Building Wealth

For the first 30 or so years of working, saving and investing, you’ll be first in the mode of getting out of the hole (paying down debt), and then building your net worth (that’s wealth accumulation.). But don’t forget, wealth accumulation isn’t the ultimate goal. Decumulation is! (a separate category here at the Hub).

TIARA: There Is a Real Alternative

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | July 10, 2023

By John De Goey, CFP, CIM

Special to the Financial Independence Hub

By now, you’ve likely heard the term FOMO: the Fear of Missing Out. You’ve likely also heard the term TINA: There Is No Alternative.

Taken together, these handy little pop culture acronyms explain a good deal of what has gone on in capital markets over the past three years or so. I’d like to take this opportunity to push back a little on the second one. Based on current valuations, there may not be a sensible alternative to stocks, bonds, and real estate, but there may well be an alternative in …. wait for it…. alternatives.

Alternative assets are varied and the term ‘alternative’ could mean different things to different people. The asset class is known on a non-correlated basis by offering opportunities in such varied assets as infrastructure, liquid alternatives, structured notes, and hedge funds. While I personally dislike the last option due to high fees, illiquidity, and opaque reporting, depending on client objectives and risk tolerance, I believe there’s often a strong case that can be made for adding alternatives to your portfolio. As such, here’s a new term: TIARA. It stands for: There Is A Real Alternative. You’re not stuck with having to only choose between some combination of stocks and bonds. [Editor’s Note: John De Goey coined this term.]

A third major Asset Class

In the past half decade or so, many more traditional asset allocation strategies have changed significantly as bond yields have declined. The asset class that has been gaining the most traction is alternatives. Continue Reading…

Should you Dump your All-Equity ETF?

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | July 7, 2023

By Justin Bender, CFA, CFP

Special to Financial Independence Hub

In our last blog/video, we introduced the all-equity ETFs from iShares and Vanguard. These ETFs make it easy to gain and maintain exposure to global stock markets with the click of a mouse, eliminating the hassle of juggling several ETFs in your all-equity portfolio.

Vanguard and iShares don’t offer their services for free though.

The MERs for their all-equity ETFs are slightly higher than the weighted-average MERs of their underlying holdings. Consider this modest surcharge as the price of admission for their professional asset allocation and rebalancing services. In my opinion, that’s a bargain for most investors.

Then again, there are those who might prefer to squeeze every last penny out of their portfolio costs. If that’s you, you may want to try skipping the value-add of an all-equity ETF, and simply purchase the underlying ETFs directly, in similar weights. If you take on the task of rebalancing back to your targets each month when you add new money to your portfolio, you should be able to mimic an all-equity ETF for a lower overall MER.

That’s the goal anyway. But it’s still going to take time, money, or both to keep your asset allocations on track each month. Let’s look at three potential strikes against trying to reinvent an all-equity ETF on your own, as well as one potential play that may serve as a suitable compromise.

Strike One: The potential cost savings are minimal.

For example, let’s say you’ve got $10,000 to invest. Instead of investing it in the Vanguard All-Equity ETF Portfolio, or VEQT, you could divide it up among VEQT’s component funds. The estimated cost savings might let you rent an extra movie each year, but are the savings really worth it? The extra time you’ll need to spend on rebalancing may not leave you much time to even enjoy your movie.

For larger amounts, the fee savings start adding up, but only if you can buy and sell ETF shares at zero commission as you rebalance. If not, you can forget about it.

Strike Two: Managing a portfolio of four ETFs (instead of just one) will be more difficult.

Sticking with our VEQT example, a DIY investor would either need to visit Vanguard’s website monthly to collect the individual ETF weights within VEQT, or use the market cap data from the FTSE and CRSP index fact sheets to determine how to allocate each of the underlying ETFs. They would then need to calculate how many ETF units to buy or sell across various accounts to get their portfolio back on target, and place multiple trades to get the job done. Continue Reading…

Approach the A.I. bandwagon with caution

Posted By Jonathan Chevreau | July 6, 2023

It’s hard to pick up a financial publication or peruse most general-interest media outlets these days without being blitzed by stories about ChatGPT and the latest mania: A.I. or Artificial Intelligence.

Just last week the New York Times devoted an episode of its The Daily podcast to Silicon Valley’s rush to A.I., even as venture capitalists start shying away with the previous darling, Cryptocurrency.

It seems everyone wants a piece of what they hope will become the next Nvidia, a chip play that pundit Jim Cramer once named after his own dog. Give him credit: anyone who bought before Nvidia famously passed the US$1 trillion market cap level this year is probably sitting on a double or triple, including Yours Truly.

