Do you ever wonder about the differences between, say, XEQT and VEQT? Or XGRO and TGRO? Of course, you could ask Reddit¹, read an article from a trusted source (ahem), or you could investigate it yourself.

How?

Well, my usual starting point is to google “<trading symbol> ETF”, for example “XEQT ETF”. For popular ETFs, this often generates hits for competitive products, so do be careful of that minefield.

But really, there’s a better way. You can instead google “<trading symbol> fact sheet”, for example “XGRO fact sheet”. In my unscientific tests, this search yield the actual fact sheet for the ETF in question as either the 1st or 2nd result — it’s a pdf file in all the cases i tried.

So what’s the fact sheet, and what’s it all about? Let’s hand it over to the pros:

The ETF Facts is a four-page document that summarizes key information about an ETF in a simple, accessible and easily comparable format. It is designed to help you make an informed decision about your investment by including information such as a fund’s investments, risk rating, past performance and the costs associated with owning it.

https://www.securities-administrators.ca/investor-tools/understanding-your-investments/etf-facts/#:~:text=What%20is%20the%20ETF%20Facts%3F

The highlights for me about the ETF fact sheet are:

• It’s short. 4 pages, and generally the most interesting bits are on pages 1 and 2
• It’s “easily comparable”. The format is always the same, allowing for an easier side-by-side looksee.
• It’s got information about what the fund invests in. If you hold multiple ETFs, knowing what’s behind each one will help you avoid inadvertently piling on to one segment of the market².

The fact sheet isn’t just helpful; it’s the law of the land³⁴.

So let’s take a quick look at my number one Canadian holding, XGRO, to see what it’s about.

Recording the above video taught me that XGRO changed significantly back in 2018, so looking at its performance prior to that is no longer an apples-to-apples comparison. After a bit of searching, I found that XGRO used to be called CBN, which had a MER of about 0.75%. You can read a bit more about that at Canadian Couch Potato, an excellent resource, by the way.

1. And, inexplicably, people reliably ask this question week after week after week… ↩︎
2. I don’t make segment bets; maintaining my asset allocation percentages (36% US Equity, 24% International Equity, 20% Canadian Equity, 15% Bonds, 5% cash) is the only metric that matters to me. ↩︎
3. This is the Ontario regulation; because we like bureaucracy in this country, every province has a securities regulator 😦 ↩︎
4. And I assume this is also the case in the USA since all the US-based ETFs I own have fact sheets. But I couldn’t find a specific regulation about that. ↩︎