Investment Q&A

Q: I bought ZEC, ZEM & XSU Dec. 24 . They have all done very well & amount to about 7.5% of my portfolio. I wanted to add XAW &/or XMC. Should I replace XSU with XMC or keep both? Will there be too much duplication with these ETF funds? I'd appreciate your comments on these changes.Thanks ,as always. Really enjoyed your "battle of the ETF funds".
Dave

Q: Are the following ETFs sufficiently diversified to form a balanced-growth portfolio of $100K - ZAG 25%, QEF 15%, WXM 20% and XAW 40 %. If not, what would you recommend?

Q: Good Morning
In my wife,s riff she has the following etf,s VCNS VBAL VGRO all a small position. What would your opinion be to sell all 3 and buy XAW to make a more significant position and also to help increase her international exposure?

Thks
Marcel

Q: Thanks 5i Team - what an excellent service!! May I have your comments on my TFSA strategy and an ETF recommendation. My TFSA is almost fully funded and divided into 3 notional "buckets". Roughly 1/3 is comprised of growth securities, selected from the 5i Growth Portfolio, with my current positions being KXS, XBC, WELL and LSPD; Roughly 1/3 is comprised of about 10 Canadian "dividend growers", about half of which are among the 5i Balanced Equity or Income Portfolios such as ENB, EIF, PBH, BIP.UN and BEP.UN and the other half well known blue-chips like T, CNR, CNQ and RY; and the final 1/3 is a single, conservative diversified ETF, currently Vanguard Conservative Portfolio VCNS, which I refer to as the "anchor". I prefer to limit the total number of securities to no more than about 20 (I am a few short of that right now) so I can adequately manage things, and I add to VCNS while awaiting opportunities to purchase positions in the other securities I own, or to sell from if cash is needed so I can continue to hold the individual growth and dividend securities. I am looking for reasonable growth in my TFSA over a 5-10 year period, and I can tolerate some risk but prefer to avoid excessive volatility or risk. My questions are: (1) are these 3 roughly 1/3 buckets a sensible approach for reasonable growth over a 5-10 year horizon or would you recommend different weightings or approaches, (2) could you recommend 1 other diversified ETF that I might consider for the "anchor" portion, and (3) could you recommend 2-3 other securities for the growth portion, to add a bit more diversification. Thanks very much.

Q: I currently have ZSP AND XAW and wanted to know if adding XEF would be a good fit with the other 2 ETF?

Thanks

Q: Can u recommend an international etf both in $ can and $ us ? For long term
The one I am aware of is I shares msci acwi etf

Q: I currently own ZEM AND ZSP. Is adding XAW good? If one is going to buy US stocks most likely us tech stocks would one need to buy the ETF XQQ?
Thanks

Q: I have $250000 to invest and I am retired. I want dividend income and want to diversify outside of Canada. Any suggestions on ETFs that are domiciled in Canada but have exposure outside of Canada and allow Canadian dividend tax credit? I already have a lot of Canadian exposure.

Q: I have seen many articles in which advisors recommend all-in-one portfolios as core holdings. I understand the value of these portfolios given the rebalancing effect, when there is a mix of bonds and equities (e.g. VBAL, XBAL). However, I do not understand the benefit of the all-equity, all-in-one portfolio (e.g. VEQT, XEQT) compared to an all-world equity ETF (e.g. XAW, XWD). The all-equity, all-in-one portfolios are overweight Canada vis-a-vis global market capitalizations. It seems to me that the all-equity, all-in-one portfolios are "betting" that Canadian equities will outperform the rest of the world. Yet, most articles I read suggest the opposite, and recommend that Canadians invest increasingly internationally (in fact, I can not recall in the last few years any article suggesting Canadian outperformance).

It seems to me that the all world ETFs (XAW, XWD) are a better bet, but I am concerned that I am missing something given the popularity of the all-equity, all-in-one portfolios. What do you see as the advantage of the all equity, all-in-one portfolios over the all world all-equity ETFs? Why do major firms such as Vanguard and Blackrock have a Canadian overweight in their all-equity, all-in-one portfolios? For a long-term core equity-only holding, do you recommend the all-in-one portfolio (e.g. VEQT, XEQT) over the global equity ETFs (XAW, XWD)? Is there any other ETF you would recommend instead?

Many thanks for your excellent advice.

Q: Hi,
My kids are all about 30 years old and have most of their retirement investments in equities with some bonds, e.g. VGRO.
Given the poor expectations for bonds, is it reasonable to move to all equities?
If so, which ETFs would you recommended? I was thinking VEQT or XAW?
Thanks

Q: Having received the above funds shares from a bequest, I am contemplating on selling and replacing the above funds for ETF's which would be complimentary with diversification, possibly reducing fees and improve performance.

