stock picks

The Transparent RRSP: Stock Picks

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Action taken the week of May 29
  • I deposited $150.00 into the RRSP account. There is now $169.90 of available cash in the account.

I’m still waiting to see if the Canadian market will have a more definitive correction than what it gave in May. It could set up over the next few weeks/months for a new run, but I doubt it. The monthly chart looks like the market is inching downward. I still would like to see the market come down to the same level it was at in mid-November.

With the lower trading volume during the summer months, I put less emphasis on the market (as long as it’s not making any extreme moves that invite concern or attention) and I pay more attention to individual stocks that are getting a lot of action. I might casually pad my trading accounts now and then with extra cash so that should opportunities present themselves, I’m ready to take action.

Some Stock Picks

I found some stocks with nice charts, some of which are seeing a lot of recent action in price moves and trade volume. These have been trading better than the market – which doesn’t say much.

  • BBD.B.TO – I don’t like that Bombardier has gone straight up the last two weeks, but it’s been stronger than the market. I would prefer a correction on the daily time frame. It’s worth watching as the weekly chart is promising with a breakaway candle that held strong with increasing volume. I’ve owned this stock since early February 2016 and I can tell you that it’s not much of a mover. This can be a good thing when this stock experiences volatility because it’s less of a shock to your portfolio (unless you have a lot of shares and took on too much risk). While the monthly chart is very nice, the yearly chart is not inspiring.
  • BTO.TO
  • HGU.TO (This is a gold ETF.)
  • TD.TO
  • MG.TO
  • RY.TO
  • NA.TO
  • TA.TO – This is already in the RRSP. I was beyond busy this week and I wish I had a chance to look at the chart earlier this week. Depending on what it does next week, I might buy more shares.

If you’re not inspired to take on any risk, you can just watch these over the next few weeks and months and see how they do with or without the market. If you do feel inspired to trade, I’d recommend taking on less risk and buying fewer shares. I only say this because I still think the market will correct further and this could take down your stock and it could be a while before it starts to improve.

As always, please keep in mind the industry, sector, the company and its fundamentals, any recent news, upcoming earnings announcements, the amount of risk you’re taking, how it fits within your portfolio, your anticipated time horizon, etc. It’s always important that you look into what you need to in order to feel confident in your investments.

The Transparent RRSP: Managing Doubts

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Action taken the week of May 22
  • I reviewed my holdings in both my RRSP and TFSA. I am considering buying more shares of TransAlta Corp. (TA.TO) next week because I like the monthly chart.

A Glance at the Market

XIC may

The XIC ETF price history charts on freestockcharts.com

As you can see on the weekly chart, there has been mostly selling in May, which is consistent with the saying, “Sell in May and go away.” It would take more buying than all the selling that’s gone on all May for the market to trade above that. If the selling continues to consistently happen, even in small amounts, we’ll start to move lower.

When I’m in Doubt I Stay Out

I’ve been going over my portfolio and considering each stock that I bought and sold over the last year. First, I listed my primary and secondary financial goals for each one. If I had sold the stock or some of the shares, I made note of why I made the sale. Then I looked at the price history charts for each stock on my list and considered whether the stock’s performance was still in line with my intentions and goals.

Of course, my ultimate financial goal is to make money in any stock that I invest in. The major distinctions between each of them are determined by how I want to make money (dividends? capital gains? both?) and when (in the next few months? in a few years? in decades?). It was interesting to see how many of my holdings were initially intended for a swing trade after which I ended up wanting to keep them for much longer. This tends to be a pattern with me.

I’ll often buy a stock with this thought process: Let’s see how this performs. If it’s good, I’m keeping it. I might sell some and keep the rest. I might buy more the next time it has a good setup. If it’s a dud (a stock that sees zero action despite the market or its sector), then I’ll opt to sell it at break even or for a small profit and move on.

Selling at a loss is almost never an option for me. This only happens if, for whatever number of reasons, it becomes obvious beyond any doubt that the stock appears to be worth significantly less. I then have to ask myself if I’m willing to hold until that lower point and then wait for its recovery. If it does recover, at what price will it likely recover to before it goes up – or down – again? I rarely have to address the prospect of selling at a loss. This is not because I’m a decent stock picker. It’s because after years of trading, I saw that most of the stocks I sold at a loss ended up doing well weeks, months, or years after I bought them and sold them.

