Investment Q&A

Q: Can you suggest some short-term bond ETFs that are investing in government and/or large blue-chip companies? 3 for Canadian market and 3 for internal markets please? This is to provide regular income after retirement.

Q: I submitted a previous question about my sister converting her portfolio from a robo manager to self-directed. The last question dealt with the equities side (75%) while this one deals with the fixed income side (25%).

My suggestions to her all come from what I've gleaned from your website, so I'm really asking for confirmation and criticism here.

She wants 10% in gold so I've recommended 5% of Sprott's PHYS.TO and 5% of AEM.TO. We realize these are not fixed income but plan to use them as a long term hold (insurance) and not speculatively. For other 15%, I have suggested VAB.TO and XSB.TO.

Some of her funds are in USD so she could buy US or Global bonds if that would add safety. It seems that would complicate things unnecessarily, a main objective being to keep it simple.

Q: Is there any advantage to using ETFs rather than mutual funds in our fixed income portfolio? Presently, we have 35% in fixed income with DFA231, DFA 603, PM0 205 & LYS801F.

Q: Morning 5i Team, in order to add some torque to the fixed income portion of an RRSP, what do you think of the combination of these two @50% each? Better alternatives?
Thanks, Lavern

Q: Dear 5i Team,
After the recent great run up in equities you had graded highly(thank you), I’d like to move some profits to fixed income to keep close to the 40% FI.

What type of fixed income you think is most undervalued lately? Any ETFs on Canadian or US markets, any geography, graded from lower to higher risk.

Regards,

Carl van Rossum

Q: Hi Team,
Is there a ETF similar to VGRO but sold in $US without converting to Cdn? I have some cash on the US side of my RRSP and like the set up of VGRO but would rather not convert back to Cdn at this point.

Q: Hi 5i - I recently sold the last of my mutual funds, Capital Group Global Balanced. Can you suggest alternative investments that provide similar total returns and provide international (non-US) exposure? Thanks.

Q: I listened to a commentary where the analyst was suggesting one have a bond fund, in this case US, which receives income in a foreign [non-US] currency and then the fund converts that to USD. As the USD depreciates from QE relative to other currencies [if this happens in reality] the inflow to the bond fund will be worth more in USD. Is that a logical approach and would Vanguard’s BNDX be an appropriate? Even if the above is a stretch would holding some of one’s bond allocation in BNDX be prudent?

Thank you.

Q: Hi,
I'm trying to create a well balanced bond fund for that portion of my portfolio and have come up with this: HFR-T, CBO-T, CLF-T, TLT, XBB-T, CVD-T, SHY, FLOT, IVOL, BNDX, VSG-T
I guess I should have something that will generate monthly income as well? If I am overdoing this, please let me know...it seems like a lot of holdings. Is there a better way? A mutual fund?
Thanks.