Investment Q&A

Q: I am considering buying HXS.U and HXQ.U in my non registered account for tax purposes. When looking at the 5 year charts of these 2 etfs I noticed a very large drop in both of them on the same day. For example HXS.U went from $85.38 on June 28 2021 to $43.03 on July 5 2021. These drops did not occur in the BMO etf ZSP.U or ZNQ.U. These drops did not occur in HXS or HXQ on that day either.
What happened then? Is there a risk that it could happen again. To lose half of their value is quite a scare.
Thanks
Victoria

Q: Good morning, I have some USD in my tfsa and was wondering if you could suggest a few ETFs in the states where I won’t get charged a withholding tax. Can be growth or index oriented.
Thanks

Q: Hello,
I am trying to understand how Horizons S&P 500 Index ETF tracks the index. At the moment I'm typing this message, the S&P 500 sits at 0% daily change, SPY at -0.03% while HXS is at -1.09% and HXS-U is at -1.08%. Why do we see such significant deviation from the index in $3.5B ETF with very high trading volume and close spread between bid and ask? Thanks.

Q: Do you have a preference between HXS.CA vs HXS.U and HXQ.CA vs HXQ.U and could you comment on HXX - would it be the same as the others with the exception of the focus on Europe?
Thanks for your service

Q: I'm hoping you can help me understand something.

On yahoo finance if I pull up a 6 month chat of HXS.TO and compare it to the S&P 500 index, HXS is underperforming by a significant amount (up 28% vs. 38%).  However if I add HXS.U.TO (the US dollar version of HXS) it tracks the index much closer.  Do you know why these two etfs track the index so differently?

In my RSP I buy HXS.TO weekly and journal the shares over to the US side a couple times throughout the year to buy US listed ETFs.  When I journal the HXS shares over do my gains magically increase?

Thanks for your help!

Q: I have purposely maintained my non-registered foreign holdings (principally US) below $100K simply to avoid the hassle of reporting to Revenue Canada and completing a T1135. I now find that continuing to do so will leave me underinvested in US markets. Is there a way to get broad US exposure (i.e. S&P 500) with an ETF that would not be deemed as foreign property? Would HXS or HXS.U accomplish this? If yes is there an equivalent Nasdaq ETF?

Q: Hello. If I were someone who:

1. Wanted to take my time researching and selecting stocks to purchase (perhaps weeks or months between each purchase), and
2. Doesn't yet know how much I'll be investing in Canadian stocks and how much I'll be investing US stocks, and
3. Will be exclusively investing in registered accounts (TFSA and RRSP).

Is it a sound strategy to simply buy one or two dual-listed, broad-market ETFs (like HXS and HXQ) in order to just be in the market while I take my time selecting stocks? This gives me the flexibility of selling the shares in either currency when it comes time to make another purchase, avoiding hefty currency exchange fees.

Or should the increased expense ratio of these dual-listed ETFs versus the cheaper alternatives like IVV and QQQ be a concern? Are there any other flaws with this strategy and/or is there a better strategy suited to this scenario?

Thank you!

Q: Hi 5i,

Knowing that the US is not your focus, I would still value your opinion.

I have 30% of my portfolio in cash sitting in a USD margin account and I would like to invest in etfs for the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100; could you please suggest etfs that do not pay any yield? I am also looking at IPAY and IWO for some diversification, would you be okay with this? Would there be any significant overlap in all these etfs? What percentage weighting would you have for more growth, medium to high risk tolerance and long term hold ?

Thanks as always. Please deduct as many credits as you see fit.