Q: Can you suggest some short-term bond ETFs that are investing in government and/or large blue-chip companies? 3 for Canadian market and 3 for internal markets please? This is to provide regular income after retirement.

Q: I submitted a previous question about my sister converting her portfolio from a robo manager to self-directed. The last question dealt with the equities side (75%) while this one deals with the fixed income side (25%).

My suggestions to her all come from what I've gleaned from your website, so I'm really asking for confirmation and criticism here.

She wants 10% in gold so I've recommended 5% of Sprott's PHYS.TO and 5% of AEM.TO. We realize these are not fixed income but plan to use them as a long term hold (insurance) and not speculatively. For other 15%, I have suggested VAB.TO and XSB.TO.

Some of her funds are in USD so she could buy US or Global bonds if that would add safety. It seems that would complicate things unnecessarily, a main objective being to keep it simple.

Q: Is there any advantage to using ETFs rather than mutual funds in our fixed income portfolio? Presently, we have 35% in fixed income with DFA231, DFA 603, PM0 205 & LYS801F.