Investment Q&A

Q: According to portfolio tracking and analysis, I am short on basic materials, consumer cyclical, consumer defensive, health care and industrials. I’m also significantly short on international equities. With this in mind, can you provide your top 3 to 5 companies for each sector to increase my holdings in basic materials, consumer cyclical, consumer defensive, health care and industrials. To increase my exposure in international equities, I will be investing in ETFs. Please provide and rank the top 5 ETFs with international exposure. Thank you.

Q: What do you think about these funds?

Q: I would like to understand the tax implications of holding VXC in a TFSA.
According to my readings, I retain that the witholding tax is 0.48%. Is it correct?
Is an ETF you recommend? If not, do you have a suggestion?

Q: Are you aware if there are mounting pressures on ETF providers (Vanguard, Black Rock, etc...) to exit the Russian equity markets? I own VEE, VXC and VEQT for my international exposure, and realized I own about 1500$ worth of Russian stocks. I am not morally confortable anymore with that exposure even though it's a very small weighting. I would gladly write it off of my portfolio... I know this is personal to every investor and that's OK, but some principles come before returns for me...
If it's unlikely Vanguard would make any move towards ETF ex-Russia, I am seriously thinking of selling all (fortunately my exposure is mostly in registered accounts) and buying international alternatives.

What ETFs would you then suggest to get similar international exposure ex-Russia?

Thank you

Q: Just did a revue of my PORTFOLIO ANALYTICS and have a couple of questions as follows:
Under Fixed Income Defensive I have CBO, VGG & ZDI in my TFSA. Are these okay here or can be added to or any deleted?
Under International Allocations I have VXC, XAW, XEF, VEU & XWD in the TFSA. Are these okay as they are or shoud I be considering some changes?
Best wishes for the New Year and thanks for your great service!

Q: I have CIF 843 in my RRSP - it comprises 8% of the RRSP. What is your opinion of it's performance & costs. Also- could you provide 3 or 4 alternates each of both Mutual Funds and ETF, in the same asset class.

Q: Hi guys, thanks for the excellent service. Generally TFSA is the place for high growth but my highest growth has been in my RRSP. Is there any compelling reason I should sell anything in RRSP and rebuy in TFSA (e.g., NVDA)? I realize I will be taxed on RRSP withdrawals while TFSA withdrawals are tax-free - but - my RRSP has a lot more cash than my TFSA so there isn't room to move all my growthy stuff over. Because of the relative size of RRSP to TFSA, if I were to do equal weighting of all stocks, I'd only have 4 different stocks in my TFSA, which perhaps is fine? Are there any obvious adjustments that you would make to the following:

RRSP:
XQQ 13.68%
VXC 12.03%
NVDA 7.64%
AAPL 6.70%
JPM 4.73%
BNS 4.52%
GOOG 4.32%
ENB 4.13%
MSFT 3.98%
AMZN 3.86%
RTX 3.51%
COST 3.42%
PG 3.11%
DIS 2.82%
CASH 1.32%

TFSA:
GSY 5.28%
CRWD 3.31%
VEEV 2.50%
ROKU 2.44%
SHOP 2.26%
WELL 0.85%
XBC 1.08%

RESP:
LSPD 0.79%
BYD 0.76%

NON-REG:
SLF 0.51%
T 0.42%

thanks,

Q: Long term investment of +20 years. Undecided between ETF vs mutual fund. Should Canadian allocation be 30% or 5%? Which would you suggest from the 3 listed above? Thank you

Q: I am thinking of investing in VXC (or maybe XAW) in my RRSP. I understand that since this is a fund of funds and some of the underlying ETFs are US based, that there will be foreign withholding tax of some amount. To avoid the tax, am I better off to invest in the underlying ETFs (Canadian versions only) specifically VFV, VIU and VEE? (small cap I could not find). How much of an issue is the foreign withholding tax? Is it small enough to not bother buying all these underlying ETFs directly? Your thoughts please.

