Tag: global x

XEQT, TEQT, VEQT, ZEQT, HEQT Fee Showdown

RobHLeave a comment

Summary: Although iShares(XEQT/XGRO) and Vanguard(VEQT/VGRO) get all the love, the all-in-ones from BMO and TD are actually the current winners in the “lowest all-in-one fee award”. Given how similar they are to their competitors, I see no reason not to park money there.

I’m a fan of all-in-one1 ETFs in my retirement portfolio. If you’re new to the world of all-in-ones, you might want to start here. There’s at least five competing families of products out there, courtesy of iShares (XEQT, XGRO, XBAL et al), TD (TEQT, TGRO, TBAL et al), Vanguard(VEQT, VGRO, VBAL et al) BMO(ZEQT, ZGRO, ZBAL et al) and GlobalX2 (HEQT, HGRO, HBAL et al). We’ve taken a look at some of them “under the hood”, so to speak, but didn’t really find super-significant differences.

One facet I haven’t looked at yet is the fees each of these companies charge. As I’ve shown elsewhere, small differences can add up if you have significant investments or are holding them for a significant time.

With the news that iShares is reducing their management fees, (BMO did earlier this year) I figured it was time to do a head-to-head fee comparison for the four major families.

Here you have it:

CompanyRelevant TickersManagement Fee3
iSharesXEQT, XGRO, XBAL et al0.17%, effective Dec 18, 2025
VanguardVEQT, VGRO, VBAL et al0.17%
TDTEQT, TGRO,TBAL et al0.15%
BMOZEQT, ZGRO, ZBAL et al0.15%
Global XHEQT, HGRO, HBAL et al0.18%

TD and BMO are the low fee winners at the moment, but the gap has narrowed significantly from earlier in the year. I like low fees, and so I’ve started to invest in these families.

  1. Technically called “asset allocation” ETFs, which is good, since asset allocation is how I view my own portfolio. ↩︎
  2. Formerly known as Horizons, which explains the stock tickers used here. ↩︎
  3. Most of the time I use MER (Management Expense Ratio) to report on fees, but since a few of these companies have lowered their Management fees this year, and since MER is only calculated annually, the MER values only become relevant again on Jan 1. They are a few basis points higher than the management fee, but just a few. Most of the cost is buried in the management fee. ↩︎

News: Global X launches new ETFs, lowers fees

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New US T-Bill ETFs from Global X

As mentioned elsewhere, I try to keep about 5% of my retirement savings in what I loosely refer to as “cash”. Of course, it’s not cash, cash doesn’t earn any interest, and that would drive me bonkers. Instead, I’ve been using ZMMK and ICSH (two of my ETF all-stars) to serve this purpose. I made a more detailed assessment of available products at the time over here.

But Global X (a company who I do a lot of business with, thanks to XEQT, XGRO and HXT) has launched 4 products that invest solely in US Treasury Bills.

  • TSTX/TSTX.U/TSTX.F: all based on 1-3 year treasury bills, which, in common bond lingo, is “short” duration. TSTX is the one that’s probably of greatest interest to most of you since it trades in CAD. TSTX.U is the same thing but it trades in USD, and TSTX.F trades in CAD but uses currency hedging to smooth out the CAD/USD exchange rate1.
  • TLTX/TLSX.U/TLTX.F: same idea as above, but these products are based on 20 year T-Bills, which would be considered “long” duration and are much more sensitive to changes in the prime interest rate.

They are brand spanking new (launched Oct 7, 2025), but have already paid out their first distributions at the end of October:

CAD ETF Distribution USD (.U) ETF DistributionHedged (.F) ETF Distribution
TSTX family (1-3y)0.140900.139910.13990
TLTX family (20y)0.160560.159430.15941

The TSTX family is paying 3.4% yield, which is way better than any CAD product I’ve evaluated previously2. It’s not as good as USD HISAs, but being able to get US-like interest rates in a Canadian denominated product is a cool thing. T-Bills of this duration are not super sensitive to changes in interest rates, but the 20y ones would be. TSTX is a product I’ll be keeping an eye on as an alternative to ZMMK, potentially, as long as the prime rate in the US remains significantly higher than Canada’s.

Reduced Fees for CNDX (S&P/TSX 60 index)

Global X was running a promo this year that I talked about previously, but they’ve set a new low price for their flagship Canadian index fund at 0.09% MER starting in 2026. (The MER is 0% at the moment). I don’t hold CNDX myself (I use XIC and VCN, which both include all of the TSX and costs 0.06%), but if you like to focus on the larger part of the Canadian market, you may want to take a look here.

  1. I don’t like hedging as a rule, as it just adds cost and I figure that over time, the USD/CAD exchange rate is reasonably stable. ↩︎
  2. And if these ETFs existed at the time, I probably wouldn’t have looked at them because they have a duration that’s a little too long for me to consider them “cash-like”. But I like my “cash” to be cashflow positive, with no downsides. ZMMK and ICSH aren’t guaranteed to do that, but their super-short average duration (90 days or so) makes it far more likely. ↩︎

News: Webinar Roundup

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Global X: “Beyond Borders: Why International Equity is Capturing Attention”

This webinar (registration link) takes place on July 28 at 11:30am EDT. I don’t myself make bets on any particular segment of the market, choosing instead to maintain my geographic splits consistent, including international equity (see my latest report on that). But maybe you don’t have any exposure to international Equity at all; this might be worth checking out in that case.

Global X is the newish name of Horizons, a company I’ve been dealing with for a long time thanks to their innovative swap-based ETFs, namely HXT (Canadian Equity), HXS (US Equity) and HXDM (International Equity)1 . They are useful funds to hold in non-registered accounts because they pay no dividends of any kind; this allows you to defer tax until you need the money and sell them2.

Wealthsimple: Five Costly Retirement Spending Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

I listened to the recording of this webinar, and you can too by registering here. Fair warning: this webinar is at least partly a sales pitch for Wealthsimple’s managed portfolios3, and you can expect a follow-up if you do register.

Sales pitch aside, I thought the presenters did a decent job in explaining the common errors associated with

  • Asset mix
    • Getting the asset mix wrong based on your needs. I talk about the concept of asset mix here.
  • Order of withdrawal (RRIF versus TFSA versus non-registered)
    • This was something my fee-based financial advisor helped me with. Even a DIY investor can benefit from a bit of oversight as you make the preparations for retirement.
  • Age to start CPP/OAS
    • Lots of Canadians take the money as soon as they’re eligible (age 60 for CPP, 65 for OAS) but that’s not always the best choice. I used the CPP calculator to figure out what my best option was.
  • Underspending
  • Ignoring Estate and Final Tax costs
    • These can be significant. In the case of my mother’s estate, Final Tax (and not Probate) was the expensive one4. The easiest way to reduce Final Tax is to give away your money while alive.

  1. Full disclosure, I own all three in my non-registered accounts. ↩︎
  2. At which point you will have to pay tax on capital gains, naturally. ↩︎
  3. And although I like and am more than capable of doing a DIY retirement, I need a plan B in the event I lose the capability to do this sort of thing myself. And so I pay attention to service offerings out there. Wealthsimple’s fees seem less onerous so that’s a vote in their favor. I hate fees of all kinds. ↩︎
  4. They would have been horrified at the tax bill and probably would have more aggressively donated their wealth had they known. ↩︎