***Updated September 2026: The USD portion of my portfolio is now no more, and this post reflects the current reality.

Since my investment strategy is to own the market via passive index investing, I know that some of my retirement savings are tied up in those famous seven tech stocks¹. But that’s not what I’m talking about.

For a year or so I’ve been talking about my ETF All-Stars, but I’ve come to the realization that the list isn’t complete. I discovered that I could do better in terms of where I hold certain assets, I’ve now also realized that I need seven ETFs to achieve my investment objectives across non-registered, TFSA and RRIF accounts. These seven ETFs are 90% of my retirement portfolio. The other 10% are found in the non-registered account and are legacy investments. Over the next 5 years, these legacy investments will disappear altogether.

Here’s how the seven break down:

XGRO: An all-in-one Canadian ETF²

XGRO is an 80% Equity/ 20% bond ETF, about 50% of my retirement savings. It holds 20% Canadian equity and 36% US equity. It’s held exclusively in my RRIF accounts.

XEQT: An all-in-one Canadian ETF

XEQT³ is from the same family as XGRO but doesn’t hold any bonds. It helps take down the bond percentage of my overall portfolio from 20% to 15%. Since equities tend to grow faster than equity/bond combinations, and since my TFSA is the last account to be touched in my retirement income planning, XEQT is held only in my TFSA accounts.

VFV: A low-cost US Equity ETF in CAD

VFV is my choice for US Equity, both for its low MER and for the fact it mirrors the S&P 500, which focuses on profitable companies only. It doesn’t hold mid/small cap US stocks but I’m ok with that since XEQT has some holdings there.

VIU: An “ex-North America” equity fund

VIU invests in developed markets outside of the US and Canada. By Vanguard’s rules, this means “yes” to Japan and Korea, but “no” to Taiwan, China, Brazil and India. I get coverage of those markets in XGRO and XEQT, so I’m not too concerned.

XCB: A Canadian Corporate bond fund

The way the math works at present, I’m a little short in bonds, and so I have a bit of XCB sitting in the RRIF to keep my asset targets in line. XCB is a nice low-cost corporate bond fund; I chose corporate XGRO gives me plenty of exposure to government bonds.

ZST: A very short term Canadian bond fund

I suppose I could have used ZMMK in my RRIF accounts, but I didn’t want to attract superficial loss rules as ZMMK will be bought and sold in my non-registered accounts. I wanted to hold something different in the RRIF side. ZST has a slightly longer duration⁴ than ZMMK, but since it’s in my RRIF account, I can withstand the tiny bit more of extra volatility it brings to the table.

ZMMK: A CAD money market fund

ZMMK is held exclusively in the non-registered cash cushion. It holds mostly very short term (<6 month) debt. I consider ZMMK equivalent to a HISA, with a slightly better return.

1. My retirement portfolio is about 36% US equity, and the mag 7 make up about 10% of the US market, so say 4% of my retirement savings. ↩︎
2. You could also consider ZGRO, TGRO, VGRO from BMO, TD, and Vanguard respectively. They are all pretty similar. ↩︎
3. You could also consider ZEQT, TEQT, VEQT. Tomato, Tomahto. ↩︎
4. Longer duration bond funds are more sensitive to changes in interest rates. ↩︎