Investment Q&A

Q: Greetings

I have a US dollar account with 10% in US cash at the present time. In Canada, I have MAW 104 and like its set up.

Is there a similar US fund company to MAW 104 available or would you suggest just going with a product like VBAL? If VBAL, what is the US designation name for the product?

Thanks

Peter

Q: Hello 5i team,
I'm looking for a one stop global balanced dividend etf at this time, for the next 4 year time frame.
Maybe VGRO, Vbal etc. but not prefered, I'd like about 3% Canadian content in it.
Too much in Canada already.
Any ideas other than balancing MAW120 or XAW with a GIC ladder ?

Q: Would you please suggest 2 or 3 US balanced funds, available in Cdn$ and hedged. Thanks

Q: I currently own 200K in vbal, 200K in vgro, 150K in xwd and 50K in vee, I am thinking of switching out vee with zlu as zlu performs better in the long run and also vee is covered in vgro and vbal.
Thoughts?
Thanks
SF

Q: Having been doing some research on couch potato investing as opposed to me being actively involved.
As such, I am considering VGRO for myself and VBAL for my spouse's TFSAs. 4-5 year investment time frame.
Do you think this a good idea in putting all eggs in Vanguard's basket? What alternatives would you suggest?

Appreciate the insights and information you have provided and continue to provide.

JOhn

Q: Greetings 5i

I continue to focus in on dividend producers that offer security as I enter retirement. At the present time in my TFSA I already have a 20% weighting in VBAL and 5% in XRE. I have another 5% to allocate which will be coming from my sale of BAD as I slowly transition to more security. Which do you suggest as the best alternative? Any other suggestions?

I know VBAL and XRE are very different in context and dividend payout so I need your insight. What I do know is that I’m having a great long ride with Shopify. For that I’m happy not to receive a dividend. Thanks 5i!

Peter

Q: Good morning.. can you please recommend an etf something like NBC7433 - Meritage Global Balanced Portfolio - Advisor Series/ISC .. but with a much more reasonable MER than 2.39% (in addition to a “sales charge option”) ? Thanks!

Q: We just recently were switched from a fund we had been invested since 2002 into this fund in one our RIF accounts, we had to switch or sell. The reason given was to lower the MER which is still a hefty 1.2% in our case the amounts to $1090.92 per year and rising if the fund goes up in value as we have always reinvested the monthly income the current yield is 2.09%.
The fund has been in a trading range since inception from the information I can gather at TD.
My thought is to sell and distribute the money to the either the Conservative or Balanced ETF portfolios in the newsletter which both have higher yields.
I'm not sure what the total MER would be for the ETF portfolios do you have that number available?
Downside is it would double the number of investments in this account to many to follow.
Do you know of other one stop ETF's that are worth consideration as we would like to keep the funds in a balanced investment, we would not intend to use this money for 5 yrs and reinvest any income in the fund.

Q: I realize that there is some overlap between these two funds, but would you say that there is too much, or would they compliment each other, thanks?

Q: For a retiree, does it make sense to invest all in VBAL or might you supplement VBAL with some additional ETFs along with some individual income/growth stocks?

Thanks
Bryan

Q: Hi

My question is about structuring and managing a portfolio across multiple registered and unregistered accounts. Please forgive if this question has been asked before.

Between 4 family members (including two young children) we have 11 trading accounts on the go, including 5 unregistered (3 Cdn and 2 US), 2 tfsa’s, 2 rrsp’s, and 2 resp’s. My approach to date has generally been to try to diversify within each account and try not to duplicate between accounts, with an eye to overall diversification.

This results in three problems (at least): sub-optimal diversification within and across accounts, too many holdings (which are difficult to monitor) and a low average $ value per holding. For example, 11 accounts times ten positions per account is 110 holdings. As for low value, a 10% holding on a $50,000 registered account is $5,000, which represents only 0.5% of an aggregate $1,000,000 value (example).

I have been thinking of treating all of the accounts holistically rather than individually while accounting for tax considerations of course. My goal is to try to get the number of holdings down to 20 - 30, with an average value of 3% - 5% of aggregate portfolio value. I find the main difficulty to be in structuring the lower value accounts.

