I’ve written about Robinhood, a US-based online broker in the context of DIY platforms and the seemingly never-ending gravy train of promotions.
Up until June 1, 2026, Robinhood hasn’t had any offerings for the Canadian consumer. But with the closure of their acquisition of WonderFi (aka Bitbuy, aka Coinsquare, aka Bitcoin.ca)1, they now have a Canadian presence, at least when it comes to crypto trading (something I don’t do).
Robinhood is notable in the DIY investor space because they pretty much invented the idea of commission-free trades for all stocks and ETFs. It’s not clear when (or even if) Robinhood will expand its Canadian offerings beyond crypto but other DIY brokers out there (e.g. Wealthsimple, a bit of a Robinhood clone) are certainly going to be paying attention.
Increased competition in Canadian DIY investing platforms can only benefit the DIY investor. Welcome to Canada, Robinhood. Make sure you spell “cheque” and “chequing” right 😉
aka 4 companies I’ve never heard of before today ↩︎
It’s not that often an ETF launch causes so much buzz, but my usual feeds are all talking about Avantis CIBC CAGE. So what is it? Per its fact sheet it
Invests primarily in equity securities from developed and emerging markets through a portfolio of ETFs. The fund selects companies based on value and profitability characteristics, using a broad set of company financial fundamentals such as book value, earnings, and cash flow, together with current market prices. Designed to provide diversified global equity exposure in a single investment option.
“Invests primarily in equity securities…through a portfolio of ETFs”
Translation: CAGE is a fund of funds that’s 100% equity. Sounds a lot like XEQT/ZEQT/TEQT/VEQT. Looking a little deeper, it holds
CAUS: A US Equity ETF
CACE: A Canadian Equity ETF
CADE: An International Equity ETF
CASV: A Global Small Cap ETF
CAEM: An Emerging Equity ETF
Seems pretty normal so far.
“The fund selects companies based on value and profitability…using financial fundamentals”
Translation: This isn’t an index fund. CAGE is picking which companies to invest in based on balance sheet metrics. This starts to sound like a typical managed fund that typically underperforms the index it’s supposed to be measured against1.
I’m skeptical. Index (aka passive) investing has proven that it works over time.
What’s inside CAGE?
So, let’s see what’s actually inside this fund and compare it to XEQT2. As it turns out, this isn’t easy. Figuring out what’s inside CAGE requires you to navigate to each of CAGE’s holdings and look at what’s there. Irritating, but that’s not the worst of it — the constituent funds only show top 10 holdings each. That leads to a tremendous blind spot as to what you’re actually purchasing when you buy shares of CAGE. I hope CIBC fixes this, and soon. Anyway, I took XEQT’s top 10 and compared it to CAGE’s allocation.
US Equity: 39.4% Canadian Equity: 30% International Equity: 17.6% Global Small Cap Equity: 8%9 Emerging Equity: 5%
US Equity: 45% Canadian Equity: 25% International Equity: 25% Emerging Equity: 5%
Comparing CAGE metrics with XEQT
This shows that CAGE is more expensive, holds fewer underlying stocks (we think), has a higher dividend yield (unsurprising, given its focus) and invests more in Canada than XEQT at the expense of International Equity10.
Performance
Comparing performance isn’t going to be very useful since CAGE is new, but CAGE inherits its strategy from an older US-based fund, namely AVGE. Now, to be clear, AVGE and CAGE aren’t quite the same thing. CAGE, as a Canadian fund, will tilt more to Canadian Equity holdings. But the approach used by AVGE and CAGE is the same: find quality companies and invest in them, wherever they are. So to me, comparing AVGE to its benchmark, the MSCI all-country investable market index, is a fair comparison. That index can be purchased by buying ACWI, an ETF that I’ve never heard of. I have heard of VT, so I’ll throw that into the mix since that seems to be a similar idea. Here’s what https://dqydj.com/stock-return-calculator/11 had to say about that:
Comparing performance of VT, ACWI and AVGE to gauge effectiveness of Avantis’ stock picking techniques
AVGE doesn’t have a hugely long track record either (less than 4 years in existence) but, regrettably, it’s coming up on the short end of the stick as compared to the passive index funds. Not by a lot, though.