In a recent video interview I did with Allan Small, I mentioned in passing that while I do happen to own Nvidia going back some years, I also have my share of painful losers, and that my approach to A.I. and technology in general is that it should merely be part of a normal diversified portfolio. I told him that I’ve always had a reasonable exposure to technology, seeing as I was the Globe & Mail’s technology reporter going back to the early 1980s (perhaps one of the first to specialize in that beat.)

A.I.-themed ETFs

Speaking of the Globe, I see that its personal finance columnist Rob Carrick recently weighed in with his take on A.I. You can find it (under paywall) here. For those who can’t get past the paywall, Carrick lists some examples of A.I.-themed ETFs, adding the hedge “if you’re comfortable with the risk of a more direct approach to AI investing.”

One is an ETF I happened to take a flyer on myself a few years ago, so far under water: the Global X Robotics & Artificial Intelligence ETF (BOTZ-Q; the others include the iShares Robotics and Artificial Intelligence Multisector ETF (IRBO-A) and the First Trust Nasdaq Artificial intelligence ETF (ROBT-Q.) Carrick also mentions a few other Canadian-listed ETFs with the most exposure to AI produced by TD Securities: I’ll just list the suppliers and ticker symbols here: two from Horizons ETFs (RBOT-T and MTAV-T), two from Evolve (TECH-T and DATA-T), and one from BMO: ZINT-T.

Personally, I doubt I’ll buy any of these theme ETFs. Investors typically get burned by the FOMO and elevated valuations inherent on jumping on a thematic bandwagon once the train has already left the station [to mix a metaphor] and embraced widely by the media. The most prominent example will be marijuana ETFs, which have generated little but painful losses for most investors, even those early to the party. More recently are cryptocurrencies, whether obscure individual holdings or packaged up in ETFs (led by Canada!) Continue Reading…

Why this blogger doesn’t invest in Canadian Dividend ETFs [An oldie but goodie from 2019, updated for 2023]

Posted By Financial Independence Hub | July 5, 2023

By Mark Seed, myownadvisor

Special to Financial Independence Hub

It’s fun to look back and see how things change…or not. :)

Fans of this site, including many long-time readers and investors who enjoy this site, continue to tout the benefits of low-cost investing to others … I do too … but I still don’t invest in any Canadian Dividend ETFs.

That’s because when it comes to investing I believe you often get what you don’t pay for.

One way to reduce your investment fees, is to own lower-cost dividend ETFs but that doesn’t mean such funds are automatically suited for you and your approach.

In this updated post, I remind readers why I like some low-cost ETFs, why I own a few in my portfolio but when it comes to investing in Canada I’ve decided to build my own ETF per se.

I wrote about this in 2011. Yup, that long ago. I updated that post in 2017. And, it’s now 2023.

Learn how things change or what stays the same in this updated post and share your own story or comment about stocks or ETFs held for many years in a comment on the site. I read every comment and I try to answer every one of them as well.

Read on: Why I (still) don’t invest in Canadian Dividend ETFs.

Why I don’t invest in Canadian Dividend ETFs

Fans of this site, including many long-time readers and investors who enjoy this site, continue to tout the benefits of low-cost investing to others…but I still don’t invest in any Canadian Dividend ETFs.

That’s because when it comes to investing I believe you often get what you don’t pay for.

One way to reduce your investment fees, is to own lower-cost dividend ETFs.

In fact, here are some of the great benefits that come from investing in dividend ETFs beyond just ETF distribution income:

Transparency – within a few taps of my phone I can see what every single holding is in these funds. I can also read up on the fund’s prospectus to learn how fund turnover is managed and how often. Portfolio turnover within the fund costs money – someone needs to get paid! That brings me to my next point below.
Modest fees – you might recall, active fund management costs more because money managers are paid to perform. A pay for performance mandate encourages the mutual fund money manager to buy and sell stocks frequently in an attempt to beat the market or the index they are tracking. Fund management, buying and selling, incurs time and resources. Time is money. Those costs are passed on to you. Instead of this model, I think investors should strive to invest in a low-cost ETF that follows a reputable, established, broad market index such as the S&P/TSX Composite Total Return Index or for dividend investors in Canada, an established dividend-oriented index such as:
- S&P/TSX 60 Index (my favourite – see low-cost ETF from iShares XIU), or
- S&P/TSX Composite High Dividend Index, or
- FTSE Canada High Dividend Yield Index.
Lower effort – if you’re going to invest in some individual stocks, you need to spend some time understanding these companies and understanding what you own, why you own it. I read a few annual reports every year and follow metrics like yield, payout ratio, earnings per share, cash flow to name a few. Dividend ETFs don’t have this complexity – they bundle all these companies together for you.

