Category: ETFs

What’s in my retirement portfolio (Feb 2026)?

RobH1 Comment

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)1
    • 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)

You will notice that QTrade is no longer in the mix. I successfully moved the last RRIF accounts during the month; I learned a lot in the process. QTrade was the victim in the chase for free money offered by Questrade last year; based on current offerings, I’d say that QTrade still has an edge in terms of user experience over Questrade. I’ll go into more detail in a future post.

The view post-payday

I pay myself monthly in retirement, so that’s a good trigger to update this post. On February 28, this is what it looks 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) but if you’ve been following along, you’ll see a few changes.

  • I dropped XAW since I realized I didn’t need it if I was smarter the ratios of holdings I already owned (XEQT/XIC/XCB). Less is more.
  • I sold XIC instead of HXT in my non-registered account this month to help pay the bills because I reasoned that eliminating its dividend payouts would be better from a tax perspective2.

Plan for the next month

The asset-class split looks like this; you can read about my asset-allocation approach to investing over here.

It’s looking pretty close to the targets I have, which are unchanged:

  • 5% cash or cash-like holdings like ICSH and ZMMK
  • 15% bonds3 (most are buried in XGRO and AOA, rest are in XCB)
  • 20% Canadian equity (mostly based on ETFs that mirror the S&P/TSX — HXT and XIC)
  • 36% US equity (dominated by ETFs that mirror the S&P 500)
  • 24% International equity (mostly, but not exclusively, developed markets)

I am mulling over making a small tweak to these percentages, increasing US equity exposure at the expense of International equity based on some calculations I’ve done4 but this is neither urgent nor will it be massively impactful to the overall picture.

Overall

There is a bit of an anomaly this month that I should mention. A number of readers have questioned my wisdom of contributing monthly to a TFSA in retirement. From a tax-free growth perspective, it would be far better to make the contribution at the beginning of the year. And many studies have shown that lump sum investing provides better returns than spacing them out. And so, I have taken their advice5 and made all my TFSA contributions for the year this month. And since my TFSA is part of my net worth, there’s a bump being caused by that contribution.

And so, net worth overall is up month over month, a two month winning streak.

My VPW-calculated salary also continues its upward trend.

  1. One spousal, one individual. One at Wealthsimple because (a) I like their user experience and may consider them as my primary broker in the future and (b) they offered me free money and a laptop to move some fees their way. I can be bought. ↩︎
  2. HXT does not pay dividends and instead uses swap contracts to convert them into capital gains, which receive better tax treatment for me ↩︎
  3. Referred to as “Income” on the chart above ↩︎
  4. I’ll share those in a future post ↩︎
  5. With thanks to Steven and Sylvain ↩︎

Quick links for the long weekend

RobHLeave a comment

(Quick aside: as a retiree, I did have to make sure this coming weekend was, in fact, a long weekend 🙂 )

What’s the deal with AOA?: updated

While many Canadians are familiar with all-in-one products that trade on the Canadian exchanges (XEQT/XGRO, VEQT/VGRO, TEQT/TGRO, ZEQT/ZGRO), there is also a USD product that I use quite heavily in my retirement portfolio. That ETF is AOA. In this updated post, I break down what’s inside it. TL/DR: lots of US Equity, lots of International Equity, a tiny slice of Canadian equity, and broad coverage of the US and international bond markets.

Rob Carrick is back in (digital) print

One of my favourite ex-Globe And Mail staffers was Rob Carrick, the keyboard behind such valuable assets as the ETF Buyer’s Guide. He retired last year, but it seems he’s back doing the same job in a different way. He’s now writing on Substack, and you can find his words of wisdom over here: https://substack.com/@robcarrick1.

PWL on Retirement: “Finding and Funding a Good Life”

Not a new publication, but new to me…It’s penned by Ben Felix, a certified Canadian financial rockstar. Looks like a good read over a cup of coffee. Finding and Funding a Good Life.

The magnificent seven ETFs

RobH7 Comments

***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 bonds since 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. ↩︎

ZEB versus XIC: Is buying *only* Canadian banks a valid strategy?

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A recent newsletter (On Money) from the Globe and Mail caught my attention. In it, the author (David Berman) made the assertion that ZEB (a BMO ETF that invests solely in the Big 61 Canadian banks) was a better way of investing in the Canadian banking segment over holding the stocks individually. Two of the big reasons align very well with my own philosophy, namely:

  • The ETF fees include regular rebalancing
  • The ETF removes the temptation to time the market

These are the main reasons the majority of my retirement savings are in all-in-one ETFs like AOA and XGRO.

But anyway, what caught my eye about the article were the eye-popping returns of this segment, especially compared to the overall TSX, captured in an ETF like XIC. So I did a quick analysis which I share with you here:

In summary,

  • Canadian banks make up about 1/3 of the Canadian stock market (and hence XIC)
  • This segment has outperformed the overall Canadian market — by a wide margin — over the past 16 years
  • Past performance does not guarantee future results
  • This analysis hasn’t changed my perspective; I still prefer diversification over raw performance…no FOMO for me.
  1. TD, CIBC, Bank of Nova Scotia, RBC, BMO, National Bank ↩︎

News: Interest Rate Updates for Canada, US

RobHLeave a comment

Eight times a year, the Bank of Canada and the US Federal Reserve have meetings to set and announce their key interest rates. In what I’m sure is a total coincidence, they often happen on the same day. Per the Bank of Canada and the US Fed, here are the dates for 2026:

  • Wednesday, January 28
  • Wednesday, March 18
  • Wednesday, April 29
  • Wednesday, June 10 / June 17th for the Fed
  • Wednesday, July 15 / July 28th for the Fed
  • Wednesday, September 2 / September 15th for the Fed
  • Wednesday, October 28
  • Wednesday, December 9

Normally I don’t really pay too much attention to financial headlines. But since interest rates have a direct impact on the monthly income I can expect from the cash holdings in my portfolio (and by “cash” I mean ultra short-term bond funds1), and since I try to keep my HISA and short-term bond table (Canada & US) accurate, I do pay attention to that particular piece of market intel.

So the Bank of Canada leaves their rate unchanged (again), at 2.25%.

And the US Federal reserve also leaves its target range untouched, at 3.5%<->3.75%2 .

I’ll take a look at rates listed on HISA and short-term bond table (Canada & US) to make sure they remain accurate in the coming days. You can always let me know if something looks off. I’m at comments@moneyengineer.ca.

  1. ZMMK in CAD, ICSH in USD, both members of the ETF All-Stars club ↩︎
  2. And here you see why most of my “cash” is in ICSH instead of ZMMK. US interest rates are higher in Canada, and although there is of course foreign exchange risk involved, I’m ok with that. ↩︎