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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 an old man (86) sitting on a lot of cash ($800.000) and I am considering on purchasing the following stocks equally invested what I think if is a conservative based portfolio.
VFV yield1.7%,XIU Yield 3.2%,CBO yield 2.61 %, XBB yield 2.9%,CBO yield 2.61 %
Would appreciate any comments you may have. I am looking for yield and relative safety. Thanks, Bill
Read Answer Asked by William J on January 08, 2019
Q: Recently read John Bogle, "Common Sense Investing"

What are my choices for purchasing the s & p 500 index, please compare MER, do all offer a canadian hedge? and what are the pros and cons of buying it hedged to canadian dollar?

thanks

Ernie
Read Answer Asked by Ernest on January 03, 2019
Q: Thanks so much for your reply to my earlier question. You suggested the following ETFs and I was wondering what a good portfolio allocation would be for each (I was thinking 50% allocated toward your BE portfolio however if a lesser/more percentage makes sense then please advise):

XWD (global expoure), VFV (S&P 500), VGG (US dividend growth), HXQ (US technology), XSU (US small-cap)

Thanks!
Read Answer Asked by Michael on December 12, 2018
Q: From your answer on November 23rd:
No, an individual would still need to hold global exposure to the US, europe and emerging markets as well as fixed income. In terms of Canadian exposure, we would be pretty comfortable with the portfolio as a more growth-tilted proxy to Canada but an investor may want to overlay one Canadian broad ETF just to smooth out the volatility a little, depending on portfolio size. This, or adding a selection of larger company stocks, would help overall diversification.

Can you suggest % or guidelines on each type of exposure to have a well-diversified portfolio? (US, Europe, emerging markets, fixed income, Beport, one Canadian broad ETF or larger company stocks).
Thank you
Read Answer Asked by Serge on November 30, 2018
Q: I have a question about VFV and index ETFs generally. If equity markets are facing headwinds in the next year or so as some analysts believe, would this be the wrong time to sell individual stocks in my investment account and go to index funds? My goal is to simplify and de-risk my portfolio and reduce some volatility. Thanks for your help, Ron
Read Answer Asked by RON on November 29, 2018
Q: Which etf's or index funds would you use today to allocate $100k in a Canadian registered acct. for a longer term hold and in what proportion?
Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Tim on November 21, 2018
Q: I am considering holding VFV and XQQ in my personal unregistered accounts because they produce dividends. I could borrow money to invest in them and write off the interest. On the other hand, would it make sense to put HXS and HXQ in my passive corporation (no active income) as these two produce only capital gains and no distributions? Is there a big difference in dividends earned in a passive corp vs
personally? Also all of these will not count towards the T1135 limit. Any thoughts?
Read Answer Asked by Terry on October 15, 2018
Q: I am considering adding these two to my non-registered account. This would be in CDN $ and no tax T1135 forms. My question is what year end tax paperwork do these products have? such as ROC, T3, T5. I'm guessing they have T5's which is fine, but I sold my REITS in my non-registered accounts due to the late paperwork. I do not want to repeat this mess.
Read Answer Asked by Terry on October 15, 2018
Q: HI Team
After 2-3 years in the making (getting a root canal would have been more pleasant), I finally convinced my daughters to start contributing to
their RRSP and TFSA accounts held at RBC Direct Investing. Aged 23 and 25 they really don't have much., just around 10 000 in RRSP. I was thinking equally splitting the money into XIC and VFV or VUN. RBC has started their own Robo Adviser service.Would that be a good idea for them since they can contribute monthly to those plans and have a more diversified portfolio? Do i stick to the original plan with the above mentioned ETFs and repurchase yearly to keep costs down? Thank you in advance. Sam
Read Answer Asked by sam on September 18, 2018
Q: I am interested in the purchasing Horizon Benchmark ETFs, such as HXS because of the tax advantages. The MER is reasonable at .11% but they charge a swap fee of .30%. I assume that the swap fee added to the MER makes the total fee .41%. This would mean that from a fee perspective VFV is more attractive with an MER of .08%. Given the importance of low fees on total returns will VFV outperform HXS over the long run?
Read Answer Asked by Dennis on June 15, 2018