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Investment Q&A

Not investment advice or solicitation to buy/sell securities. Do your own due diligence and/or consult an advisor.

Q: I am thinking of setting up my portfolio with 25% positions in XIU, ZLB, XSP, ZLU. I am trying to avoid bonds and International stocks as they always seem to be a drag on the portfolio. With this arrangement I feel I have a better chance for returns closer to the market. With the low volatility ETF’s, I am hoping my positions would cause less volatility and would smooth out returns as the holdings in each are well correlated. Would you consider this plan to be too risky or would you have any other commentary or suggestions?
Read Answer Asked by Myron on June 01, 2022
Q: Good day.

I am trying to justify in my mind, if I should continue to have my investments in individual equities or in etf's. I was wondering if you could help me decide.

Currently. I am fully vested in the Balanced Portfolio for the Canadian side of my investments.

When I compare the performance of the Balance portfolio and an ETF HXT which is TSX total return it looks like this:


Balanced HXT

1-year 1.98% 13.33 %

3- year 9.13% 11.48%

5 - year 6.92% 9.79%

Inception 14.22% 10 year 9.29%

This info was taken from the Scotiabank iTrade website effective May 29th and the Portfolio segment of 5i.

I realize the composition of the 2 are different, but nonetheless I look and see that if I put all of my Canadian portfolio into HXT I would be no worse off and have lots less to worry about and adjust.\

So, in consideration of the comparison I made above can you please help me with the case of why I should stay vested in the 5i balanced portfolio and what are the advantages of doing so vs going totally to an etf.

Thanks in advance and I look forward to your input.

Sheldon
Read Answer Asked by Sheldon on June 01, 2022
Q: HI, This retired income couple want to invest 5K for our 20 year old grand daughter from our TFSA. To do so we have to sell some of our holdings in this account. Our largest holding SLF to our smallest TPZ are available with profits in most. Please suggest best to worst to select for raising the necessary cash. Our plan is to use the cash to purchase VGT.US or perhaps your other preferred etfs to be used in about 3-5 years. Thanks
Read Answer Asked by Peter on June 01, 2022
Q: My wife and I treat our individual accounts as a single portfolio. Based on the Portfolio Analytics we are significantly underweight on the US and rest of the world. We have on RRSP representing 12% of the portfolio that will be converted to a RRIF next year that we would like to simplify. We will maintain 40% - 50% in fixed income, but would like to invest the rest in equity ETFs with holdings outside of Canada. Could you please suggest one or two ETF for exposure to each of the US and the rest of the world. Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Richard on May 31, 2022
Q: The current market turmoil has made me realize that a certain amount of commodities exposure as an "asset class" should help with portfolio diversification and therefore risk/return profile. Is this thinking correct? What options, if any, are available for the average retail investor to get broad commodity exposure w/o a lot of overhead which you would recommend?
Read Answer Asked by Andrew on May 31, 2022
Q: Hi Peter,

I am fortunate enough to have added the following big tech names to my portfolio recently. I currently do not hold an ETF although have been considering SPY as I have about 20k US at my disposal. Or take advantage of other big names currently on sale?

Do you feel there’s better ETF’s since I currently have full positions of it’s top 5 holdings?

Thanks
Read Answer Asked by Nick on May 31, 2022
Q: Hi Team
Would you take a position in VCLT ? I believe it is yielding around 4.8%
Or is there a high default risk on the Corporate Bonds.
I noticed a lot of the bonds were rated BBB
Thanks Gord
Read Answer Asked by Gordon on May 31, 2022
Q: With the US talking about isolating China, Is there an etf that focuses on the other asian countries like Taiwan, Vietnam, Singapore Japan etc or would you have another way to play this shift in policy?
Thx
Read Answer Asked by Todd on May 30, 2022
Q: Looking to add to my Ivn copper exposure with one of these companies. Could you compare these companies and make a recommendation for. 2 to 3 year hold? Also,any thoughts on Horizons new Copp etf? Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Steve on May 30, 2022
Q: Can you recommend etfs to setup a smith maneuver account with target dividend of around 4-5%?
If you think I can get diversification from individual stocks then please go ahead to recommend that list.
Thank you for your service.
Read Answer Asked by Gurdeep on May 27, 2022
Q: while the price differs between these two offerings the difference does not represent the difference between US and CDN exchange rates and the trading volumes offer more flexibility for the TO based version. What is the reason, what is the basis for the two versions, and did you intend to prefer the .U edition.
Read Answer Asked by Mike on May 26, 2022
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