There are certainly many benefits to owning Canadian dividend ETFs…but I still don’t invest in any of these Canadian funds.

Read on in this updated post…

Why I don’t invest in Canadian Dividend ETFs

Here are my reasons why:

1. I built my own Canadian Dividend ETF.

Many years ago, I learned there is merit to owning the same Canadian stocks the big funds own – so I started that process. I’ve never looked back.

In 2011 and updated again in 2017, I went so far as to say Canadian dividend stock selection could be made easy.

Here is one quick example – look at this RBC Canadian Dividend Fund in 2011:

And now the same fund’s top fund holdings as of April 2017:

And what does the RBC Canadian Dividend Fund own in 2023?

Lots of differences eh? (Images courtesy of RBC’s site.)

Source: https://www.rbcgam.com/en/ca/products/mutual-funds/RBF266/detail

Let’s look at another example and pick on one of my favourite ETFs: XIU.

Now, again, if you don’t want to buy and hold certain stocks, nor try and create your own Canadian Dividend ETF like I have, then no problem. This fund is arguably one of the best ETFs to own in Canada.

(I recall iShares XIU was one of the world’s first ETFs.)

XIU holds the largest of the largest Canadian companies. My perspective is, if collectively the largest 60 companies in Canada aren’t making money year-over-year, nobody is.

This ETF has provided strong Canadian market returns over the last decade and remains a great choice for your indexed portfolio should you decide to go that route.

Here are the top holdings from XIU, from April 2017:

And as of April 2019:

And what does low-cost XIU in 2023?

XIU ETF June 2023

Humm, not too many changes. Something to consider…

2. I control the portfolio turnover (which is largely non-existent)!

I can count on my hands how many stocks I’ve bought then sold over the last 15 years. Yes, full disclosure, I have sold a few stocks over the years. I believe that comes with the DIY investor territory.

However, for the most part, instead of buying and selling any stocks including Beat the TSX stocks, I buy and hold and reinvest dividends for higher income over time.

You can see how that (boring) approach is working out for me below. Continue Reading…

The Four-year Rule: One of the Must-Know Stock Trading rules for Beginners

Posted By Pat McKeough | July 4, 2023

Are you interested in stock trading rules for beginners? The “four-year” rule is an important one to understand for growing your profits

Are you interested in stock trading rules for beginners? Most “market rules” turn out to be demonstrations of the fact that random events tend to occur in bunches. The “research” they grow out of generally consists of studying statistics until you find start-and-end dates of periods when a hypothetical indicator would have paid off.

In most cases, if you change the start and/or end dates, the market rules/indicators lose their advantage or go into reverse. Even if you stick with the same start and end dates, the indicator will still go into reverse eventually.

However, the four-year rule is an exception among other stock trading rules for beginners. That’s because it’s based on events that tend to recur in predictable phases of the four-year U.S. Presidential term.

Some statistics are worth a close look

From the election of Andrew Jackson in 1832 till the election of Donald Trump in 2016, the U.S. has gone through 47 complete four-year Presidential terms.

In the first years of each of these 47 four-year presidential terms (starting with the year after the Presidential Election year) the average result for the U.S. stock market was a gain of 3%.

In the second years (the mid-term election years), the annual gain averaged 4.0%. The average result for the third years (the pre-Presidential Election years) was a 10.4% gain. The average for the fourth years (the Presidential Election years) was a gain of 6.0%. (Source: Stock Traders Almanac 2022.)

This pattern probably comes about because of a couple of unchanging things about most U.S. Presidential Elections:

First, most U.S. political office holders, regardless of party, want to get re-elected, or pave the way to the election of a successor from their own party.
Second, U.S. Presidential Elections bring out many “swing voters” who might not bother to vote in less important elections. They tend to get interested in the Presidential Election because of the torrent of attention it inspires, in the media and in day-to-day conversation.

That’s why newly elected or re-elected presidents often introduce unpleasant necessities in the first year or at least first half of the term. (The best recent example is the need President Trump felt to confront China early in his term.) Swing voters (or voters generally, for that matter) will have had time to get over the shock of the news before the next Presidential Election. In fact, the unpleasant necessities of the first half of the term may have begun paying dividends by the second half. Continue Reading…

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Why I don’t invest in Canadian Dividend ETFs

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Are you interested in stock trading rules for beginners? The “four-year” rule is an important one to understand for growing your profits

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