DIY Investing

As the reader correctly notes, the tax-inefficiencies in Vanguard’s AA ETFs mainly lie with the underlying bonds (not with the equities) – at least in taxable accounts. You see, many of the bonds in fixed income ETFs are currently trading at what’s called a “premium” to their maturity value.

So, what did you think of the Game of Thrones grand finale??? I don’t want to spoil it for both of you who haven’t watched it yet, so I won’t share my own thoughts here. DM me if you’re interested.

Our ongoing series on ETF investing may not be quite as thrilling as you manage to catch “Game of Thrones” in real time this season, but I hope we’re at least helping you dominate your own ETF empire.

In our last episode, we learned how to combine international and emerging markets equity ETFs in a madcap, market cap global adventure (by way of Korea). If the entire exercise brought back unpleasant memories of elementary school math drills, you might prefer our next three pieces.

In the last installment of my “Understanding ETFs” series, we toured the U.S. equity ETF landscape, covering solutions you can use to diversify your portfolio’s domestic stock allocation. Today, let’s head overseas, to explore how to further diversify your global portfolio by adding ETFs from other developed markets around the globe.

In the first installment in my “Understanding ETFs” series, we toured the Canadian equity ETF landscape, covering solutions you can use for your investment portfolio’s domestic stock allocation. Today, I want to switch gears and head south of the border, to explore some of the U.S. equity ETFs you can add in, to diversify your Canadian-heavy portfolio.

Hello everyone. Are you ready for a crash course in understanding exchange-traded funds (ETFs)? Today, we’ll kick things off by popping the hoods on a sporty collection of Canadian equity ETF solutions for your portfolio’s domestic stock allocation.

Most investors accept that small-cap stocks have outperformed large-cap stocks over the long-term. This “size effect” was the first market anomaly to challenge the single-factor, capital asset pricing model. Unfortunately, as I’ll explain in this post, I’m unaware of any funds currently available to a DIY investor that DO properly apply the small-cap effect.

If you’re hoping I’m going to tell you how to successfully pick winning stocks, you might as well shift your attention elsewhere. Instead, I’m going to show you the evidence on just how risky it is to even try.

If there’s an overnight success story to be savored from 2018, it would be Vanguard’s Asset Allocation ETFs. Since their launch earlier this year, their combined assets under management have already exceeded $800 million. What’s not to like about gaining access to a low-cost, self-rebalancing globally diversified portfolio with the click of a mouse?