Q: First a comment, I went through the paper on fantom distributions, have invested for 25 years and never heard of it before? If you do your own taxes like me, I would just say the CRA is getting double tax on my etf’s.
On that note could you advise on a couple of global etf with small or no exposure to Canada, as I would like to diversify to USA and other countries. Dividends would be nice but not necessary. Would be for 7+ years and may add to yearly as funds are available.
Thanks

Q: I am helping a grandson (age 22 in medical school) set up a TFSA with a small initial investment in one ETF. I am trying to choose between an international ETF (XAW or VXC) or a Canadian ETF (XIU). What would you suggest?
Many thanks.
Judith

Q: Hello, I need to liquidate some of the stocks listed. Disregarding sector diversification, in what order should I do this? Thanks for your help.

Q: Hi,
I'm looking at XAW for US and International exposure in my TFSA account. Retired income investor for 8 to 10 year hold. Can I get your opinion on this ETF or if you can recommend some other names.
Thanks

Q: In a cash account, from a taxation perspective, which ETF would you prefer between XAW and VXC and why? Thanks

Q: hi, What yours thoughts for those Fund for 2/3% portfolio?
is it to expensive?
thanks jean guy.

Q: Setting up an 40K RRSP with a 6 to 10 year time frame. What is your opinion and/or alternatives to ZEB, VXC, ZDV, XBB in equal proportions.

Q: Hi team,

I’m seeking to create a globally diversified all equity portfolio using low cost ETFs that accurately represent the market cap of each country for a 10-15 year hold. I also hold ZUT as an alternative to fixed income and am contributing to an inflation adjusted pension through my employer. For some real estate exposure we have two single family rental properties in slow and steady Manitoba. A small portion of my portfolio is in bitcoin as a hedge against inflation, not more than I’m comfortable loosing. BTC has been this year’s best performing asset but there are mixed opinions on its future and what I do own doesn’t cause me to loose sleep.

Currently my core holding is VEQT which is heavily overweight in Canadian equities. There are numerous ETFs for investors to sift through, many of which are very similar and it can be a bit overwhelming.

Firstly what are your thoughts on the strategy of holding a globally diversified portfolio that most accurately represents the market caps of each country? Or are there benefits of being overweight in certain countries, and if so can you recommend some ETFs?

If you believe being globally diversified with weightings equal to a country’s market cap is a sound strategy can you recommend some ETFs that would achieve this. I’ve been considering switching VEQT to VXC, XAW or XEQT.

Thanks for all the fantastic information and guidance. I really enjoy the investor education your service provides.

Q: Recently, a number of firms have brought out All-in-One ETFs, such as VEQT. If an investor wishes to be 100% invested, and diversified globally, then this ETF offers the advantage of rebalancing to the ETF's geographic weightings. These All-in-One ETFs are overweight Canada given global market capitalizations.

In contrast, there are ETFs offering similar low fees which represent the market capitalization of all global equities, such as XWD or VXC (w/o Canada). These ETFs are effectively rebalancing to reflect the global market capitalizations.

For a long-term hold, which investment do you feel will do better? Is an investor better off choosing say VEQT, or VXC? These two ETFs have similar ETFs. Is there a better alternative which you would recommend?

Your insights are much appreciated and valued. Thank-you.

Q: Hello 5i, I am a new DIY dividend investor (switched from mutual funds from various industry advisors). My spouse and I have TFSAs and RRSPs which we have invested in companies traded on the TSX (banks, utilities, etc many of them reference in the portfolios). My question is how do I get USA and international exposure and still stay within the Canadian market; we are not ready for US$ accounts or other international exchanges. I assume the answer is ETFs but I am overwhelmed with the number of choices. Investment timeline is 20+ years and want to focus on dividend growth. Thank you.

Q: Hi,

When I read this article in this morning's Globe and Mail, I thought of an excellent question by Dale on August 6th and your equally excellent answer. In some ways I was surprised by your answer. You chose "momentum" as the single most important factor in investing and pointed out to difficulties in defining "quality". (I thought you would choose Value and management as the most important factors!!)

With this in mind, and reviewing today's article in the Globe, would you say VMO.TO or XAW.TO, VXC.TO are good choices for a 10% position to cover this "momentum" factor? Or any other ETF that you feel is superior to these? Not sure if these are covered in ETF Mutual fund newsletter. I have to look the past articles up.

Here is the link to that article.
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/investing/investment-ideas/number-cruncher/article-nine-global-equity-etfs-to-augment-your-portfolio-and-reduce-home/
Thanks in advance.