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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: On BNN this morning Larry Berman made a comment about ETFs that are sold in Canada and are essentially repackaged ETFs from the US. He stated that there is some double taxation going on. I believe related to withholding taxes although he didn't explain in detail.
I hold VGG and VEE which are repackaged holdings of VIG and VWO, respectively.
Is this in fact true and how much of an impact would this mean to the rate of return?
Read Answer Asked by Bruce on May 29, 2018
Q: I am looking for some guidance regarding a retirement plan for someone who is mid 40's; doesn't work for various reasons and has been using an expensive investment advisor. She doesn't know or want to learn about investing for herself. She requires Canadian monthly income and what I think makes sense is to invest her funds in a CDN hedged fund that tracks the S&P 500 such as VSP. The average annual return for this fund is 13.9% since its inception date of Nov 2012 and it pays total dividends of 1.5% annually. I guess I could look at the US website to see the longer term investment returns for the S&P 500. I was thinking of suggesting an ETF REIT for monthly cash flow but the investment returns are much less than the S&P 500. So my thoughts are to invest fully in the S&P 500 and take out money when needed either on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis. Its a simple plan to understand and should work. Of course the S&P 500 will go down at some point in time in the future but with 40 years to be invested I don't think this should be a problem as long as the funds stay invested in the ETF. Your comments would be greatly appreciated.
Read Answer Asked by stephen on May 28, 2018
Q: I have a sizeable position in the Mawer balanced fund in my non-registered account from the sale of house a couple years ago. I have treated this as a standalone portfolio so that should I decide to use the funds for a large purchase such as another house, I do not need to make a larger number of trades to rebalance my main portfolio.

As I do not anticipate using the funds for a number of years, I have been considering replacing MAW104 with Horizon's swap based ETFs to defer any taxable income and create a balanced portfolio from the 5 funds. My thought is that over a number of years the tax savings and reduced MER may outweigh the potential returns of the actively managed fund.

My main reservations in proceeding are the liquidity of these ETFs through an economic downturn or major market sell off, and with the solid long term returns of the MAW104 fund, is there really much upside in making the switch?

Appreciate your thoughts.
Read Answer Asked by Jeffrey on May 28, 2018
Q: Hi- my husband and I would like to put some of our RSP money into ETFs for long term growth. We are interested in US ETFs but not sure if you cover US ones or not. If not, are there some Canadian ones you would suggest? I already have XIC.TO and CDZ.TO
Thanks, Jill
Read Answer Asked by Jill on May 24, 2018
Q: Of my bond holdings representing 5% of my portfolio and want to increase to 10%; I'm wondering if anyone listed that I should eliminate/increase in this market environment. Would appreciate any other suggestions. Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Charles on May 23, 2018
Q: Greetings 5i,

I am making an effort to increase my US bond exposure, and am considering adding a full position (5%) in AGG to compliment my current bond holdings TDB and XHY (at roughly 4% each). My reasoning is that the addition of a US aggregate index will not only add multiple levels of diversification (geographical, currency, bond types, etc.), but also a higher degree of stability should the US economy decline; thereby, at least theoretically, putting pressure on XHY's corporate holdings. If I were to add this position, the three aforementioned holdings would make up the entirety of my bond exposure, as the majority of my fixed income investments are GIC ladders.

I am 36 years old, debt-free, conservative, and only invest with a "buy and hold" mindset. My investment portfolio is solely for the purpose of expediting my retirement, and I will have no need of its funds for the foreseeable future.

Based on my situation, does the addition of AGG sound like a reasonable course of action to you?

Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Lucas on May 22, 2018
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