Garry

Q: In f/u to my earlier world ETF question, I should have stated I'm looking for CAD $ ETF's
Thanks

Q: Hi team,

I’m seeking to create a globally diversified all equity portfolio using low cost ETFs that accurately represent the market cap of each country for a 10-15 year hold. I also hold ZUT as an alternative to fixed income and am contributing to an inflation adjusted pension through my employer. For some real estate exposure we have two single family rental properties in slow and steady Manitoba. A small portion of my portfolio is in bitcoin as a hedge against inflation, not more than I’m comfortable loosing. BTC has been this year’s best performing asset but there are mixed opinions on its future and what I do own doesn’t cause me to loose sleep.

Currently my core holding is VEQT which is heavily overweight in Canadian equities. There are numerous ETFs for investors to sift through, many of which are very similar and it can be a bit overwhelming.

Firstly what are your thoughts on the strategy of holding a globally diversified portfolio that most accurately represents the market caps of each country? Or are there benefits of being overweight in certain countries, and if so can you recommend some ETFs?

If you believe being globally diversified with weightings equal to a country’s market cap is a sound strategy can you recommend some ETFs that would achieve this. I’ve been considering switching VEQT to VXC, XAW or XEQT.

Thanks for all the fantastic information and guidance. I really enjoy the investor education your service provides.

Q: Hi,

When I read this article in this morning's Globe and Mail, I thought of an excellent question by Dale on August 6th and your equally excellent answer. In some ways I was surprised by your answer. You chose "momentum" as the single most important factor in investing and pointed out to difficulties in defining "quality". (I thought you would choose Value and management as the most important factors!!)

With this in mind, and reviewing today's article in the Globe, would you say VMO.TO or XAW.TO, VXC.TO are good choices for a 10% position to cover this "momentum" factor? Or any other ETF that you feel is superior to these? Not sure if these are covered in ETF Mutual fund newsletter. I have to look the past articles up.

Here is the link to that article.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/investment-ideas/number-cruncher/article-nine-global-equity-etfs-to-augment-your-portfolio-and-reduce-home/
Thanks in advance.

Q: Hi 5i
Hope you can help me. I've managed my and my wife's registered and unregistered accounts for a number of years and I'm satisfied with the results. Those accounts primarily hold equities and I spend quite a bit of time overseeing them and tweaking as I think necessary.
I've now been put in the position of acting as trustee of funds for two minors. The time frames the two trusts will run are 7 and 9 years respectively and the principal amount of each is approx 75K. I want to invest the funds but I don't want to put them in individual equities and manage them as actively as I do our personal accounts. I would prefer to put them into ETF's that I can keep an eye on monthly or quarterly and not worry too much about tweaking.
Being optimistic by nature I'm hoping to arrange to get it all for these two trusts - capital appreciation, income, sensible degree of risk, Canadian, US and international exposure, favourable tax treatment, etc.
There are an awful lot of ETF's out there and I really don't know how best to evaluate them to shake out a reasonable number to look into further - especially considering how difficult it can be to identify individual holdings to effectively avoid overlap and provide diversification.
With all that in mind, could I ask you to list 5 (or so) equity based ETF's for each of CDA, the US and internationally that you think might accomplish the goals I've listed, so that I can then look into those ones further and make some decisions about where to put these funds I'm charged with managing.
Also, if you do have any general or specific advice that you think might be useful to me in the situation I've described, I would certainly appreciate your including it in your answer.
Thanks very much and please deduct credits as you feel appropriate.
Peter

Q: Follow up question from a few weeks ago. I am planning on combining XUU (20% of my portfolio), VIU (15%), VEE (5%) in to just XAW, but was wondering if there is any concern of having 40% of my portfolio in just one ETF (as large and diversified as it is.....). Thanks for your opinion.

Q: I currently own XWD in my RRSP, is this a good ETF or is there a better ETF that is similar to XWD that would be better?
Thanks

Q: what International ETF's would you recommend for buying in Canadian dollars? I have no exposure in the international sector.
Thanks

Q: Looking at these two ETF's what is the major difference besides price? I see the MER is higher on XWD not sure which is bigger and I assume XWD has canada in it as well unlike the XAW. Can you give me your opinion on this and which you think is better long term buy and forget.
Thanks

Q: Good afternoon. Buy and hold investor. Currently hold 20% XUU, 15% VIU, 5% VEE in portfolio as my non-Canadian equity holdings. What would the pros and cons be of selling them and putting it all in to XAW, and would you recommend such a move? I only re-balance once a year as it is. Thanks for your reply.