Investment Q&A

Q: I'm looking to diversify outside of US/Canadian stocks, as this represents the bulk of my portfolio. Can you recommend any international or developing market etfs? Any international etfs with a value investing model? Thanks.

Q: In response to a recent question you said that VXUS is a very attractive possibility for stocks outside the US. I already own VWO and was wondering whether it would be a compliment to that, or whether there would be redundancy? Isuppose I could ask the same question of a European ETF?
thanks for the great help

Q: Although I do not ask many questions I read all your question and answers on a daily basis and have utilized the information often! I would appreciate your thoughts on the best ETF for international exposure. Thanks.

Q: I own pretty much all the stocks in your model portfolio (other than GC, PKI, SJ, and SYZ) and about 1/2 of your growth portfolio. I also own a number of ETFs, including VXC, VCN, VAB, CDZ, SPY, XAW, and VXUS. I was doing a review of my portfolio and noticed that the ETFs above now make up 20% of my portfolio. A couple questions:
1) Are some of these ETFs redundant in my case?
2) What sector allocation would you suggest for 2018?

Q: Good morning 5i
Thank you for the new website. Its great.
I bought VXUS... thank you. I am well diversified with equities and will have some Canadian dollars to spend after I shave some of my winners (which there are many..thank you) in my RRIF. What would you suggest in the form of an ETF? Europe? Japan UK Australia??? etc??? VXUS being international may cause an overlap but perhaps there is one area that you are particularily in favour of?? Do you expect more growth in the near to medium term (3 to 5 years) in any of these areas? Or should I plan this as a long term (5 to 10 year) investment. Thank you for your timely and priceless answers.

Q: Morning, New website looks good! I am looking to improve a family members TFSA which was setup by a bank. They put her into some lame and expensive mutual funds, no surprise. Am thinking about XWD and ZLB as replacements, with the goal being balance as well as capital appreciation. Any other suggestions? Thanks, Lavern

Q: Hello I am looking for a "one stop" etf that covers everything but US and Canada, which I am adequately invested in. I have checked the Vanguard Canada products such as VI/VIU but they seem to have a heavy concentration of investments in Japan (21-23% of holdings). Are you aware of another etf that may be appropriate? In the alternative should I consider one covering Europe and one covering emerging markets? Your thoughts would be most helpful. Thank you, Bill.

Q: do you recommend reducing exsposure from USA and Canadian stocks and add a bit of European and Emerging market and if so what mutual funds or stocks would you recommend that are available on the Canadian or usa markets that would accomplish this

Q: Please recommend some USD non-US global ETF options for large cap dividend payers. I would appreciate pros/cons of any recommendations from your perspective. Please deduct the appropriate number of credits.

Q: Goodmorning My wife has approximately 50k in cash in her rrsp that she would like to put to work she is looking for 5 investment ideas for a conservative investor be they ETF or individual companies that pay a 3 to 4 % dividend. She is currently well diversified over all sectors
Thks
Marcel

Q: Please give me your three top fixed income etf's.
Also, I would like your top Europe and International E T F's.
Thank you again for your help!
Audrey

Q: Hi,

I'm currently only holding XEF(1.5%) and VEE(1%) for international and EM exposure. I'm looking to increase it a bit more maybe to 5%, as the rest of my portfolio is in US or CAD equities. I know you have talked about VXUS as a good international ETF to hold and the expense ratio of 0.11% is hard to beat. When I look at the regional allocation for VXUS, 19.3% is EM, so if we just hold that, would we even need to hold VEE? What do you think would be best to hold to have international and EM exposure? How about VI and VIU (exposure excl. North America)?

Was looking at one or two good quality ETF's to hold. Your thoughts on how they compare?

Thanks!

Q: Hi there, as a follow up to my earlier question - you had suggested possibly purchasing the ETF VXUS for international diversity - are there any Canadian listed ETFs that would mimic a similar exposure to VXUS? Thanks!

Q: Hi, I want to Invest some of my cash outside of Canadian and US markets. I would appreciate if you can suggest a few markets with good valuations and potential. I do not want to pick individual stocks, but instead would buy an ETF.
Thanks

Q: My Father has finally caught on that paying the RBC +2% for their mutual funds is eroding his returns and asked for some help. He doesn't have the knowledge or temperament to jump into stocks so I am suggesting he move some investments to ETFs. He is 70, has a teachers pension and 250k of RSP "fun money" to play with. Since I view his pension as his fixed income portion of his portfolio I dont see any reason to get him into any fixed income ETFs or match your model ETF portfolio. I plan to suggest he move about 25k each into xwd, cdz and vgg for a start to get his feet wet. Then once he is comfortable move the rest into those same 3 funds ( assuming they are still on your suggested list at that time).

Any recommended adjustments to this approach in terms of ETFs or my equal weighting.

Q: It has been suggested to me that a high percentage of one's investments should be made outside Canada as this is what most pension funds do since Canada is such a small part of the world's capitalisation. Do you concur with this belief re investing? In Canada, in particular, and in the US, to a lesser degree, I have a wealth of information about specific companies. In the rest of the world it is difficult to obtain good information and to buy except through ADR's. Thus my best way to invest is through Mutual Funds or ETF's. It seems to me when I look into Global ETF's that none that I could find matched the long term performance of MAW150. Since I tend to hold an investment for a long period of time, short term fluctuations in value are of little concern. My biggest concerns are the MER of 1.74% per annum and the possibility that Mawer will not match future performance with past performance. Is there an ETF that has a good track record or a different Mutual with a low MER that matches or beats MAW150? If MAW150 is the best, then based on your response, I may purchase up to 25% of my assets in it. With this change in asset mix approximately 50% of investments will be outside of Canada. Thank you. I value your opinion very much.

Q: Hello 5i team

Like many others I am in the process of re-balancing as we move into the new year. I feel I am well diversified with one glaring omission which is my ex Canada and US holdings.

Could you help me out? I'm looking for an etf that is strong and stable and covers the rest of the world.

Thanks