Investment Q&A

Q: About 1 year ago you provided some general guidance on a retirement portfolio and I’m wondering what changes, if any, you might recommend given another year has passed. I’m not looking for specific guidance but rather suggestions for me to investigate further given how the investing landscape has changed this past year. Retirement horizon is 5 years and the portfolio has the following holdings: ZAG(26%), ZSP (3%), CDZ(65%), ZEA(6%). We have a large cash position that we’re ready to deploy. First, what is your take on the viability and allocation of the current holdings? Second, what are some ETF suggestions for the cash - add to existing ETFs or do you have alternative funds you’d recommend for us to investigate. Thanks so much!

Q: Hi
can you recommend one or more ETFs that together or individually cover Europe, Australia and the Far East?
thanks

Q: Good Morning 5I Team, Thanks for the all your great advise.
As per the portfolio analysis I need to increase my International allocation which is currently at 10%. The Portfolio analysis classifies my following stocks/ETFs as International Brlxf, EWA, HFPC.U:CA, ATCO, BBU.UN, BPY.UN, BEP.UN, MDT.
Can you please suggest some growth stocks or ETFs to add to above holdings to increase my International allocation as well as if any of the above holdings doesn't have potential and can be reallocated? I am looking at long term over 5 to 10 years and have limits in my TFSA & RRSP account.
Please deduct Credits as deemed appropriate.
Thanks

Q: Thanks for your previous response confirming these etfs cover major asset classes and geographies for an RSP with 5 years to retirement. Could you please suggest a couple of etf alternatives that could be added to provide a little more torque with a 5 year timeframe. A brief explanation for each would be appreciated. Thanks.

Q: First a big thank you for the terrific returns we received in 2020 thanks to your stellar guidance (our largest holdings we first discovered through 5i -hello LSPD,XBC and WELL!). We gifted our kids memberships in December and praise your service to everyone. This is truly an invaluable service.
Now to the question, my brother is tired of paying high fees for his CIBC pension holdings. When I looked into this for him last year, some pools had MER in the 2% range! He’s moved the following into cash and is looking for lower fee/higher return alternatives in the following areas of his pension account:
-Imperial Canadian Dividend Income Pool
-Imperial Canadian Equity High Income Pool
-Imperial US Equity Pool
-Imperial International Equity Pool
-Imperial Short Term Bond Pool
-Imperial Long Term Bond Pool
Please charge as many questions as required.

Q: ETFs
Can you suggest your top 1-2-3 ETFs traded on the TSX for Canadian, USA and International markets that should perform well (after fees) over the next 1-2 years and have good trade volumes? Also, would this be a good time to purchase hedge or unhedged ETFs?

Q: I need to increase my Global ETF or ETFs (ex- North America) exposure. I currently have some VIU but am wondering if I should consider a couple geographic areas: Europe, Asia, Japan etc. My preference would be something I can hold in CAD non-hedged and preferred non covered call.

Q: July 10 2019 you gave the following opinion on EDG100
"We are generally not huge fans of mutual funds for their higher fees, but EDG100 is an exception that has consistently justified the higher fees through its performance. We would be fine keeping it."
1) Just wondering what your thoughts are on this mutual fund today and are the high fee still justified by it performance?
2) What alternative that operate in the same space would you suggest looking into?

Q: Hi 5i
Hope you can help me. I've managed my and my wife's registered and unregistered accounts for a number of years and I'm satisfied with the results. Those accounts primarily hold equities and I spend quite a bit of time overseeing them and tweaking as I think necessary.
I've now been put in the position of acting as trustee of funds for two minors. The time frames the two trusts will run are 7 and 9 years respectively and the principal amount of each is approx 75K. I want to invest the funds but I don't want to put them in individual equities and manage them as actively as I do our personal accounts. I would prefer to put them into ETF's that I can keep an eye on monthly or quarterly and not worry too much about tweaking.
Being optimistic by nature I'm hoping to arrange to get it all for these two trusts - capital appreciation, income, sensible degree of risk, Canadian, US and international exposure, favourable tax treatment, etc.
There are an awful lot of ETF's out there and I really don't know how best to evaluate them to shake out a reasonable number to look into further - especially considering how difficult it can be to identify individual holdings to effectively avoid overlap and provide diversification.
With all that in mind, could I ask you to list 5 (or so) equity based ETF's for each of CDA, the US and internationally that you think might accomplish the goals I've listed, so that I can then look into those ones further and make some decisions about where to put these funds I'm charged with managing.
Also, if you do have any general or specific advice that you think might be useful to me in the situation I've described, I would certainly appreciate your including it in your answer.
Thanks very much and please deduct credits as you feel appropriate.
Peter

Q: My current portfolio is somewhat similar to your BE portfolio but with a small (15%) portion of foreign holdings (more if you consider BEP which I also hold, as foreign since it has a lot of foreign investments). Foreign is far too small in my estimation. I have some cash to deploy which would bring it up to about 30%.
I currently hold VEE, DXG and DXU, an awful lot of US. Do you have any suggestions of ETFs I could or should add? I have held ZDM in the past.

Q: Hi,
What would be your choice for Europe, Japan, Emerging Markets ETF’s?
Thx Chris

Q: Your thoughts on ZEA as a core holding for diversification in my RRSP portfolio??

Q: Can I have your opinion and comparisons on these 3 international ETF for a long term core holding, to compliment VIG in an RRSP, which is best and why. No international exposure at the moment. I understand that XEF and ZEA both track the same index however I'm not sure why XEF would hold its own ETF for a 7% holding.

Q: For coverage of Developed Europe, which of these two ETF's is preferred.

VE has a better dividend than ZEA , your comments please

Q: Hello. I currently hold zdi in my cash account and am thinking of increasing my exposure to this part of the world (now about 1.5% of that portfolio). I'm wondering about the pros and cons of doing this by adding zea. I realize it doubles my exposure to the UK, but it also adds more of Japan. Alternately, I could just buy more of zdi. Your recommendation, please.

Q: What are your thoughts on this ETF? Is there another one that you prefer over ZEA? I currently have no ETF for outside exposure beyond Canada.

Thanks