This basically means that it doesn’t matter if a stock has a good chart or not. It also doesn’t matter if you can time the market. More time in the market surpasses any well-timed entry. For a chart reader like myself, admitting this an act of hypocrisy! The price history chart is merely a tool that helps me understand the bigger picture.

Once I decide to invest, I rely on my ability to be patient. I believe strongly that patience is the key factor to growing a strong portfolio. Getting in and out of stocks frequently can really mess with your mind and potential to do really well. I learned that the biggest threat to patience is doubt. Doubt can be very powerful if you don’t trust the market, the world of investing, and yourself.

Whenever doubt starts to creep into my thoughts, I remind myself this: There is a finite amount of money and this puts a limit to the value that we place on things. Collective optimism makes things go up, but not forever. Collective pessimism leads to fear and this makes investors sell, but only until that fear exhausts itself. Humans are generally optimistic, and this is reflected in the overall market’s tendency to go up. I can’t always time everyone’s optimism or predict the end of all pessimism. If I get into a stock during its early signs of new optimism, it’s easier for me to exercise patience, even if it takes a while before market consensus helps the stock take off.

The main reason why I look at charts is because I can’t wait around until some analyst goes on TV to talk about a security that has been doing well already. While many investors might feel more confident in making investment decisions by waiting for an expert to give his or her opinion, it’s often too late for me at that point. I am more likely to act on doubtful thoughts if I know I got into a stock later rather than early on. I end up self-sabotaging my efforts by looking only for factors that confirm my doubts and fears. I’ve done this enough to know not to listen to such counter-productive thoughts. I’ve learned to trust my process and to stick with the strategies that give me the most confidence. Now, I only buy – and sell, even at a loss – when I’m confident in the factors contributing to the decision. I’m not afraid to make mistakes, but I don’t and won’t act on doubt.

 

 

The Transparent RRSP: Some Stock Picks

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Actions taken the week of May 8
  • I think I bought 100 shares of Mariana Resources (MARL.V) for $1.70 per share.

This morning, I put in a limit order for the above values. I usually put in a market order which means buying a stock at whatever the market is currently selling the stock at.

When I perform a basic limit order, I put in the price I’m willing to buy a stock at. I like to think of it as this is the most I’m willing to pay per share for a stock, it’s my price limit. Limit orders can have different conditions going for it. My US margin account with Interactive Brokers lets me get a little creative with my orders. Today I put in a limit order because I have to go to work and can’t watch the market live.

If this order goes through, it will cost me $170.00 plus a commission fee of $1.00.

 

marl.v

Price history charts for MARL.V on freestockcharts.com

 

I don’t normally buy charts of stocks that gap up so much in price. Usually, gaps occur because of surprising news. If it’s good news and the stock gaps up, I don’t take action because it just committed a huge price move. Other investors who were in at a lower price will likely take some profits. Often, stocks that gap up go back down to where they started.

When you see a stock gap up, the best move to do is to watch and see how the stock holds. In this case, it held and consolidated for two weeks. The volume has remained intense compared to its previous trading volume. It’s been looking a lot better than the market.

This is a diversified mining company. Recently, the mining stocks are starting to heat up. So if the metals start to move, that will cause this one to take off too. I like this one because it’s been trading on its own page for a while now. I chose it for the RRSP because I think it would be a good hedge and it’s cheap. If it really starts to move in the right direction, I might treat half of it as a swing trade and choose to take profits if the charts indicate a big move is over. We shall see how it does.

This is one of those trades where a part of me says don’t do anything right now and another part of me says go with the momentum while it’s early. So I’m going for it. That is if my order actually gets executed!

I did a search and I have a few other stocks that might be interesting to check out. I’ll disclose that I already own some of these, but they came up in my search. I was happy to see that they were setting up for new entries.

