Tag: norbert’s gambit

assorted sushi and sashimi platter top view

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

RobHLeave a 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)
    • 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)

The view post-payday

I pay myself monthly in retirement1, so that’s a good trigger to update this post. On April 24 at mid-day, this is what it looked 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). The charts look almost identical to the previous month, in spite of some conversion of AOA to XGRO. (I use Norbert’s Gambit to move USD denominated funds into CAD on a quarterly basis since my spending is all in CAD).

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% bonds/income (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)

The alignment with target is what drives my investment decisions; and here I see that the international equity portion of my portfolio has drifted 1% below target, which is usually the threshold whereby I start to pay attention. Do I need to take action to increase my International Equity portion, or is my target something to reconsider? I have some thinking to do.

Overall

Part of using VPW2 as a strategy is the need to calculate your retirement net worth on a monthly basis. Last month’s meltdown is yet another speed bump that we’ve managed to survive, and April 2026 brings me to another all time high of my retirement net worth, as compared to January 20253.

My VPW-calculated salary continues to increase, albeit at a more modest rate, as expected.

  1. Questrade, although my RRIF settings are for the last day of the month, seems to need a lot of time to process the payment; I’ve learned that unless I have cash in the account at least 3 business days prior to the last business day, the automatic payment won’t happen. ↩︎
  2. Variable Percentage Withdrawal, my chosen decumulation strategy. ↩︎
  3. In constant dollars. I should really adjust my net worth to show inflationary impacts but it’s more calculating than I feel like doing at the moment. ↩︎
dollar cut in half

Another quarter, another gambit

RobHLeave a comment

Every quarter, I convert some of my USD to CAD using Norbert’s Gambit. A good chunk of my retirement holdings are in USD, but since I spend in CAD, I need a cheap way to convert. I’ve been tracking my actual costs using Questrade’s platform for the past year. You can read about that over here.

Anyway, over the past year, the conversion has been effective. I have never paid the usual FX rates charged by Questrade (1.5% over the spot rate). My most recent conversion was the most expensive one to date, and that was a rate 0.7% over the going rate on the day I started the process. On three other occasions, I actually made out better than the spot rate, but that was because the foreign exchange rate moved in my favour in between the purchase and the sale.

My need for US cash has evaporated now that I have a no-FX fee credit card. (You can read about what cards I’m using over here.) So this makes me wonder if it’s time to get rid of the majority of my US holdings. Note this doesn’t mean that I will stop investing in US equities — that would be unwise — it just means I will stop holding assets denominated in US dollars.

The are downsides to holding USD-denominated assets, of course:

  • It adds complexity to the portfolio. AOA is the US equivalent of XGRO; both are 80/20 asset allocation ETFs. But because AOA is a US ETF, it holds a paltry amount of Canadian Equity, and I have to make up that difference elsewhere by holding pure Canadian Equity ETFs like HXT or XIC.
  • If you hold too much USD (or any foreign property) in non-registered accounts, you’ll be obliged to file a T1135 with CRA1.
  • It may limit the universe of online brokers you can deal with. Wealthsimple, for example, does not currently support USD RRIF accounts.
  • Foreign exchange can work for or against you. It’s another variable that can impact your returns. I’m not convinced this is a downside, but it does make tracking things like ACB in a non-registered account a little more tedious.

    One big hesitation I have about converting all my USD holdings would be the time I’d have to be out of the market while the Gambit runs its course. As you can see in from my tracking, each conversion means I’m not invested in AOA for 3-4 trading days. I just hate that idea. I also hate the idea of converting at a time when the CAD<->USD exchange rate is perhaps not optimal. (A low Canadian dollar would be a good thing for me in this case.)

    One place I sort of like having the USD assets is in my cash cushion, especially since US interest rates are quite a bit higher than Canadian rates. (I track current rates over at HISA and short-term bond table (Canada & US)).

    So perhaps I just need to craft a plan where I make more aggressive conversions over a fixed time frame. x% every month, with a deadline. This helps mitigate the “time out of market” and “exchange rate” issues. Crafting the plan with fixed milestones also takes emotion out of the equation; if I set a series of future transactions, then all I have to do is press the button mechanically.

    More to come on that.

    1. If your cost base exceeds $100,000 CAD ↩︎

    What’s in my retirement portfolio (March 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)
      • 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)

    The view post-payday

    I pay myself monthly in retirement, so that’s a good trigger to update this post. On March 30, 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). This split is before all the quarterly dividends have paid out. AOA, XGRO, XEQT, XIC all have a quarterly payment that collectively might skew the numbers a bit — I have all these investments on DRIP so I just buy more of the same. All that to say that there weren’t big changes month to month; my USD holdings got a bit of a boost this month thanks to a favourable exchange rate. (A lot of my retirement holdings are in USD, so the FX rates matter somewhat). Here’s what the USD has looked like in CAD since my retirement:

    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% bonds/income (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)

    The alignment with target is what drives my investment decisions; seeing the chart above tells me there’s no movements needed, which makes things simpler.

