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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 wondering if there is a concern about liquidity when purchasing an ETF with just over $100 m in AUM and an average volume of 74,000. If I purchased 1,000 units, would there be any problem when trying to sell.....one of seventy four seems to me to be a potential issue. On the other hand, the underlying equities in the ETF have very large volumes; does that mitigate any potential issue? Yes, there is one ETF I have in mind but this might apply more generally, so I leave it this way. Thanks for your excellent service.
Read Answer Asked by Leonard on June 19, 2020
Q: Good morning could you tell me if there are any ESG ETFs on the market yet and if so are their any you would recommend thanks
Read Answer Asked by Greg on June 18, 2020
Q: I am looking for a lower risk ETF. My goal is to preserve capital, by beating inflation on an after-tax basis over a 5 to 10 year period, and not to lose any money. My view is that I can best achieve these objectives through an ETF which is diversified both sectorally and geographically. Do you agree?

I have been considering VIU, VXC, VEQT and XDG. What are your views? Do you agree with these possibilities, or do you feel there are better options available? What ETF do you think offers the best risk and reward? Do you feel the all-in-one ETFs will better achieve my investment objectives given the rebalancing feature?

Your thoughts and advice are greatly appreciated.
Read Answer Asked by Dale on June 18, 2020
Q: I like the Vanguard family of ETFs and am looking for safe income in these uncertain times. I am aware of VBAL and VGRO, but could you suggest other Vanguard offerings that focus on earning investors relatively safe distributions. If there are other companies that offer superior ETFs for income I would appreciate your suggestions.
Read Answer Asked by Les on June 17, 2020
Q: Dear 5i,

Can I please get your opinion regarding these 3 Canadian Aggregate Bond ETF's.
MKB and HAD have MER's approx. 4 times higher than the passive XBB ETF. It looks like the overall Total Return performance is better with MKB and HAD but, only by about 0.5 to 1%.
1. Do you think it is worth paying the extra fees for MKB and HAD?
2. If yes, which one would you choose between MKB and HAD?
3. With interest rates already very low does it make any sense to purchase any Canadian aggregate bonds?

thanks
Read Answer Asked by Ian on June 17, 2020
Q: I have $40,000 US to invest for 5 -10 years. With half of that amount I would like to buy about four equity-based ETFs for capital appreciation. Some I have read about include QQQ , BBH, and VGT. Are these good choices? Please add other recommendations.
For the other half, I would like more income based ETFs with a sensible degree of risk, such as VIG. Please add other recommendations.
I am not interested in Canadian based ETFs but International based ETFs would be alright.
I do no previous experience with ETFs.
Read Answer Asked by George on June 16, 2020
Q: My son has asked my advice on how best to invest ~$13K he holds in GICs in registered accounts. He has a very young family and wants to begin investing on the right foot with this initial investment while adding to it over time, funds permitting. My personal investing approach has been to invest in high quality, primarily Canadian, dividend paying equities but for him, just starting out and with many investing years ahead of him, EFTs seem a far more appropriate and safer choice.

Would you consider 60% CDZ and 40% ZDY a good suggestion for him or would you recommend other EFTs that better track the indexes like XIU and ZSP? Do you consider just two EFTs sufficient diversification until his portfolio grows larger? What about the percentage Canada/U.S. split? Does 60/40 seem OK? Many thanks for your thoughts on the matter.
Read Answer Asked by Bruce on June 16, 2020
Q: I have a well diversified Canadian Stock portfolio. However, that being said, there are no Consumer, Technology or Health Care stocks in that portfolio.

Do you think that low cost, diversified, market weighted US ETFs XLP, XLY, XLK, XLV is a smart way to cover the sectors lacking in my portfolio.

Many Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by John on June 16, 2020
Q: Are there any renewable energy etfs, specifically with hydrogen or fuel cells companies
?
Read Answer Asked by Richard on June 16, 2020
Q: Hello
In today’s Globe and Mail , a financial advisor , suggests that Canadians should consider alternative investments in addition to stocks and bonds.
Investing in alternative assets for individuals can mean investing in funds that hold assets that include commodities, infrastructure like airports or highways, land and real estate,

Can you please recommend a few funds that are holding alternative investments?
Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Terry on June 16, 2020
Q: I am 72 and retired. I have been building a part of my portfolio (58.4%) for the last three years with ETFs. Current holdings are (% weight of portfolio in brackets): zwh (10.5), zwu (9.1), zwc (8.5), mft (5.9), xtr (5.3), xhy (5.2), zwe (4.7), cdz (3.2), zdh (3.2) & zre (2.9). With 24.2% cash, I plan on slowly adding to these etfs. How would you do this? The remainder of my portfolio is in dividend paying Canadian large caps.
Thanks, Jim
Read Answer Asked by William James (Jim) on June 16, 2020
Q: Would you know a particular ETF that might contain many of the above tech companies?
Thanks, Murray
Read Answer Asked by Murray on June 16, 2020
Q: Hi 5iTeam,
I'm interested in taking a position in an ETF that's focused on chips. Of the three ETFs listed above, which one would be your choice and why?
Also are there ETFs traded in C$ that are focused on US chip makers?
Cheers,
Read Answer Asked by Harry on June 16, 2020
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