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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: Hi, I own GOOG, MSFT and AMZN which make up the bulk of my US investments, but I have been underweight US in my portfolio mostly because of fear of the detailed T1135 which doesn’t make for very sound investing/portfolio management. I am thinking of adding EQL (CDN listed and not overweight tech) and XSU (CDN listed as an IWO proxy) to get a bit of small cap growth potential. I would aim for about 80/20 respectively, and for perspective, EQL would end us being about 15% of total equity portfolio. Can I have your thoughts?
Read Answer Asked by Stephen R. on April 27, 2026
Q: Thank you for your answer to the question (copied below) that I asked a few days ago.

I wasn't so much asking about my own strategy, but whether you think such a strategy (moving some money out of tech and into the broader market) is a good move in the current climate.

NVDA and GOOG are part of the same theme. Do you think these are winners to be held on to, or whether trimming a bit to put in the broader market would be wise?


Question: Given that the market is broadening out and that I would like my portfolio to follow suit, I am thinking of switching half of my money in XUU, a market-cap weighted fund which makes up about 10% of my portfolio, to EQL, an S&P equal-weighted fund.

What would your opinion be on that?

Also, along the same line of thought, I'm considering trimming NVDIA and GOOG although the mere mention of it has my investing friends screaming "NO!". They understand the sentiment but think it's not the right time.

Answer: We think XUU is a solid fund, but if diversiifcation is a goal then we think EQL makes good sense. For example, XUU currently is about 42% tech. EQL is barely at 10%.
Read Answer Asked by Kevin on February 24, 2026
Q: Given that the market is broadening out and that I would like my portfolio to follow suit, I am thinking of switching half of my money in XUU, a market-cap weighted fund which makes up about 10% of my portfolio, to EQL, an S&P equal-weighted fund.

What would your opinion be on that?

Also, along the same line of thought, I'm considering trimming NVDIA and GOOG although the mere mention of it has my investing friends screaming "NO!". They understand the sentiment but think it's not the right time.
Read Answer Asked by Kevin on February 20, 2026
Q: ? performance of these 2 etfs.
1. how did each one do during the last major downturns financial crisis A. dot.com B. financial crisis and C covid crisis?
and 2. in general, performance of each over the last 5,10, 15 and 20 years
Read Answer Asked by Ernest on January 26, 2026
Q: I'm thinking of shifting some money out of S&P500 index and into XSU / EQL / VIU so I'm not so overpositioned in tech and whatnot. Good idea? Thoughts?

Reasoning:
XSU - smallcaps should outperform at somepoint?
EQL - same stocks but more equally weighted
VIU - north am excluded (also own ind stocks in cad and us)
Read Answer Asked by Danielle on December 16, 2025
Q: Good morning 5i,

With your vast experience with ETFs, im looking for 2 US ones?

1) market cap weighted ?

2) Equal weighted ?

thanking you in advance

SG
Read Answer Asked by Stephen on July 11, 2025
Q: Good morning. I currently own the above 4 ETFs in the following shares of my portfolio:
ZDI: 9.56%
The combination of ZDY, EQL and EQLI: 15.9%
I have some other US positions while ZDI is currently my only ex North American position.
ZDI has been performing very well YTD with +13% total return (per my purchase cost) while The US EYFs are lower than 0% total returns.
Do you currently see the European momentum building or continuing ? And if so woul it be worth it to flip some of the US ETFs over to ZDI or any other ex-North America ETF ? THank you.
Read Answer Asked by Roger on May 23, 2025
Q: Good Morning

I would like to increase my US position in my RRSP. I currently cover this US exposure through VBAL(core position) VFV approx 4.5%, Legacy positions of ZLU and ZWH approx, 3%, totaling approx. 31% US. My thoughts were to replace ZLU/ZWH and increase VFV and add EQL to gain broader exposure to US market. Would this give me a good exposure without over duplication? I am retired and 65 and would like a balanced plus approach. Your thoughts or other ideas would be appreciated.

Thank you,
Mike
Read Answer Asked by Donald Michael on January 24, 2025
Q: Hi 5i Team,

Based on the webinar that Chris presented it appears that the equal-weight S&P 500 has lagged compared to the market-weight S&P 500. Based on this I suspect you would recommend having some exposure to the equal-weight S&P 500? If so, what would be a good ETF that you would recommend or are there any individual stocks within the equal-weight S&P 500 that you think might have a bit more upside than the average?

Thanks as always,
Jon
Read Answer Asked by Jonathan on October 04, 2024
Q: Can you recommend a hedged ETF that follows the S&P 500, but not with the Magnificent 7 having a lot of weight, as I feel these are overbought? I really like ZUE but it has too much Magnificent 7. Looking for 10% appreciation first year including both capital appreciation and dividends.
Read Answer Asked by Ron on September 30, 2024
Q: Hi 5i Team,

Is there an ETF equivalent of RSP (S&P equal weight) that trades in Canada? If, not can you suggest a best alternative?

Thanks for the amazing service over the last 10+ years!

Angelo
Read Answer Asked by Angelo on September 04, 2024
Q: Hello,
The announcement today of Topicus's CEO taking on additional roles have any longer term impact? Also, the shares are not moving much after the results. What is your overall view? You had recommended RSP as the symbol for equal weight ETF tracking 500 companies in US (to diversify from SPY which has lots of tech exposure). Is there a cdn equivalent for RSP. i cannot seem to find one. thanks very much
Read Answer Asked by umedali on May 09, 2024
Q: Is there an ETF that provides equal weight coverage of the TSX similar to what EQL does for the S&P 500?
I would like to increase my ETF holdings providing a broad coverage of the Cdn market vs individual stocks. I already have a heavy weighting in individual financial stocks and most TSX ETFs would simply further skew my overall balance.
Read Answer Asked by Bruce on April 23, 2024