High Interest Savings Page Updated

As reported last week, the USA cut their prime rates while Canada did not. The latest rates are now reflected in the HISA and short-term bond table (Canada & US). No changes for at least 6 weeks at this rate. Most cash I hold in my retirement savings is invested in an ultra-short-term bond fund, namely ICSH (one of my ETF all-stars) so I can squeeze out a few more basis points on my cash holdings.

TD Cuts Trading fees on 100 ETFs

TD seems to be upping its game. Not only are they throwing free money around, but an observant reader (thanks, big brother 🙂 ) alerted me to a recent change. You can read all about it here, but the skinny is that they cut trading fees on a list of 100 ETFs. Paying trading fees of any kind seems to be a dying business model, so it’s nice to see TDDI join the free club, at least a little bit. Some of these ETFs are even worth holding; I’ll save you the trouble and show you which ones:

Name	Symbol	What it holds
Vanguard S&P 500 Index	VFV	Largest US Companies
SPDR S&P 500	SPY	Largest US Companies in USD
Vanguard 500 Index	VOO	Same as SPY
iShares Russell 2000	IWM	Small cap US Equity in USD
TD all-in-ones	TEQT, TGRO, TBAL, TCON	100% Equity, 90% Equity, 60% Equity, 30% Equity. Read more here and here.
TD Aggregate Bond Index	TDB	Canadian gov’t and corp bonds.1
TD International Equity	TPE	Developed international market equity.2
TD US Equity	TPU/TPU.U	Similar to VFV/SPY3
TD Canadian Equity	TTP	300 Canadian stocks (aka “the Canadian market”)4
TD Cash Management	TCSH/TUSD.U	Ultra short term debt in CAD/USD5
Vanguard all-in-ones	VEQT, VGRO, VBAL, VCNS	100% Equity, 80% Equity, 60% Equity, 40% Equity
Vanguard Canadian Agg Bond	VAB	Canadian gov’t and corp bonds6
Vanguard FTSE Global	VXC	All equity ex-Canada (65% US Equity)
Vanguard FTSE Developed	VIU	All developed equity ex-North America7
Vanguard US Total Market	VUN/VTI	~3500 US Stocks in CAD/USD (aka “The US Market”)8
Vanguard FTSE Canada	VCN	Top 200 Canadian Stocks, so similar to TTP9

All the above funds would be worthy of consideration since they adhere to my rules about being passively managed, low cost, and aligned with my asset-allocation strategy. The simplest purchases here would be one of the TD or Vanguard all-in-ones (new to all-in-ones? read about them here) best aligned with your risk profile. There’s a bunch of other ones that aren’t of interest to me — bitcoin, leveraged, actively managed, segment-based…nah, I’m good.

1. Used in TGRO, TBAL, TCON ↩︎
2. No “emerging” market exposure. Used in TEQT, TGRO, TBAL, TCON ↩︎
3. TPU is used in TEQT, TGRO, TBAL, TCON ↩︎
4. Used in TEQT, TGRO, TBAL, TCON ↩︎
5. Similar to my use of ZMMK/ICSH ↩︎
6. Used in VGRO, VBAL, VCNS ↩︎
7. Used in VEQT, VGRO, VBAL, VCNS ↩︎
8. Used in VEQT, VGRO, VBAL, VCNS ↩︎
9. Used in VEQT, VGRO, VBAL, VCNS ↩︎