Q: My wife has never dabbled in the markets and has often labelled it as too risky. She has tended to stay with GIC’s or higher interest saving accounts, yeilding perhaps 2-3.5% annually. However, after seeing returns on some of my equities and ETF’s she is reconsidering. While I know you cannot personalize what is best for her, can you please give your highest conviction for lower risk stocks/etf’s for an RRSP (about 130K) with a 3-5 year window. I have shown her RoR on Canoe ETF (about 8%) and HMAX (about 12%). Lower risk stocks like BN or GOOG are also being considered. Your input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks again for all the great work you do!
Brian

Q: I seem to recall a question quite a while ago (years?) about the maximum % of your portfolio should be by fund company. If I remember correctly, your suggestion was to cap each fund company exposure to 15%. Am I correct and do you still feel the same?

My BMO ETFs are just over 16%.
My iShares ETFs are just over 15%.
I have smaller exposures to the fund companies holding HMAX, HHL, NNRG (around 5% each).

Please remind me again what the dangers are of exceeding your suggested threshold? For the larger fund companies, is the threshold higher?

Thanks for your help....much appreciated....Steve

Q: My granddaughter has an individual stock portfolio which I need to change to an ETF portfolio as she does not personally follow or trades stocks and I am no longer able to manage the account.
Would you please suggest a portfolio of ETFs that is diversified as well as recommendations for ETFs that focus on precious metals, base metals and energy?
With appreciation,
Ed