Stocks - The Best Buys 2

[Slava]

^ I don't get it. I mean let's say that the decline there wasn't as far, or the market didn't pull back. The line would just be at a different angle and still fit the story? Like the predictive power of this seems spurious at the very best? What am I missing?

The line cuts through the 2016 bottom and makes no contact with any other point until now, so I just don't see the relevance? What difference would it make if the end value was 250 or 260 here?

[squiggs96]

Originally Posted by OMG!WTF!

Still amazing how trend lines are so predictable.....

Spoiler!

Your "trend line" hits exactly two data points, that likely are in the same month, almost three years ago. It then hits nothing for three years until the most recent point. That's not a trend line. I think you should have used green text instead of a green line. There are many trend lines on there. The green one isn't one of them.

[OMG!WTF!]

Originally Posted by Slava

^ I don't get it. I mean let's say that the decline there wasn't as far, or the market didn't pull back. The line would just be at a different angle and still fit the story? Like the predictive power of this seems spurious at the very best? What am I missing?

The line cuts through the 2016 bottom and makes no contact with any other point until now, so I just don't see the relevance? What difference would it make if the end value was 250 or 260 here?

Sorry my bad. I just posted a close up of the chart from post #186 so you could see the more recent action better.

Spoiler!

It's a very well known and well established line. Lots of programs are watching it and trading off of it.

[OMG!WTF!]

Some stock picks for 2019 from the "pros"...


https://business.financialpost.com/i...stocks-outlook

[OMG!WTF!]

Well I hope no one bought Apple based on that stupid article I posted...down 8% and dragging markets with it...


https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/ap...225357362.html

[bluejays]

If it makes you feel better, I bought Apple at $204. Still a good stock, just a fairly mediocre product as a whole (the latest phones in general). This upcoming year with the next wave (fold-able, etc), they'll be just fine.

[Resolute 14]

Apple will be fine if they pull back on their aggressive price gouging with the new phones.

[afc wimbledon]

I suspect Apple will just become 'another big company' no more no less.

[bluejays]

There's also augmented reality right around the corner, so all the big players are going to kill it - Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon. All are investing heavily in it, so I have little doubt they'll all do fine. It's about who can come up with a good marketable product early on. I suspect within two years we'll have something pretty interesting by one of those guys.

[Regorium]

Are there any services out there that will allow me to contribute automatically to an RRSP every month and also perform purchases of a distribution of ETF's that I select?

For example, I want to contribute $500 a month, but I want to put 20% into VEE, 15% into VCN, 50% into VFV, and 10% into ZEB. Buying those as standard stock transactions themselves would require me to spend $40 in transaction fees every month.

I know a lot of places will do automatic contributions into mutual funds but I'm curious whether there's something like this for self-directed RRSP's.

[Fuzz]

If you can't find anything that works, you could just contribute to one each per month, and change which one you invest in. Sure, your monthly balance won't be exactly the mix you want, but your yearly average will come out close.

[puckedoff]

^ Couple DIY options, not really the solution you asked for but food for thought -

1 - You can just put the $500 into one of those each month, and then rotate through each ETF.

2 - Depending on who you bank with, they may have a fund that is free to trade in and out of (watch for cash out fees, minimum holding periods) that you could split your allocation like in above and then just transfer to the matching ETF when it is a more sizeable amount.
Edit to add info: TD has 'E-series' funds which have no purchase cost, and very low MER (for S&P Index E-series, it is 0.35%). I can contribute my $500 to this each month, and then when I have $5000 I can transfer it to an S&P 500 ETF so that my trading fee on that ETF does not eat up all my principal)

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Regorium

Are there any services out there that will allow me to contribute automatically to an RRSP every month and also perform purchases of a distribution of ETF's that I select?

For example, I want to contribute $500 a month, but I want to put 20% into VEE, 15% into VCN, 50% into VFV, and 10% into ZEB. Buying those as standard stock transactions themselves would require me to spend $40 in transaction fees every month.

I know a lot of places will do automatic contributions into mutual funds but I'm curious whether there's something like this for self-directed RRSP's.

It's very difficult for a lot of reasons, but most notably because you can't buy fractional units of an ETF. You can with mutual funds, which is why you can set that $500 (or whatever figure) and it works.

As an aside, Vanguard (I see you have a few of their products in your mix) was rumoured to be bringing an option to take care of that to Canada a couple years ago, but it hasn't materialized yet.

[Regorium]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

If you can't find anything that works, you could just contribute to one each per month, and change which one you invest in. Sure, your monthly balance won't be exactly the mix you want, but your yearly average will come out close.

The issue is that I'll effectively be paying a 2% fee to do this, and at that point I might as well use the mutual fund options where I could probably find something in the 1.2% MER range.

(is that the right math?)

[sa226]

This is a complete out of my arse suggestion, so Im taking a risk here....

With ETFs like that the month to month advantage of dollar cost averaging I would think would be pretty minimal. If you were to set up automatic mutual fund purchases the fees could wipe out any advantage you may have with ETFs.

You could set up automatic cash contributions for the "financial psychology" aspects of monthly contributions. Then on a schedule of your choosing, make your purchases that suit your investment strategy. Every 2 months, every 4 months, every 6 months.

I have no numbers to back this up, but it is something that I have considered doing.

Sent from my SM-G950W using Tapatalk

[bizaro86]

Have the $500 auto deposited into your brokerage account every month. Every 3 months, buy $1500 of whichever one you are below your allocation of. Spend only one commission, save on MER going forward.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Slava

It's very difficult for a lot of reasons, but most notably because you can't buy fractional units of an ETF. You can with mutual funds, which is why you can set that $500 (or whatever figure) and it works.

As an aside, Vanguard (I see you have a few of their products in your mix) was rumoured to be bringing an option to take care of that to Canada a couple years ago, but it hasn't materialized yet.

A robo can buy you fractional ETFs, but obviously higher fees than DIY. The added benefit being you don't have to worry about periodic rebalancing.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

A robo can buy you fractional ETFs, but obviously higher fees than DIY. The added benefit being you don't have to worry about periodic rebalancing.

Yeah that’s potentially an option. I’m not sure how they get fractional shares though? Maybe they’re holding some as cash or something like that because ETFs don’t trade fractionally.

I also thought that iShares had some mandates you could invest in like this a few years ago?

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Slava

Yeah that’s potentially an option. I’m not sure how they get fractional shares though? Maybe they’re holding some as cash or something like that because ETFs don’t trade fractionally.

I also thought that iShares had some mandates you could invest in like this a few years ago?

I'm not sure they actually trade fractional shares, rather they make block trades and allocate fractions of those block trades to accounts on their platform.

[Slava]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I'm not sure they actually trade fractional shares, rather they make block trades and allocate fractions of those block trades to accounts on their platform.

Yeah that would make sense and be the only way that I know of.