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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: Hello 5i,

Could you recommend 2 to 3 ETF's for a long term hold in a RESP.

Thanks
Read Answer Asked by James on October 06, 2025
Q: I have some money to deploy in my partner's TFSA and RRSP, and they currently have the following holdings. As we move towards retirement, the objective is to hold more income and defensive stocks. What three might you add today, and what three would sell from this list? Thank you for your insights.
Read Answer Asked by kevin on October 03, 2025
Q: My daughter has the above investments in her regular account. She has now opened a TFSA and plans to contribute regularly. The horizon is long (money not needed for 10-20 years). Her portfolio is not very well balanced. Could you offer advice on 5-8 best stocks (Canadian or available on the NEO exchange) that would be promising investments whilst improving sectorial balance?
Read Answer Asked by jacques on October 02, 2025
Q: Hi 5i Team,
My husband and I are in our RRIF years so we have large injections of withdrawn cash into our investment accounts throughout the year. We also sell stocks from time to time when they reach a target price and end up with more cash. The intention is to reinvest but often deciding what and when to buy means that large sums are sitting idle for long periods. HISAs, GICs and other interest bearing alternatives are generally not worth the effort given how they are taxed.

We would like your recommendations on what to do with these funds while researching and waiting for appropriate investments to surface. I’m thinking index funds and ETFs - things that are taxed efficiently and are liquid.

Have you any specific, short term recommendations? They could be Canadian or US as long as they can be bought and sold easily and quickly.

Thank you for your thoughts!
Read Answer Asked by Heather on October 01, 2025
Q: Hello 5i team,
I hold a concentrated stock portfolio. If I was to start buying ETF's; which 5 or 6 would you recommend me buying slowly over the next few years that will give me a diversified portfolio. Five or six ETF's that I can continue to dollar cost average into over the next 5 years.
Thank you,
Brent
Read Answer Asked by Brent on October 01, 2025
Q: Hello 5i. I am now planning to help my 30 year old daughter invest $10K of RRSP for a long term value. Can you recommend 3 stocks and 2 ETFs? As well, given current conditions, would you recommend equally spreading the investments over 3-6 months or invest in one full swoop given current conditions? Thank you!
Read Answer Asked by Kathryn on September 19, 2025
Q: I will be simplifying my RRSP portfolio whereby it will be mainly comprised of ETF's that can give growth as well as income that i can use to draw on when RRSP are converted to RRIF.

Can you provide me ETF's / Index funds suggestions for:
S& P 500 index
Global large cap index ex USA
Dividend appreciation index ( large cap) for Canada and US

Thank you
Read Answer Asked by Mario on September 10, 2025
Q: I currently hold these 4 ETF's in a RRSP account. Is there any other ETF that you would add to this list?
Read Answer Asked on August 28, 2025
Q: I have a cash account with CDN stocks and CDRs. I am retired but will not need to dip into this account for at least 5 years. I am thinking of converting all the holdings into 5 or 6 etfs, all in CDN$, to reduce my time managing this account, while still holding the probability of a reasonable amount of growth.
I have not yet started the switch over but at the moment my list is : XIU and WXM for 30% Canadian; ZSP, XQQ and FCMO for 60% US; and VE for 10% other.
The usual questions about the overall strategy, alternative/better ETFs to hold, or other suggestions.
Thanks
Elliott
Read Answer Asked by Elliott on August 21, 2025
Q: Hello, would like to know for total returns of these ETFs (ZWC, ZWU, CNCC, HCAL, ZSP, VCN, VE, XGRO, VEQT, XBAL) which is your favorite in order for each and in which account type is each best suited for. Also please give me your number 1 top pick of all Canadian listed ETFs for each account type.

Thank you
Read Answer Asked by Kim on August 18, 2025
Q: My son currently has Meta (META), Nebius (NBIS), Amazon (AMZN), and EIF Corp (EIF) in his TFSA, plus an ETF (ZSP) for some diversity. It’s a small portfolio but he really wanted to hold some individual stocks and not just ETFs. Would you be comfortable adding Nvidia (NVDA) and Axon (AXON) at current prices? They are two of my favorite stocks in my non-registered account but I know the prices have really run up. Would you have any better suggestions? Thanks.
Read Answer Asked by Kim on August 07, 2025
Q: My son is 20 yrs old just opened a TFSA has $15K to invest for 10+yrs, Looking for high growth, Fairly risk tolerant, Can you please suggest how many and what Stocks/ETF's to invest in (US and/or Canadian) to get started? Thank you.
Read Answer Asked by Shane on July 31, 2025
Q: I am coming into a $50,000 gift from aging parents, and would like to invest for my 10 month old son’s education. I want long term growth until he needs the money (probably 18 years or so). Would you recommend 100% ZSP or some other ETF? Also, should I buy in one shot as soon as I have the money ?
Read Answer Asked by John on July 25, 2025
Q: Hi,

I set up an unregistered account for my wife several years ago with the following ETFS, with the thought that it would be relatively easy to maintain:

VGG
ZSP
ZCN
ZIU

In looking at it today, I'm wondering whether I have too much overlap. I can't remember what my logic was for these four ETFs! I should have written it down as my memory doesn't work so well anymore.

Does the above work ok? Or would you slim it back? And add VIU?

Thanks,
Robert
Read Answer Asked by Robert on July 24, 2025
Q: My daughter's portfolio consists of the above stocks (CSU, ENB ,IFC, ISRG, SIS, SHOP, WSP, ZSP). She likes to hold good stocks for along time. She Is comfortable with moderate risk and has a long runway for investment. She has money to invest and would like to add stocks which would improve the balance of her portfolio. Could you suggest a few stocks to help her achieve her goal. She is not adverse to owning 1 or 2 higher risk growth stocks. Thank you for your help.
Read Answer Asked by jacques on July 23, 2025
Q: I asked a question last week but it must have got lost. This is a follow up question regarding my question about if you could only hold 3 ETF's what would they be. You answered ZSP, XIC and ZNQ. Can you please explain the rational for owning both ZSP and ZNQ. Is there not a lot of overlap between the two? And if I were to hold only these # ETF's can you also explain why you wouldn't include another international exposure ETF? I believe ZNQ is currency hedged which usually means higher fees. Is there another option to ZNQ that isn't hedged with a lower MER?
Thank you for your service.
Read Answer Asked by Cheryl on July 22, 2025
Q: I am building a small non-registered portfolio to provide income with modest capital appreciation. Your thought on these 4 ETFs or other suggestion.
Read Answer Asked by Roy on July 21, 2025
Q: Hello 5i Team,
Looking to add more broad-based U.S. exposure to a non-registered account. With the recent strength of the Canadian loonie to the US dollar, would you recommend buying a Canadian-dollar traded ETF like ZSP, or converting Canadian funds to US dollars and investing in SPY (or something similar)?
Many thanks,
Brian
Read Answer Asked by Brian on July 14, 2025