My take
Buzz or no, I don’t think this product is for me. I buy passively managed ETFs, for the most part12. The lack of transparency on CAGE’s holdings is irritating (I am hoping/assuming that CIBC will fix this) and there’s nothing about the performance of its US sister that leaves me with FOMO. I’ll stick with The magnificent seven ETFs for now.
As of April 30, 2026 for both. I note that XEQT provides daily updates on one screen to see what’s inside. For CAGE, you have to resort to spreadsheets. ↩︎
The constituent ETFs of CAGE only show top 10 holdings; Broadcom doesn’t crack the top 10 of CAUS which is 40.13% of CAGE. ↩︎
This is a monthly look at what’s in my retirement portfolio. The original post is here.
Portfolio Construction
The retirement portfolio is spread across a bunch of accounts:
5 RRIF accounts
3 for me (Questrade, Wealthsimple)
2 for my spouse (Questrade)
2 TFSA accounts (Questrade)
4 non-registered accounts, (1 for me, 1 for my spouse, 2 joint, all at Questrade)
The view post-payday
I pay myself monthly in retirement, so that’s a good trigger to update this post. On May 29 before the markets opened, this is what it looked like:
The portfolio is dominated by my ETF all-stars, (and if not an all-star, they are probably on the Magnificent Seven ETFs list). The charts look almost identical to the previous month; AOA is up a bit mostly because the USD has been on a bit of run this month, increasing almost 1% month over month :
Plan for the next month
The asset-class split looks like this; you can read about my asset-allocation approach to investing over here.
15% bonds/income (most are buried in XGRO and AOA, rest are in XCB)
23% Canadian equity (mostly based on ETFs that mirror the S&P/TSX — HXT and XIC); this is up from the old 20% target
37% US equity (dominated by ETFs that mirror the S&P 500); this is up 1% from the old target
20% International equity (mostly, but not exclusively, developed markets); this is down 4% from the old target
At the same time, I’m looking to get rid of my USD allocations since they are adding needless complexity and I no longer have a way to easily spend USD anyway. This is going to be a multi-month process1, but I want to be USD free by the end of the year.
So, next month, I will begin. I’ll first tackle ICSH in my non-registered account, which I’ll do once it pays out its monthly dividend in the first week of June. And I’ll begin replacing AOA with XGRO2.
Overall
Part of using VPW3 as a strategy is the need to calculate your retirement net worth on a monthly basis. And once again, a new all-time high:
My VPW-calculated salary continues to increase, albeit at a more modest rate, as expected.
Multi-month because I want to make sure I don’t get burned by a sudden change in USD/CAD FX rates. By converting some every month, I can smooth out any weird spikes. ↩︎
The biggest difference between AOA and XGRO (besides the native currency) is the amount of Canadian Equity content. AOA has a very small amount (about 3%) whereas XGRO has 20% ↩︎
Variable Percentage Withdrawal, my chosen decumulation strategy. ↩︎
Costco is often thought as the place to get ridiculously sized jars of mustard or toilet paper on the cheap. Both of these things are still true. But one easy travel hack that is offered to Costco members can easily pay for the cost of a membership1 in short order, and that is their gift card offer for flights on Porter Airlines and Air Canada.
For $449.99, you can buy a gift card on either airline that is worth $500 in flight credit. My math says that’s an instant $50 (and one cent) off without hardly trying.
And you don’t even have to fight for a parking spot at your local warehouse — both of these gift cards can be purchased entirely online, with an e-gift card arriving in your inbox (in my experience) within minutes2.
There are a few things to watch out for, though:
They are not refundable; on the plus side, they don’t expire, either
You can only buy four Air Canada gift cards every 2 weeks3
You can only buy 5 Porter cards at a time
You can only use two methods of payment for any one Air Canada reservation. This effectively means either (a) you can only use one gift card for your reservation or (b) you can use two gift cards, but then the total cost of your reservation needs to be below $1000
Air Canada gift cards are not valid at the airport, but Porter cards are.