  • Bombardier | BBD.B |$2.21
  • Encana | ECA | $15.56 – I’d watch this first. I think it needs to consolidate longer and shape up.
  • Timmins Gold | TMM | $0.63
  • Aritzia | ATZ | $15.99

Check these out, look at the charts, consider the sector, the company fundamentals, the stock price, etc. Ultimately, consider your risk tolerance and look into whatever you have to in order to feel confident in your investment.

Your Special 4/20 Newsletter of 2017: Medicinal Stocks

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“What weed stock should I buy?”

If there is one question I am asked the most, it’s the cannabis question. I’m asked about this more than whether to buy Facebook, Apple, or Lululemon. I don’t know anything about cannabis strains, but I can speak a bit more about cannabis stocks.

2016 to 2017

Last year I posted a newsletter on this celebrated day. I listed a few stocks to check out:

  • Canopy Growth Corporation | Ticker symbol CGC.V | $2.60
  • Aphria Incorporated | APH.V | $1.56
  • OrganiGram | OGI.V | $1.10
  • Mettrum Health | MT. V | $1.66
  • Emerald Health Botanicals | EMH.V | $ 0.17

This is where they’re at now:

  • Canopy Growth Corp.| Ticker symbol now WEED.TO on the TSX | $10.24
  • Aphria Inc. | APH.TO now on the TSX | $7
  • OrganiGram | $2.87
  • Mettrum Health | It halted trading at $7.05 because it’s merging with Canopy Growth Corporation
  • Emerald Health Botanicals| $ 1.54

WOW.

I wanted to buy all of them out of pure excitement, but at the time, it was a decision between me and JP. We decided on Aphria, mainly because of its price and proven earnings.

Cannabis presents a new industry for the public, and it’s still in its early stages as it’s working its way through various long and rigorous legalization processes. You can’t expect this journey to be straight and easy, but it’s going to happen whether you agree with legalization or not. (Interesting personal observation: Among the people who ask me what weed stocks to buy, half of them are very conservative and would never smoke it. The other half smoke it and still have shown no indication of buying any of these stocks.)

I remember the time when Colorado and the few other states were legalizing. It was impossible to tell which weed stocks to buy on the US exchanges. They each had the patterns of the new publicly traded company in a speculative industry: cheap with wild swings in volume and price moves. I had to wonder if a company was going places or was just another pump and dump.

I watched a lot of media coverage on Colorado. There was definitely a saturation of industry players – in other words, too many suppliers. Some went just as quickly as they arrived. The stronger, more resilient, established, and adaptive ones survived and endured. Others joined forces and resources to become bigger companies. It will be interesting to see how the industry plays out in Canada.

I’d purchased a couple of other weed stocks since, both of which trade on the TSX Venture Exchange. I bought shares of:

  • Maple Leaf Green World Inc. | MGW.V | 0.62 and
  • The Hydropothecary Corporation | THCX.V |$2.28

I did a quick search and found other stocks with good trading volume:

  • ICC International Cannabis Corp. | ICC.V | $1.29
  • Aurora Cannabis Inc. | ACB.V | $2.84
  • CanniMed Therapeutics Inc. | CMED.TO | $11.61

Oh! And I love that Horizons has created a new ETF: Horizons Medicinal Marijuana Life Sciences ETF (ticker symbol HMMJ.TO, $10.80). It’s got a wonderful mix of medicinal cannabis stocks from Canada, the US, and the UK, including one of my portfolio darlings, Aphria. It also owns some of the stocks mentioned in this newsletter so far. At some point, this ETF will start paying distributions (none yet). If this is a long-term investment for you, then you might want to hold this in your RRSP to avoid withholding taxes.

There are a few things to note about Canadian cannabis stocks. They’re inexpensive and they all overreact to any cannabis information that comes out of Trudeau’s mouth. They settle down after the market reaction to any news and shape up again for more investors to get on board before the prices go up for another run. It’s generally been run after run at higher and higher prices.

Most of these stocks trade very similarly to each other, with only their prices and trading ranges that might differ. If your stock isn’t moving like the others, you might have to wait longer to better see whether or not it’s a dud before getting rid of it. It also might just be a company that needs a lot more time before it proves itself to the market.

If you’re considering buying shares of cannabis stock, you’d have to look deeper into the company’s fundamentals. Remember, because they’re new and in their early phases of development, they all promise growth. I would pay most attention to company earnings and pick the one generating profits already.

