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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: Hi,
What is your general opinion of investing in segregated funds? I understand that there are some great benefits for estate planning purposes as you get older, i.e. bypassing probate/estate fees, quick transfer of funds to beneficiaries, guaranteed death benefit, etc... but are the high MER fees (>2%) really worth it? I was helping my mom who is retired look into some of her investments in her TFSA and her advisor has her in invested in these two Manulife products, MPS4959 and MPS4980. Thoughts on these two funds? Do these two funds pay dividends or have a distribution yield? Could not find it.
Aside from the benefits I mentioned above where you only get with Seg funds, and looking at just the pure investment return/structure of the funds, could you suggest 4-5 other attractive ETF's that she could invest in that would outperform these over the next 10-20 years? I would like to switch her into some low cost ETF's or an all in one fund that are either comparable(balanced fund) or better than these two expensive products. She is close to 70, won't need to draw any of this money to live on (she has other sources of income) and looking for some steady and stable growth assuming life expectancy for another 15-25 years. Thanks!
Read Answer Asked by Keith on December 18, 2020
Q: Looking at the above MAWER funds which I believe you still like in the Mutual Fund field. I am interested in MAW 108 which is US Equity. MAW 120 is I think 56% US/ Canada with several of the holdings the same as in MAW 108 and 33 % Europe. MAW 102 seems to be 65% Europe incl UK ,27% Far East and only 5% US.So would MAW 108 and MAW 102 be a better combo? I guess it is a question of whether one thinks Europe will perform better than the US . Thanks for any help.Paul
Read Answer Asked by Paul on December 10, 2020
Q: Hi, I'm new to 5i and was wondering if you can give me your opinion on the above Mutual funds and if you could suggest ETF replacements that may be more appropriate for a somewhat balance in my portfolio and have good growth.
Read Answer Asked by Joe on December 09, 2020
Q: Could you please recommend a Target Date Fund or funds going out to at least 2050 that have respectable reputations with great management teams solid performance and are fairly priced.
Thank you
Read Answer Asked by Larry on December 08, 2020
Q: What is your opinion on scotia resource fund, what would be better.

tia pat
Read Answer Asked by Pat on December 04, 2020
Q: Active vs passive investing over next 12 months. I had shifted much of my USA and International exposure to low cost ETFs. With most mutual funds in that class at the time having MERs>2.0% and rising tides making it hard for them to outperform their fees. The landscape in Canada has improved for mutual funds with many companies releasing new lower MER funds or significantly dropping them on exisiting funds. With the bar for otuperforming their MER much lower now do you consider the lower fee active funds a better choice in these more volatile times? I am holding some cash and need to decide is I put it in ETFs to hit the average or pay for more active management in some well managed global and USA funds.
Read Answer Asked by Tom on December 03, 2020
Q: Could you please comment on the long term viability on Romspen investment mortgage fund. Approximately 30 per cent of their mortgages are currently non performing although they have increased their month payout recently. As a holder of the fund should I be looking to divest under their proposed changes to the Declaration of Trust . Use as many credits as you feel appropriate. Thanks for you help.
Read Answer Asked by Ian on December 03, 2020
Q: My wife and I both have DC pension plans with our respective employers (with company matching), and generally buy into low-cost index funds that are available to us.

We each also have LIRAs (with pension funds from our previous employers), and for these buckets of funds we would like to buy mutual funds to benefit from good quality active management. MAW150 and DYN245 are two funds that have jumped out to us - if we were to buy these two funds alone, would a 50/50 split in each of our LIRAs be reasonable, in terms of diversification (both sector and geographic allocation)? We would be looking to buy and hold for a long period of time (~20 years).
Read Answer Asked by Keith on December 03, 2020
Q: Hello,
I am not sure if we are allowed to ask a question on this type of fund but here goes.
I am just wondering what your opinion is of this fund?

Thanks
Read Answer Asked by rick on December 02, 2020
Q: For you previous question you noted PSA and CSAV, however, neither are available on RBC Direct Investing? Any options for USD?
Read Answer Asked by Shyam on December 02, 2020
Q: I am helping my niece set up with ETF. She is holding the below funds right now. Can you please advise their fees and which ETF would you suggest replacing them with? Is there a site where you can check the mutual fund fees and performance?

PH&N LifeTime 2045 Fund
RBC Canadian Equity Fund
RBC Balanced Fund
BLK Balanced Index
Capital Global Equity
BLK US Equity Index

Thanks for your help
Hector
Read Answer Asked by Hector on November 12, 2020
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