Two approaches I have been mulling over:

1) Scrap the individual account diversification approach and perhaps only hold 1 - 3 positions in lower value accounts. This approach would probably mean that no account on its own will be diversified but the aggregate portfolio will be (hopefully).
2) Try to maintain the account diversification approach by investing in only one etf per account until the account eventually reaches a size sufficient to hold more positions (then I suppose the approach would flip to the first approach). The idea being that each account would hold a different etf (and at least be somewhat diversified) that would contribute to the overall diversification of the aggregate portfolio.

Do you have any comments or guidance on managing multiple accounts? How do investment professionals manage their own family accounts? Any best practices that you are aware of, or good articles that you can direct me to? Any considerations besides tax; for example, how do you apportion risk between family members and accounts?

Thanks
Derek

Q: What is the best all in one etf for Canada, us,and global? Thanks larry

Q: I have my kids RESP in RBF460 with a MER of 1.94%. My personal ROR is 6.16%. I will need this money in next 4 years and was wondering if there is an ETF that I can make switch, to avoid the high MER and attain 7% ROR?
Thanks

Q: Hi there. In August I became nervous about managing the amount of money I had been and got an investment advisor from the Royal Bank. I then invested half of my savings into their mutual funds. A large chunk of it is in the RBC Select Balanced Portfolio. As this is a mutual fund there is a mer of 1.94%. So question # 1 is: is this a reasonable mer?
I have noticed now that this mutual fund invests in 10 other (mostly RBC) mutual funds. So my second question is: how does this work for the other mers? Who is paying these mers? Am I paying 1.94% plus other hidden fees for the mutual funds within the first mutual fund?

Thanks,
Sue

Q: I have the Vanguard Balance ETF (VBAL) and I find that it is well balance and is performing well. Do you know if the same type of ETF exist for U.S. Balance ETF?
Thanks

Q: Hello 5i

I am a retired cautious investor who is slowly moving from individual stocks in both my registered and non-registered accounts to Mawer 105.

I do, however, believe in diversification. As I slowly unwind my accounts with their individual diversified holdings would it be wiser to spread my future investments between such products as Mawer 105 and VBal or simply go “all in” with one or the other ... or any other product you would suggest?

Thank you

Peter

Q: We have about $150k in a Family RESP invested in the Fidelity Clearpath 2025 Portfolio Series B ISC target date fund. On the Fidelity fact sheet it says "Series B has the highest combined management and administration fees among the series in the Program". We were put into the fund by our previous financial advisor. Funny how that worked. The current MER is 2.17%. Could you recommend two or three alternative ETF's or funds with more reasonable MER's or even possibly a handful of suitable stocks? The funds won't be needed for another five years. Thanks.

Q: If you followed the Balanced Equity Portfolio and the Balanced ETF would you be fairly well represented in each TSX sector based on previous 5i answers and would you also be well represented geographically ie Canada/US/International ...40% ,35% and 25%. If not what would you suggest to come close to these percentages and TSX sector allocations?

Q: Hi guys
As you know Elderly Care is expensive..roughly 6 grand a month. Sold the house 5 years ago (big mistake) put the money in a split between GICs & BNS430 . 60% GICS 40% BNS430. This isn't enough Income to stop the Capital Drain. Myself, Im not impressed with the MER or the returns from the Scotia Innova Income Portfolio Series T. Was thinking of switching out of GIC or BNS430 to the MAW105. Would you have any other ideas?. Im a little scared of the Dividend ETFs, BMO dividend ETF got Hammered 30% in 2008....Yikes
thanks Gord ( take a many credits as you like)

Q: Hi Peter & Ryan,
Would appreciate your opinion on simplifying my mother's portfolio. The portfolio is worth 600K and I currently hold the following ETF's. VCN, VFV, XSP, VBAL, VGRO, VVL, XIN, VEE, XWD. I definately have duplication and believe I can downsize to 3 ETF's VBAL, VGRO and I like XWD for their global allocation and sector weighting.
Thoughts? And would you put 200K in each one?
Thanks,
Steve