Investment Q&A

Q: We have a lot of US stocks that I have done well on as well we have a bunch of ETF 's that hold US equities that hedge the dollar. I feel that the US dollar is starting to lose steam and we don't want to give up our individual US companies but don't want to lose on our dollar exposure. What is the most cost effective way to protect against dollar exposure for the long term?

Q: Good afternoon 5i.
I have some cash to invest and
I would like to invest some of it in an etf portfolio.
any sujection
Thank you
Guy

Q: I have a 2 year old RESP for a 3 year old grand daughter to which I will contribute in about a week on her birthday. It currently holds only VGG. Should I add the $3000 to VGG or can you suggest something else. I actively monitor my own investments but the RESP I look at only at this time of year.

Q: Hi Group - I am getting a bit concerned about the US dollar verses CAD, I hold 50% of my portfolio in us funds. If I believe that the US stock holdings I presently own are way more solid than Canadian companies but am concerned about the US dollar dropping significantly what defensive strategy should I consider? PS I trade with RBC direct investing Thanks

Q: I'm confused about the performance of these ETFs from CI First Asset. On the Globe and Mail site, their performance is hugely different from that listed on the CI First Asset site.
The Globe has the monthly, three month and YTD performance of RWU as: 6.5%, 11.35%, and 27.21%. Yet CI Financial has them as -1.6%, 4% and 14%
The Globe has the Monthly, three month and YTD performance of YXM as 8.28%, 4.37% and 24.64% while CI Financial listed them as -5.45%, -3.98% and 11.57%
I find it hard to believe CI Financial would under-report, but how is the Globe's information so exaggerated? What am I missing here? Their performance is impressive on the G&M site. On their own... not so much.

Q: My current portfolio is 85% Canadian and replicates your BE portfolio with ETFs for the foreign content. I am considering bringing the Canadian content back to 60%. For the foreign content, I am considering DXU (20% of total), DXG (15% of total) and VEE (5%). DXU and DXG have but 2 years history but have performed extremely well in that time. I am an old guy, not afraid of equities but wish to reduce the draw-down potential (note I said reduce; eliminate, I am aware, is impossible).
Would you agree with my thinking and if so, my choices of ETFs? And would you recommend further diversification in the foreign content ETFs?

Q: Hi,
I hold Xtr in a non registered acct, I bought it in 2019and I am wondering if you could explain the tax implications.
As a followup to a recent question asked on this investment, I was assuming it would be seen as dividend income?
Would this be better in a rrsp or tfsa?
Thanks for you help,
Gwen

Q: Hi, I am currently retired and my income comprise of 60% from a non-indexed DB pension and 40% of dividend income. I hold about 20% (12% in RRSP, 5% in Non RRSP and 3% in TFSA) of BNS stocks in my portfolio and would like to reduce that percentage to around 10% for diversification. Are there any ETFs which can provide similar dividend yields as BNS that you would recommend or should I leave it as is at this time? Thanks again for your great help.

Q: Is IYW a safe ETF to hold as part of PA? If so where is it best to hold in RRIF or TFSA?
Look forward to your answer.

Q: What is a good S&P 500 Index Fund to invest in and tuck away for 20 years? S&P 500 is already up 16.5 % this year and historically has performed about 10% per year. Seems like a good long term investment.
Thanks.

Q: Hello 5i team,
The price of the above shot up by 7% in the last 6 months; is that a reflection of the more accommodative stance of the Fed?
Thanks
Antoine

Q: For a ten year investment, what would you recommend as your top three ETFs for international equities (i.e. non-US and non-Cdn equities) from a risk-reward standpoint? Does your recommendation change if the ETFs are to go in a registered or non-registered account? Dividends are not necessarily an objective. The ETFs can be from a Canadian or a US firm (i.e. Vanguard, iShares, BMO, etc.).

Thank you for this great service!

Q: I own these 2 ETF in non-registered accounts. Are their dividends subjected to a withholding tax?

Q: Hi

My question is about structuring and managing a portfolio across multiple registered and unregistered accounts. Please forgive if this question has been asked before.