The Cannabis Industry vs. the Market

Without trying to sound the alarm, I will strongly suggest that I feel that the market is going to have a major correction soon. The market had a huge nine-year run. We’re now facing rising inflation rates, a new US president, and heavier selling volume in the market as of late. Major stocks that had a good run outshining the market, are showing signs that their investors are now being cautious, even uncertain.

As proactive investors start to unload their positions, they’ll be executing their defensive plays (getting into utilities and consumer staples), as well as looking for what is trading on its own page and less affected by market moves. I think that cannabis stocks, given their industry newness and lower prices, will provide that opportunity for investors.

You might feel conflicted about cannabis and if you do, then you should probably feel the same way about alcohol. As we all know, booze was once outlawed and look at it now. The same will happen to weed. They say if you can’t beat them, then join them. What’s nice about a cannabis stock is that you don’t have to smoke it to own it.

 

 

 

 

The Transparent RRSP: Market Analysis

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No action was taken the week of March 27

I have been busy looking for good picks. I found one, but it’s too expensive for the RRSP. If I had more money in this account, I would have bought shares of Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE Inc., ticker symbol BCE.TO). Instead, I bought BCE for my TFSA. It had a nice setup of sideways trading starting from November with a tighter consolidation forming this week. It also pays a great dividend.

Bell is my service provider for internet connection. Thankfully, I don’t have the headache of dealing with them, JP does all of that. He has the patience and persistence required to get the service we need. This week he also managed to get our monthly rate reduced – yet again!

I’m not too concerned with how this stock moves in price as this is a pricier stock. If it goes up, then I’m glad I got some shares at a lower price when I did. If it goes down, then I’ll wait for a good time to take on more shares. Whether it goes up or down a lot in price, I will always wait for a setup before getting more shares. That’s just how I roll.

Now it’s time for some market analysis. I’ll use my favourite ETF, the XIC, to figure out what’s going on with the Canadian stock market.

xic

XIC stock charts on freestockcharts.com

1. The daily chart shows the market has been moving sideways for all of March. If you look at the trade volume, you can see that there has been a bit of a tug of war between buyers and sellers.

I believe this push and pull happens because people get nervous when the market feels a little toppy; as I said early on this month, it’s gone straight up for much too long. I wanted to finally see a bit of a pull back in the market because I expected people to be taking profits after a six-month run. I’d much rather take new positions after the market sanely resets itself than to follow a euphoric run that doesn’t stop or pause for air.

2. The weekly chart provides a cleaner and clearer view of March’s action. I like bigger time frames because they have less noise than smaller time frame charts. The candles on this chart cover a wider price range than previous candles. Wider candles mean more volatility and uncertainty. The volume week-to-week shows buying, selling, buying, selling, then more buying in this final week of March.

There could still be yet a further correction in early April. Whether this happens or not, what I’d like to see is the price range tightening up before the market goes up again. Tighter trading ranges typically mean greater consensus among investors. The volume week-to-week should also be mostly green to signify more buying is happening.

3. The monthly chart finally gave me the candlestick bar ‘pivot’ that I wanted. It went below February’s price low of $24.32 and down to $24.24 this week. I like pivots because they’re a more distinguished correction on a price chart. I like to think of them as a likely turning point. 

The arrow on the monthly chart points to a lot more trade volume this month than all the previous months. Interestingly, the last time it saw trade volume to this level was in March last year. This big volume bar is green, so there was mostly buying this month. Based on my rough observations in the market day-to-day, I saw a lot of accumulation action in the metals, particularly in gold.

___________________________________________

Will the market go down again? Yes, but I think it will in the summer. Historically, the market either stays where it’s at for April, or it goes up a bit more. This generally happens because of earnings season and it’s the investors’ final run at making profits before things slow down in the summer. Also, with all that buying this month, if gold makes a bullish run for it, this will also send the market up.

As the saying goes, “Sell in May and go away.” Something out of the ordinary will have to occur to break this typical cycle.

