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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: Can you recommend 2 or 3 bond funds in Canadian $ that would be the least volatile and offer a return for a 3 to 5 year hold? I would prefer one Canadian and one U.S. or international. This would be my sole fixed income holding. Thanx
Read Answer Asked by Steve on February 01, 2018
Q: I have owned these Bond ETF's for the last few years and have seen the unit prices drift lower with the rising rate environment. If I had bought the bonds directly the maturity date would restore the capital. Does the same thing happen within the ETF's to the same effect? How doe s it play out over time?
Thanks
Paul
Read Answer Asked by Paul on January 29, 2018
Q: I am currently using 1 year term GIC's for my fixed income portion of my portfolio. I don't need income and looking to maximize my long term total return (i.e. 10 years or more) with low volatility and relatively low risk of loss compared to equities. Can you please provide me with a few alternatives? I am thinking ETF's might be the way to go but I am open to your suggestions. Thanks for your wisdom.
Read Answer Asked by Rino on January 22, 2018
Q: Dear Team:
I have been retired for 5 years now and have been self investing with a return of 13.58% on average. I have reached 60 years and feel that I should have more fixed income as of right now; I have about 12% of fixed income. My portfolio size is over $1M. I have 2 questions for you:
1) Do you think I need more fixed income?
2) If I was to increase my fixed income, I am thinking of an ETF for either Re-set Preferred Shares or Short Term Corp Bonds or Real Return Bonds. Which do you like?
Thanks for your time
Jim
Read Answer Asked by James on January 19, 2018
Q: Good afternoon team
I’m looking to add to the income side of my portfolio and already hold 10-15% of ZPR and CPD.
I’d like to add another 5% to the income side of my portfolio so which one or two options do you advise?
I’m looking for more income with little or no growth as my equity weighting is fairly high in dividend paying stocks as well as growth stocks already?
Thnx in advance!
Read Answer Asked by David on January 18, 2018
Q: Hello Peter and team,
I want to pick a manageable number of fixed income ETFs that will mke up 25% of my portfolio in the fixed income portion. I note that Ishares has many bond etfs, many of them designed for a rising interest rate environment, but I am not clear on the differences between the products.

What ETFs would you recommend and in what weightings?
Read Answer Asked by Pamela on January 17, 2018
Q: Dear 5i
I`m anticipating retiring in a little over a year so as such have a portfolio with 50% fixed income (35% clf , 35%cbo , 15% xhy and 15% cpd )
I'm thinking of following your Outcome Oriented Fixed Income portfolio and thought i would reduce clf and cbo down to 20% then add vsc and zef at 15% each .. I just feel i need a bit more diversification within the fixed portion of my portfolio.
Does this plan seem reasonable or do these changes make the fixed portion too aggressive ?
Thanks
Bill C.
Read Answer Asked by Bill on January 16, 2018
Q: Hi: I am listening to all the doom and gloom about bonds - heard the term yesterday "taper tantrum". I have about 40% of my Fixed Income Exposure in CBO, 40% in HPR and 10% in HAB. HPR has slowly recovered from its downturn of a few years ago and I like the yield. HAB is doing better than CBO. Question - should I sell CBO at a loss and invest in a more active fund like HAB? My time horizon is at least 5 years.
thank you
Read Answer Asked by Julia on January 12, 2018
Q: For a retired investor with 2/3 of his portfolio in an diversified dividend equity portfolio and with 500 k to invest in safer income producing investments and just purchased 73k of CPD, 60k of ZPR, 40k of XHY, leaving 327k still to invest, would you add to these positions or could you suggest other places to invest for income. Would you wait till after NAFTA is decided and then invest. Thanks for your opinion.

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Read Answer Asked by justin on January 12, 2018
Q: Hi & thank you for continued sound advise.

I'm a Balance/Growth Investor with ~ 30% Fixed Income.

- Current Fixed Income: XBB (30%), CBO (40%), CPD (15%), XHY (15%).
- Planned Fixed Income: MMF659 (70%), CPD (15%), XHY (15%).

Reasons for change:
- Tired of poor returns of CBO, XBB.
- Want more diversifies (USA, INT) fixed income securities.
- The ~ 1% MMF659 MER seems worth it based on 6.23% compound return since inception [2005-11-25].

Haven't held a Mutual Fund in 8 years, but... Yours thoughts would be welcomed here. Thank you!

Paul
Read Answer Asked by Paul on January 09, 2018
Q: Hello,
I am in the process of taking over my mother's portfolio and getting her out of mutual funds. She likes the idea of ETF's to reduce risk vs: specific stocks. What would your top 4-6 ETF's be for a sleep at night portfolio that is well diversified globally and covers all sectors, time range 20 years? Starting portfolio value $750,000 cash by the end of January. Also how would you intelligently step into these ETF's as the markets could be positioned for a correction sometime this year?
Thank you
Read Answer Asked by Steve on January 09, 2018
Q: Hello Peter and team,
What do you think about these fixed income ETFs to make up twenty percent of my portfolio?
CBO 5%
CLF 5%
XHY 5%
XEB 2.5%
VBG 2.5%
Should I also add a real return bond ETF?
Thank you.
Pamela
Read Answer Asked by Pamela on December 18, 2017
Q: Hi everyone at 5i! I need a clarification about bonds. I have heard that bonds are facing head winds with the anticipated increase in interest rates. I have a portfolio of 60% stocks and 40% fixed. My fixed component consists of GICs, bonds, some preferreds and ETFs of XHY, CBO and CPD. These ETFs pay me a nice dividend monthly. My strategy is to invest my monthly dividend into the ETF that is lagging to get the greatest value for my dollar. Considering that the value of these ETFs may fall ( hopefully just in the short term) would you consider this an ok strategy or would you refrain from putting more money in bonds and preferreds. Cheers, Tamara
Read Answer Asked by Tamara on November 13, 2017
Q: I own equal amounts of these bond funds in an RSP. While CBO has a 2.3% return over the last year, and is considered one of 5Si"s "core" holdings, I am thinking that I should retain this position. XSB is off about 1% in the last 12 months, and its return over the last 5 years is dismal. XSH has about a 0.4% return in the last 12 months , with a 3 year return of 2.1%. Is there a benefit to selling any or all of these positions, and purchasing higher yielding bond etf's? If I were to sell, should I seek US or Canadian bonds fund, and which specific etf's might you recommend?
Thank you for your consistently good advice.
Read Answer Asked by doug on October 31, 2017
Q: From your answer to Milan :
A diversifed portfolio of bond issuers (corps, gov, prefs, high yield) will earn a better yield and is more appropriate from a higher income need aspect. Bonds can actually see capital appreciation if rates were to decline, or even hold steady. Cash/GICs would not benefit in this case. Overall, we remain on the side of diversification. Hold a bond portfolio with various issuer types and add in some GICs and/or cash. How you weight these reflects your views and tolerance.
Could you suggest a diversified bond portfolio with various issuer types that should produce more than the 2.75% offered by Tangerine?
Read Answer Asked by Serge on October 30, 2017
Q: Follow up question: as a guideline, with a "rock solid" defined benefit pension, what percentage, overall, of a $200,000 RRSP portfolio should be allocated to fixed income? Of the 4 funds you suggested, as a guideline, what percentage of the overall allocation go into each fund? Retirement 2-3 years away.
Read Answer Asked by Donald on October 20, 2017
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