Between 4 family members (including two young children) we have 11 trading accounts on the go, including 5 unregistered (3 Cdn and 2 US), 2 tfsa’s, 2 rrsp’s, and 2 resp’s. My approach to date has generally been to try to diversify within each account and try not to duplicate between accounts, with an eye to overall diversification.

This results in three problems (at least): sub-optimal diversification within and across accounts, too many holdings (which are difficult to monitor) and a low average $ value per holding. For example, 11 accounts times ten positions per account is 110 holdings. As for low value, a 10% holding on a $50,000 registered account is $5,000, which represents only 0.5% of an aggregate $1,000,000 value (example).

I have been thinking of treating all of the accounts holistically rather than individually while accounting for tax considerations of course. My goal is to try to get the number of holdings down to 20 - 30, with an average value of 3% - 5% of aggregate portfolio value. I find the main difficulty to be in structuring the lower value accounts.

Two approaches I have been mulling over:

1) Scrap the individual account diversification approach and perhaps only hold 1 - 3 positions in lower value accounts. This approach would probably mean that no account on its own will be diversified but the aggregate portfolio will be (hopefully).
2) Try to maintain the account diversification approach by investing in only one etf per account until the account eventually reaches a size sufficient to hold more positions (then I suppose the approach would flip to the first approach). The idea being that each account would hold a different etf (and at least be somewhat diversified) that would contribute to the overall diversification of the aggregate portfolio.

Do you have any comments or guidance on managing multiple accounts? How do investment professionals manage their own family accounts? Any best practices that you are aware of, or good articles that you can direct me to? Any considerations besides tax; for example, how do you apportion risk between family members and accounts?

Thanks
Derek

Q: I am under water on LIT , general play on Electric Vehicles .
What are your thoughts on this strategy and is there a better play .
Telsa news seems positive ....

Many Thanks,
Greg

Q: This is a follow up question regarding where to place XEF for tax efficiency. You Stated "These points could be argued, and could be variable based on one's exact situation and tax rate. But we would generally agree with this assessment."

Just wondering which points in my argument could be questioned. Also, if my corp is taxed just under 15% (small business) and my personal tax is low, does the reasoning fit better?

Thanks again,

Fed

Q: I am wondering if any of the following do not hold all their international stocks directly (ie if they are an ETF of ETFs). I am pretty sure that XEF, IEFA, and IEMG do own all stocks directly, and I think VEE does not, but please correct me if I am wrong. I cannot seem to find information about the rest.

IEMG XEF VEE XEC IEFA VGK SPDW VWO

Thanks again,

Fed

Q: In my registered accounts I have a full position in VGG. Doing very well.
In my US account I hold WMT. Gone from $98 to $112 over a relatively short period of time.Thinking of cashing in and buying VIG.
Ignore sector allocation. Purely for performance ,dividend growth and a little more diversification .WMT seems to have done well in its competition with Amazon. Has it run out of steam.

Q: Thank you for the wonderful service you are providing the DIY investors.
My question: I would like to simplify a mid- 6 figure RRSP portfolio primarily into VT etf + BNDW (70%-30%) for broad diversification, simplicity, ease of rebalancing, and favourable foreign withholding tax treatment in RRSP. Got 16 years before converting to RRIF. I'm comfortable with VT. However, I have read that Canadians should only buy foreign bonds if they are currency hedged to CAN $ otherwise, there'll be too much volatility. Do I need to worry about this? I ask because unless have to, I want to avoid buying a broad Canadian aggregate bond etf (e.g ZAG) instead of BNDW --- because I don't want to lose global bond diversification, and I don't want to have to convert to US $ for rebalancing purposes. Thank you.

Q: Last winter I sold ZPR and replaced it with MFT in my RSP. This seemed like a good move, but recently MFT has slid below my purchase price. It has a great distribution, but with rates more likely to go down than up (?), do you think that MFT will continue to go lower and is there a chance that the distribution will be reduced?
Would you sell or hang on?

Thank-you