1. in one of your posts you said you prefer to limit exposure to single ETFs. Please elaborate why. Would some protection be obtained with a 50/50 mix of VBAL and XBAL?
2. With North American markets at all time highs would this be a good time to do this or would some other time, such as a market downturn be better. Most of the funds are in registered funds so tax is not really an issue.
Thanks
While ETFs are generally very safe in terms of exposure to managers (assets are segregated from the manager), problems can arise. For example, Emerge Funds was found to have borrowed money from its funds and was shut down. Any 'issues' at a manager would most likely result in a lot of redemptions, and this could impair returns. Thus, we prefer to limit total ETF manager exposure. XBAL and VBAL have different sponsors, so this would reduce this risk. 2) If one can successfully time the market, sure. But it is impossible on a repeatable basis. If one is worried about market levels, one can always execute a disciplined 'buy every month' strategy to eliminate the timing question. But studies have shown that buying at new highs has historically proven to still work out very well.