 

The Transparent RRSP: More Thoughts on the Market

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I posted on Monday that I had bought another 16 shares of LFE.TO at $6.12. This cost me $97.92 + 0.16 of commission. I now have $60.90 of cash remaining in my account. This was at the same price I got the previous 24 shares of LFE.TO at, giving me 40 shares of this stock.

Currently, I’m not crazy about entering any new positions given the market. I would prefer it to have a more substantial correction before it resumes going up. My preference would be for the market to just slightly sell off below February’s lows. The market could just move sideways for the rest of March, which I’ll be satisfied with. If the market isn’t going to have a correction, then it at least needs to take a break from going straight up.

When the market is operating near a peak like this, I tend to find that stocks with great setups are merely shortlived opportunities in that they might only be in the profit zone for a few days – then people get scared at the slightest hint of a reversal and sell their positions to take their profits.

Another thing I find when the market is iffy: investors tend to gravitate towards stocks doing their own thing regardless of what the market is doing. That is the only reason why I bought more shares of LFE. I said earlier this month that I didn’t want to take any new positions for the RRSP until the market had a decent correction. This stock was resilient during some market weakness and looked like it was taking off.

When I am doing something that goes against my intentions, I have to ask myself, “If this stock takes off without me, will I be upset?” Some setups are dodgy enough that I wouldn’t have regret even if it works because I’ve learned that if I took such setups every time, I’d have consistently worse returns. The setup LFE was demonstrating is the kind you just can’t ignore.

Below is a comparison of the daily and weekly charts of LFE to one of my favourite market index ETFs to watch, the XIC. I also watch the actual TSX Composite Index, however, I prefer looking at the XIC because I get a better view of the trading volume in the market.

lfe

I haven’t lost sight of the increased amount of risk when taking trades in a market like this. I feel that LFE will trade on its own page for a while. Eventually, it’ll likely be more affected by the market. Hopefully, that happens when it’s at a much higher price!

 

The Transparent RRSP: A Quick Update

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Action Taken the Week of March 13

It’s really hard to schedule my blog posts because it’s just as hard to schedule opportunities! I much prefer to write about the Transparent RRSP towards the end of the week after watching the markets for the week. I will do another post either this Thursday or Friday. I just really wanted to share this recent trade in case others might want to consider this opportunity.

 

 

LFE2

LFE charts on freestockcharts.com

 

After I first bought shares of LFE.TO, the stock went up only to come down again and consolidate longer. I loved how the range got tighter and held up beautifully – while the market during the same time came down. It always gets my attention when a stock holds stronger than the market. It’s now trading above all the previous prices in this consolidation. Could this be taking off?

“Should I get Snapchat?”

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I hate taking selfies, but I love doing them on Snapchat. A few months ago, my work wife Hunter got me into Snapchat. It has since become a major form of communication between the two of us when we’re not working together.

Snapchat offers a lot of ridiculous photo/video filters (some of which aren’t appropriate), but I find most of them are just fun and silly. It’s like putting on a mask or a costume when do you a selfie on the Snapchat app. I get to become a different persona with each filter. My faves are the filters with a voice changer (you usually get a high-pitched voice or a deep monster voice). I enjoy doing impressions of people and Snapchat allows me to really get into character. If you don’t have the Snapchat app on your phone, you’re missing out! I realize it’s a pretty childish way to use up your time, but for me, Snapchat is a good outlet when I need to take a short break and just get outside my head (and into another).

 

20170308_110225.png

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I never buy IPOs early on – that is, until today. After a stock goes public, I usually wait until the dust settles and I see more signs that the price movement is less volatile and has leveled out. Lately, I’ve been doing stock searches, but with little luck in finding anything compelling. I’m not crazy about any of the sectors or even the market right now. The only good thing about Snapchat (ticker symbol: SNAP) is that it’s trading on its own page because it’s brand new.

So, I did what a fan with a trading account would do: I bought some shares.

 

snap

Snapchat’s price history charts on freestockcharts.com

I don’t know if Snapchat has ‘found a bottom’ yet or not as it’s too soon to tell. I took a small risk with just a few shares in case this stock were to go lower. I know the proper thing to do is to trade with more information. It’s better to wait for a pattern setup on the daily chart, but there are only five daily candles to work with so far, so I’m forced to look at the hourly and 15-minute charts. I used the 5-minute chart to time my entry, which is such a day trader thing to do.