    Since we’re just about in to the 2nd quarter of the year, it’s time for me to move some AOA into XGRO using Norbert’s Gambit1. The Gambit has worked out pretty well for me so far; I track my effective FX rate every time I do it, and it’s always less than relying on the instant (and relatively expensive) FX conversions offered by my broker2.

    Overall

    Part of using VPW3 as a strategy is the need to calculate your retirement net worth on a monthly basis. As you can see below, the most recent market gyrations have had a bit of an impact on the bottom line, taking me back to a value I haven’t seen since September last year:

    But my VPW-calculated salary, which has a built in shock absorber (aka cash cushion), continued its upward trend nonetheless:

    I’m expecting to take a pay cut at some point if the markets fail to recover, but pay cuts are an expected outcome of using VPW as a strategy. The “V” is for “variable”, after all. At this point, I’m still taking over 10% more than I did a year ago, so no matter how you slice it, things are more than on track.

    1. Of late, my need for spending in USD seems not so critical anymore. ↩︎
    2. Typically 1.5% of the amount converted. ↩︎
    3. Variable Percentage Withdrawal, my chosen decumulation strategy. ↩︎

    News: Wealthsimple Norbert’s Gambit in Beta

    RobHLeave a comment

    Norbert’s Gambit is a way to save money on USD/CAD conversions. (Want to learn more? I’ve written about it here). Most brokers take extra margin points on these conversions, hidden in the relatively crappy exchange rate you actually get. Since a lot of my retirement holdings are in USD, and since I am a cheapskate, I’ve used Norbert’s Gambit at three different brokerages (BMO Investorline, QTrade and Questrade1) over the years.

    And now, Wealthsimple has joined the fray. It’s not open to the general public quite yet, but I did get a notification that I can now perform the Gambit on this platform. This brings Wealthsimple agonizingly close to being a contender for my retirement savings business. They only lack (puzzlingly) USD support in RRIF accounts. Otherwise, they check the other boxes in my “need to have” list for any broker:

    • $0 trading commissions
    • Support for USD accounts in non-registered, RRIF, and spousal RRIF2
    • Norbert’s Gambit3

    Wealthsimple’s implementation of the Gambit seems to mirror that of Questrade insofar as they charge a $9.95 plus tax fee for journaling shares, a necessary step of performing the Gambit. There are a few oddball wrinkles documented on their website, none of them show-stoppers in my view:

    • Not available on the Wealthsimple app
    • You can only journal DLR/DLR.U. Other cross-listed shares aren’t supported4.
    • The journaling fee is always charged in Canadian dollars, and by the language used on the website, it sounds like you are blocked from doing the journaling unless you have the cash in your account at the time of the request5

    Normally I’d give the feature a whirl to see if it’s comparable to the Questrade/QTrade experience, but I only hold CAD assets at Wealthsimple at the moment. It’s not really a complicated thing to do, the only way Wealthsimple could make the experience better is to do the journaling faster. I’ve documented the timelines involved with doing the Gambit at Questrade here.

    1. Other brokers also support it, but I just have no personal experience with it. ↩︎
    2. Wealthsimple doesn’t support this per their website ↩︎
    3. People (especially on Reddit) frequently cite Interactive Brokers as the best game in town to do currency conversions. I did at one time have an IB account, and I can confirm that their currency conversion rates across the board are a pittance, and in most cases will be cheaper (and faster) than even Norbert’s Gambit. HOWEVER, if you want to actually get hold of the cash you’re converting, then you can expect VERY long delays before you are allowed to withdraw the funds. ↩︎
    4. Most people use DLR/DLR.U to do the Gambit but it isn’t obligatory. At BMO Investorline, if you didn’t want to place a phone call, you had to use some other share combination (I usually chose a Canadian bank stock like RY). Not sure this is still true. ↩︎
    5. Questrade lets you carry a negative balance, but of course they will charge interest on that. ↩︎

    RRIF Support Showdown: Wealthsimple, Questrade, QTrade

    RobHLeave a comment

    I’m currently holding RRIF accounts at three different online providers (QTtrade, Questrade and Wealthsimple)1. So I am perhaps uniquely positioned to comment on the relative goodness and badness of the support of this kind of account at these three brokers. I also have some experience with BMO Investorline in this regard, but that experience is getting a bit long in the tooth now.

