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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: In my balanced cash account I hold CBH as the fixed income portion and while I thought the laddered approach would be beneficial, it has not performed well over the past years. After reading about Real Bond ETF's, I am wondering if I should replace my CBH with a real bond ETF (either XRB or ZRR) for the next few years. What do you think of that strategy? FYI, I also hold XBB in my RSP.
Read Answer Asked by Joseph on July 16, 2021
Q: In a flat or a rising interest rate environment which ETF is preferable i.e XHY, PFIA, MFT, ZHY OR PYF?

Thanks for your service!
Read Answer Asked by Ozzie on July 12, 2021
Q: Thanks for the great work in educating and helping us. Currently I have no exposure to Debt and all Investment is in Equity Stock or Pref. I was trying to use Preference shares as a proxy for Bond. Is that a wise strategy? Want to move some fund to Bonds/Debentures. With a long term view of 10 + years in a registered account can you recommend 2 bonds and 2 ETFs. Thanks
Read Answer Asked by Nimish on July 08, 2021
Q: Within my fixed income allotment I've recently favored short term bonds over long term bonds on the advice that they will react less to changes in interest rates. However, since the Fed's meeting last week the opposite has occurred, as there has been a flight from short term bonds into long term bonds. Can you please explain why this is the case and then, given the current environment could you also rank the above ETF's in order of preference. If there are better fixed income suggestions please indicate. Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Curtis on June 21, 2021
Q: About 25% of my portfolio is in cash, enough for 5 years of cash needs. The problem is that it earns only 0.2%. Now I am thinking of putting this cash in 5 or more high quality Bond ETFs. Is this a right move? If so, could you give few names? Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Sudhir on June 11, 2021
Q: Hello,
I am nearing retirement. I have CBO, CPD, VAB and XHY at 20% of my fixed income portfolio. All these ETF's exist in my unregistered account. I wanted to add XBB in my RRSP account. Any concerns about too much overlap by adding this position? This will add 7% to my fixed income position. Portfolio analytics recommends a 30% position.

Thanks for all your help.
Read Answer Asked by Mauro on June 02, 2021
Q: I love investing in the market but was curious about what vehicle you guys would park cash in a TFSA account if you had to. GIC? Money market? Those are the only ideas I have but maybe you could educate me on other choices pros and cons. Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by James on May 13, 2021
Q: I am just entering retirement and my financial advisor wants to increase my fixed income weighting to 55% of my portfolio, in order to reduce risk. My feeling is that this would be dead money (at best!) for some time to come because interest rates are likely to rise.. Can you get out your crystal ball and estimate the probability of each of the following annualized total return outcomes for a bond portfolio over the next 5 years. The portfolio would be geographically diversified, 70/30 investment grade vs, high yield and average duration of 5 years.
> +5% -
+2.5% to +5% -
0 to +2.5% -
0 to -2.5% -
-2.5% to -5% -
worse than -5% -
Thanks.

Read Answer Asked by ROB on May 03, 2021
Q: I am hoping you can help with some suggestions for review for a RRIF portfolio. The plan is for one third to be invested in a 5 year laddered bond portfolio. Is it best to buy bonds or an ETF ? Please suggest a couple of bond ETF's for review.

The remainder would be invested in equity ETF's. Half would go to 3 or 4 ETF's which would pay dividends and would have some growth potential. The remaining third would be invested in 3 or 4 ETF's focused on growth.

Obviously the dividend tax credit is of no benefit in the RRIF but currency fluctuations would be a consideration.

Any assistance you can provide would be appreciated.

Mike
Read Answer Asked by michael on April 30, 2021
Q: Hi Guys
Just curious why last March during the big sell off, XLB traded down so far. I would have though during times of crises, people would run into buying Govt Treasuries for Safety.
Also, at what yield would people consider buying back into XLB, i think the current yield is around 3.3 % My current Portfolio weighting is 2.06% and I'm down 11% you think its a good idea to increase my position to around 4% at this time. I'm also about 40% in GICs , which should perform inversely .
thanks
Read Answer Asked by Gordon on April 30, 2021
Q: I need a bit of assistance knowing what to do with bond ETFs. With interest rates projected to change in Canada and mounting inflationary pressures in the US, would you go long (as per a G/M article today 'A contrarian case for bonds - and stellar returns ahead' which suggested the CND ETF XLB) or short term (eg VSB, CBO as in an answer you provided today)? In the past I have opted for aggregate bond ETFs feeling interest rate calls were beyond my abilities to 'call the market'.

Thanks for your valued input.
Read Answer Asked by David C. on April 28, 2021
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