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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: Greetings 5i,

My question is twofold, so please deduct two credits if you see fit. I have some cash to deploy into the bond portion of my fixed income allocation, and would like your advice about how to proceed. Currently, I have VAB.TO and AGG for broad based bond market exposure, and XRB.TO for inflation linked bonds. To this, I am considering adding an ETF strictly devoted to Canadian government bonds in an attempt to add increased long-term safety (I am becoming a little skittish of corporate bonds).

This addition would be a very long-term hold (likely 20 years or more), and would bring my bond allocation to roughly 15% of my total portfolio (the majority of my fixed income investments are comprised of GIC ladders).

I am 37 years old, debt free, and fairly conservative in my risk tolerance. My investments are solely for the purpose of providing for my retirement, and I will have no need of their funds for the foreseeable future.

My research has led me to either an overarching fund such as XGB.TO or VGV.TO, or to one with laddered maturities like CLF.TO or CLG.TO. Given my situation and style, do you feel as if the addition of a Canadian government bond ETF makes sense for my portfolio (as opposed to simply adding to VAB and AGG)? Moreover, if you do approve of said addition, which of the aforementioned funds would you consider to be the most beneficial?

Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Lucas on November 28, 2018
Q: Hi Team
Came across this etf on BNN. any thoughts? Would it have a place in a portfolio for this kind of volatile market? Thank-you in advance. Sam
Read Answer Asked by sam on November 27, 2018
Q: Good afternoon, looking to hold a 20% allocation of the American market through ETFs (CAD dollar preferred). Currently hold VUN, and I am looking to add another ETF to complement it - was thinking ZSP or VGG. Any opinions on either of these or any others? Thanks
Read Answer Asked by Jeff on November 27, 2018
Q: In the preferred share space I own both cpd and Ecn.pr.a. I am down a fair amount on both. Does the market really affect prefs that much. I bought because of the reset feature . Assuming higher interest rates the reset rate would be higher. No indication yet of falling rates in which case I would sell CPD and take my losses. On the other hand minimum rate reset preferred guarantees a specific rate protection on falling interest rates while at the same time having a possible increase in the reset rate if interest rates rise. Looks to me the best of both worlds. My investment is for income. Final question , will price go back to par on reset date.
Can one expect the the closer to reset the closer the value will be to par.
Read Answer Asked by Roy on November 26, 2018
Q: Hi 5i Team.

I have positions in the three ETFs listed above representing financial and Canad/US real estate sectors. The ETFs are at a reasonable cost and provide good yields. What is 5i's opinion about these three ETFs.

Thanks

Iqbal
Read Answer Asked by Iqbal on November 26, 2018
Q: Good morning,
Both of our family TFSA accounts are currently invested in their entirety with a variety of Mawer Mutual funds (100% Equity). At 70 years old, I would like to reduce the risk profile of our TFSA accounts from 100% Equity to a more classic 60% (equity)/40% (fixed income) balanced portfolio.
Of the five investment options for our two family TFSA accounts which are used as an estate planning tool with the intention of never withdrawing any funds and leaving the proceeds to our grandchildren, which of the following options would you recommend, in what order and why?
Option 1: Staus Quo.
Option 2: Invest all TFSA funds in the Mawer Balanced or Mawer Global Balanced Fund.
Option 3: Invest all of the TFSA funds through a Discretionary Money Manager that currently manages our family RRSP and Non Registered accounts with total management costs of 1.30% (Money management fee, Sub Advisor fees, Custody fee, Transaction fee plus HST). The average long term target rate of return being 4.5% after fees for this balanced portfolio of which 25% of the portfolio is invested in alternative investments to supposedly further reduce volatility.
Option 4: In an effort to further simplify, reduce fees and perhaps improve long term performance of our TFSAs, invest all the TFSA funds directly in the Vanguard Balanced ETF portfolio (VBAL) through our discount brokerage account.
Option 5: Invest all the funds directly through our discount brokerage account in a combination of ETFs that covers 20% Bonds/32% Canada/32% USA/16%Global and if so what would be your preferred ETF recommendation.
I thank you in advance and look forward to hearing your response and recommendations.
Francesco
Read Answer Asked by Francesco on November 26, 2018
Q: Lots of questions to 5i on prefs lately. Some possible are explanations are in a recent article by John Heinzl: "Why preferred shares plunged."
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/education/article-why-prefs-plunged-and-the-acbs-of-the-loblaw-deal/
You can add indiscriminate dumping of issues by CPD,ZPR, and HPR on high volume days as they struggle to keep up with net redemptions. The bid/ask spread on these ETFs is far less than most individual issues, so investors look to them for liquidity.
Read Answer Asked by Jeff on November 26, 2018
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