    So without further ado, let’s take a look:

    Wealthsimple

    Wealthsimple now provides support for both RRIFs and (relatively recently) Spousal RRIFs. And although Wealthsimple supports USD accounts, they do not (for whatever reason) support USD RRIFs2, which, for many readers, isn’t a big deal, but to me it is.

    But for all that, I still hold a CAD RRIF with Wealthsimple. It started last year, when I realized my DPSP couldn’t be immediately converted to a RRIF, and Wealthsimple was offering a shiny new Macbook to win the business. How could a certified cheapskate refuse?

    Since I only opened the RRIF last year, this year is the first year where I’m obliged to take out RRIF-minimum payments. Wealthsimple makes this stupidly easy on many levels:

    • They clearly display what your minimum payment for the year is right on the account screen, and they also show how much you have left to go against that minimum
    • They make it easy to create a “recurring withdrawal” from the RRIF, which is something I do every month, and I can easily change this whenever I want, although I’m not planning on doing that.
    • And — bonus — they support XGRO fractional shares AND the ability to place a sell trade in dollars and cents rather than # of units. This means I can sell EXACTLY the number of XGRO units I need to every month, with no excess dead-money cash floating around.

    You have to set up your bank account for EFT withdrawals before this works, of course.

    QTrade

    I still hold 3 RRIF accounts at QTrade, although I’ve been trying to move them to Questrade since late November. Seems that there is an industry-wide freeze on moving RRIF accounts in the month of December.

    QTrade supports USD and CAD RRIF accounts, and they keep them completely separate — different account numbers, even. They are linked, however, because the TOTAL value of the 2 accounts is used to determine your CAD RRIF minimum payment. I’ve only withdrawn RRIF funds in Canadian dollars, because I couldn’t get a straight answer whether I could withdraw USD funds natively to my USD account.

    QTrade also supports Norbert’s Gambit, which is important if you want to convert between USD and CAD cheaply.

    With QTrade, you have to send in a form to set up your RRIF withdrawals, either monthly/quarterly/annually. And per their fee schedule, if you deviate from this, you owe them $503.

    Once the schedule is in place, the withdrawals happen automatically. You have to make sure you sell your assets in advance of the withdrawal date. What happens if you don’t have enough funds? Not sure, cannot find any documentation that addresses this. There is also no indication online as to what your RRIF minimum payment is; you have to contact support if you want the exact amount.

    Questrade

    The majority of my RRIF holdings are here. As mentioned above, I’m trying to move 3 RRIF accounts from QTrade to Questrade. The delay from end of November to beginning of January seems like it’s explainable by the aforementioned industry-wide freeze. But since then, I lay the blame fully on Questrade for dragging their feet on getting the right forms in QTrade’s hands.

    Questrade supports USD RRIFs, and combines them with CAD holdings. Same account for both, and they do a nice job of providing you with multiple views so you can see your portfolio in either currency.

    Questrade also supports Norbert’s Gambit, and I’ve used it multiple times already to convert USD holdings into CAD holdings.

    Questrade requires a form to set up RRIF payments, and like anything involving a form at Questrade, you have to sit on top of support to make sure someone actually reads the form.

    Like QTrade, Questrade treats RRIF minimum payments as some sort of secret, forcing you to contact support if you don’t know what the value is.

    You can also exceptionally get “extra” payments using the “Move Money” menu. I am not sure how withholding tax would work if you did this. It appears that you could also withdraw USD from this menu. The “Move Money” menu is one that seems to be rather fragile — bank accounts previously linked have a habit of disappearing from this screen.

    As I write this, Questrade is only batting .500 in delivering the first RRIF payment. I got mine, but my spouse did not. Unclear why this may be, the support person I spoke to also seemed perplexed.

    The Verdict

    If you have USD in your RRIF, I would probably pick Questrade over QTrade. Questrade’s support of “on demand” payments is a nice flexibility. The one downside is that Questrade charges a flat fee to execute Norbert’s Gambit, whereas QTrade, as far as I can tell, does not.

    But once Wealthsimple supports USD in RRIFs and Norbert’s Gambit4, they would be my #1 pick for managing the RRIF payments. High degree of automation, high degree of flexibility, high degree of transparency. If you don’t have USD in your RRIF, then I could recommend Wealthsimple over the other two.

    1. Mishaps and greed have contributed to this current situation. I don’t condone it. ↩︎
    2. Proof: https://help.wealthsimple.com/hc/en-ca/articles/17933575404315-Open-a-RRIF#h_01H8Y8853951RYHHA80S11T5Y9:~:text=Can%20I%20hold%20USD%20cash%20in%20my%20self%2Ddirected%C2%A0RRIF%3F ↩︎
    3. I’ve never had the need, but be forewarned! ↩︎
    4. Coming this quarter per this PR. ↩︎