an eye on the ETF’s chart to ensure you don’t see an end to their strategy working in a new environment.
I keep hearing many market commentators talking about USD weakness as the FED pumps trillions into the market which would lead to the rise in GOLD, commodities and EEM, is this a good time to buy the gold miners, raw materials and EEM.
Thank you for your insight
Hi
If the s&p goes back down through 3000 where do you think support will be
thanks
I answered that on today’s “Answers part 1” blog
A few questions to consider:
1. what can a retail investor do to protect themselves from a possible negative interest rate environment?
2. can REITs survive going forward?
3. what are some of the better safe places for $usd & $cdn cash when in risk-off mode?
4. what are some of “go to” investment ideas to position oneself for either of a deflationary or inflationary environment? what if hyper inflation evolves?
Thank-you
Keith, my question is in regards to the gold/silver sector, it has had a good run as of late. Do you see more room on the upside? If so any thoughts on what the price of gold will be in the next 12 to 24 months?
Thanks
Hello Keith
What are your thoughts on the emerging markets ex-China for the next 6 months to a year? With the USD dipping, western economies beginning to recover, oil prices stabilizing is this creating an opportunity to buy EM?
how do you feel about the financials going forward, especially the big banks , i missed the bottom in 2008 when the yields were 7-8% but not this time , i,m in BNS and CM with above 7% yields back at 50$ prices , as long as dividends hold their a life time hold in my opinion , they haven’t cut in a 100 years to-date so i figure its a fairly safe play , YOUR THOUGHTS thanks RICHARD D from BC
Thanks for taking questions Keith!
Regarding forfolio allocations, how do you recommend young investors with small portfolios (~30k USD) manage buying big tech without skewing portfolio weightings and risk. If I buy a handful of shares of any of the big guys it can account for 10+% of my portfolio. If I buy a couple of these companies tech can make up 50% of my portfolio pretty easy. With tech being the future of my generation, is this too much risk or do I go for it and rebalance in the future once my portfolio grows with increasing contributions? I do also have a defined benefit pension which sort of acts as an insurance policy as well… thanks!
I’ll answer that here rather than on the Answers blog as its pretty straight forward: there are a ton of ETF’s out there with significant exposure to the tech stocks. Too many to list — so I’d suggest you Google technology ETF’s and then look at their top holdings. The percentage allocation will be displayed for each stock held–find the ETF that best fits your needs–aka the one with greater concentrations in the stocks you like. This will give you stock-diversification yet sector concentration. The other thing to look at might be a NASDAQ ETF like QQQ which has significant exposure to the stocks you are looking at -along with biotech and a few other groups. You really want to dig down into these ETF’s to find out what suits your needs.
Finally, you can balance your portfolio out with some lower beta ETF’s like a dividend aristocrat ETF, a low volatility ETF or a broad market ETF (SPX or TSX). So many options out there, so mix and match to suit your risk profile and age, etc. Best of luck, and glad to see a young person get on it early!
Not the best timing with the Canadian dollar fairly strong, but I’m thinking of exchanging my US dollars back to Canadian in a RBC Direct Investing account. Do I just do a reverse of Norbert’s Gambit? Purchase DLR.u on my US$ account, switch to my CAD account, and sell DLR?
I’d be hesitant to advise you on that strategy, as I haven’t done it myself. Perhaps an email to Questrade with your question would help
1. Can you suggest a software program to track investments, so much more i want to know the broker doesn’t tell me?
2. Suggest an app to allow multi screens for market watching, charts, news, etc?
Al–I don’t know of any retail level software. Perhaps somebody reading this will be able to help you..anybody? Most online (etrade, Questrade, bank discount arms, etc) firms offer pretty good support packages for retail investors.
We use institutional level software (Thomson Reuters) for asset management and we use various research services for ideas, fundamental analytics, etc. We use stockcharts (which many retail investors use) to do technical analysis.
I USE STOCKMARKETEYE, AND FIND IT HELPFUL
When Google finance went belly-up (had been my go-to), I asked around & did some research :
– TradingView.com : became my new go-to for tracking. Easy to use, step up from the old Google page
– Barchart.com : another good portfolio tracker. Good news links. Shows ETF holdings. Some may prefer it to TradingView, has T.A. tools (but nothing like StockCharts)
– Fundata.com : ETF quick-link allows searching of Canadian ETFs
– ReitReport.ca : allows quick overview of current Canadian REIT performance
– StockChase.com : great site that summarizes latest opinions of MarketCall guests (including Keith!)
– MarketBeat.com : I use it to quickly see analyst ratings of a stock / REIT
Thanks Andy–this will be helpful to readers. Good summary of tools for for the retail investor. I would add that if a retail investor is serious, they should decide to spend a little money on good tools. Free is not necessarily good…eg…for a small fee, tools like Stockcharts.com can be valuable.
As a librarian, I believe good information tools are key- and regarding Stockcharts, even the free version is a strong tool when used well (read some basic T.A. books first, I would say).
Al’s question was something I’d wanted to ask you in the past… Having said that, and with an eye towards free resources, do you have any :
– Blogs you recommend following (note : I follow you and Larry Berman)
– Substitutes for SentimenTrader’s basic research? I know you love their work, but can you recommend anything that ‘mirrors’ it? In the past you’ve mentioned a put/call ratio on Stockcharts?
If you use stockcharts.com and subscribe to the basic package you get full charts (which you need–the free charts are way too short) and access to all of their tickers. From there, you can look at sentiment indicators like the VIX, the CBOE put/call, and also some of the breadth indicators like % stocks over their various moving averages and cumulative advance/decline line, etc
For blogs–probably the king is seeking alpha–they have a plethora of writers. Some are not so good, but some are quite excellent. Subscribe free and they email you each day with the recent blogs, news of the day, etc in a nice summary–you can read a variety of opinions.
Hope that helps
Keith, how do you see the U.S./CDN markets reacting if the next President of the U.S. is a Democrat vs a Republican?