If you use a Porter card at the airport, then the value of the gift card has to be greater than whatever it is you’re trying to buy. You can’t split payment between a gift card and a credit card.
Basic membership is $65 annually and gets you two memberships for people at the same address ↩︎
Product notes claim up to 24 hours for delivery, but I’ve not experienced that myself ↩︎
“while supplies last” is also added to the text on the web. I don’t think these e-gift cards take up much warehouse space, but I could be wrong…. ↩︎
Over the years I built my own portfolio tracker (the multi-asset tracker) and I’ve shared it on this website1. I’ll be the first to admit it’s not terribly user-friendly, which is somewhat understandable since I built it for myself.
If you want to take a look at another Google Sheet tracker that is fully documented and more user friendly, then you might want to take a look at Portfolio Tracker.
Anyway, the brains behind this tool are substantial, and I bow to the organization and wizardry of the author. For people who adhere to the idea of asset allocation as a way to make investment decisions, you won’t find a better fit.
So, in a nutshell, what does it do?
It allows you to track the value of your portfolio across multiple brokerage accounts using multiple data sources for near-real time quotes2
It allows you to set up your own asset classes to track and to set individual targets for each, both at the portfolio level and at the account level3.
It will show you how far off you are from your targets and make high-level recommendations for where (what account) to buy/sell to get back on track
One very nice feature of Portfolio Tracker is that a given asset can be divided up into multiple asset classes. For fans of asset allocation funds (like me) this is a critical feature. With this feature you can accurately depict that (say) XEQT is 25% Canadian equity and 45% US Equity.
Once I figured out the terms used in Portfolio Tracker, it was pretty straightforward to enter my own portfolio across the 5 RRIF, 2 TFSAs and 3 non-registered accounts.
What confused me at the beginning about Portfolio Tracker is that it has more layers than I’m used to:
It starts with asset. Like XGRO, AOA or ZMMK. So far so good.
Assets belong to one (or more) asset classes. If more than one, the percentage has to add up to 100%. Asset classes are where I focus my attention: Portfolio Tracker has more of them than I need4 by default but you can define as many or as few as you like.
Asset classes in turn belong to a unique Asset Category)5.; a given Asset Category can be the parent of multiple asset classes (e.g. US Small Cap and US Total Market asset classes are both included in the US Equity Asset Category)
And asset categories roll up into Parents (stocks, bonds, short-term)
One minor point of confusion to the Canadian user is the inclusion of TIPS which is a uniquely US investment vehicle. In Canada you can buy real return bonds or buy ETFs that hold TIPS if you wish. I don’t bother with either myself.
The only limitation I could find in this tool was that it didn’t support multiple currencies. If you hold USD assets (as I do), that is a very serious limitation, but one that I could (and did) correct myself pretty easily with a few changes. When I sent a note to the provided support email on that limitation, the author promptly replied and admitted it was not the first time someone had asked about it.
I recommend this tool as a user-friendly introduction to tracking your own portfolio.
I’ve built a new version based on pivot tables; on my to-do list is to make it generic enough to share. The new design lifts some ideas from Portfolio Tracker, in fact. ↩︎
At one time my own tracker did this too but as it requires web scraping code it breaks pretty frequently, and in the mean time googlefinance() has become much more reliable ↩︎
I’ve only really cared about portfolio level, but I have some broad rules about what goes where at the account level. TFSA: Equity only. RRIF: only place outside of the cash cushion where cash can be held. And the only place I hold bond funds. Non registered: equity only. ↩︎
It divides US Equity into small cap (“US Small Cap”) and total market (“US Total Market”). This particular example I found a bit weird since logically “US Small Cap” is normally considered part (albeit a very small part) of the “US Total Market”. ↩︎
Asset Categories for me are a level of detail I don’t need. If you set them to be the same as your Asset Classes then they effectively aren’t used. Although probably best to given them “AC”names so you don’t get mixed up, e.g. US Equity asset class belongs to US Equity AC asset category. ↩︎