After enough time passes and I see how SNAP performs against the market and the tech sector, I’ll buy more shares once I see my typical consolidation pattern setup on the daily chart.

 

The Transparent RRSP: Post #8

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Actions Taken the Week of February 20th
  • Bought 24 shares of Canadian Life Companies Split Corp. (ticker symbol: LFE.TO) at $6.12 per share on Wednesday, February 22.
  • This cost me $146.88 plus 0.24 cents of commission.

I had S147.60 left in the RRSP so I couldn’t afford to buy 25 shares, which would have made it a better bundle to manage. When you buy shares in ‘odd lots’ (not by the 100s), you sometimes run the risk of your order not all getting filled at the very price you want; or if you pay higher commissions per transaction, you will get better value for your trade costs when you buy in round lots of 100 shares, 200 shares, 300 shares, etc.

Times like this make me feel like a teenager who spent the rest of her allowance too quickly (only here I didn’t blow it all on bubble gum and nail polish). I now have 0.48 cents left in my RRSP, which means it’s definitely due for a re-up. To stay true to my commitment of regular monthly contributions, I will deposit another $150 at the beginning of March.

I found this stock when I was perusing the ‘Canadian Common Stocks’ tab on freestockcharts.com on Wednesday morning.

lfe

LFE.TO on freestockcharts.com

 

Even though the monthly chart wasn’t my ideal setup, the daily chart was too nice to pass up. When you see a three-month long consolidation with that kind of volume action, you pay attention. This could still consolidate longer, which means I might have to sit uncomfortably for a while, but if this continues to tighten up, I will buy more either in my RRSP (when I’m better funded) or my TFSA – or both.

Also, this investment company is a portfolio of four major life insurance companies, so if you can’t afford to buy shares of those individual companies, you can of this one and receive a nice monthly dividend to boot!

Don’t forget the RRSP deadline of March 1, 2017!

Claim your RRSP deductions and get a bigger tax return!

And when you get your tax return, invest it!

Canadian Stock Picks – Feb 22

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Here are some stocks with nice charts. None of these had all three perfect daily, weekly, and monthly charts, but they all had the kind of increasing volume that I always look for. Often in strong market environments, many stocks won’t have perfect setups, but they’ll do well.

Having said “strong market,” I’d like to point out, though, that the Canadian and U.S. markets have gone straight up since last fall. They’re due for a correction, which I’d like to see happen on the monthly charts, before resuming an upward trend. There have been short-lived corrections on the daily and weekly charts (I’m looking at the XIC for Canada and the SPY for the U.S.).

Stocks with nice daily charts
  • F.V – This trades on the TSX Venture Exchange.
  • IIP.UN.TO – This is a REIT.
  • BBD.B – This has gone straight up for five months on the monthly. I love the daily chart on this, but I’d like to see it trade sideways and consolidate for another couple of weeks. I already own shares of this stock.
  • LFE – This high volume consolidation is hard to ignore! The weekly and monthly charts are okay. I bought shares of this today.
  • MFC – I want this to shape up better on all time frames. However, the consolidation on the daily chart + high volume makes this very attractive.
  • MGW – This also trades on the Venture. Beautiful consolidation on the daily and weekly charts. I bought some shares today because the building volume is attractive.

Stocks with nice weekly and/or monthly charts

  • DMM
  • INV – This one’s daily is nice too, but I’d prefer it if it consolidated longer on that time frame.
  • PXX
  • RNW – The daily is shaping up nicely, I’m love the weekly, but I’m not crazy about the monthly.
  • LGO – The consolidation on the monthly chart is very nice.
  • ESN – This actually has nice charts on all time frames. My only hesitation is the volume activity on the daily. There is still a lot of selling, but if this stock holds its price around the 0.75 area for a bit longer and the volume indicates more buying, then I think we’re in business.

Remember, just because I said I bought something doesn’t mean for you to buy it. I have a higher risk tolerance than most investors. Please do your research and consider the industry, the sector, the company, dividends (or lack thereof), so that you can feel confident in your investment. Invest well, invest wisely!