Tag: personal-finance

Comparing asset-allocation ETFs: what’s the right allocation?

RobH1 Comment

I’ve talked about my approach to investing before, which is slavishly devoted to maintaining a constant asset allocation across all my accounts. And as I’ve mentioned, my current targets are:

  • 20% is Canadian Equity, 36% is US Equity, and 24% is International Equity, for a total of 80% equity overall
  • 15% bonds
  • 5% cash

My allocation targets were picked to align with XGRO1, which, over time, will make up more and more of my retirement portfolio2.

As I’ve written elsewhere, these are pretty broad categories and could be sub-divided further. I’ve not bothered with this myself, but I thought it would be an interesting exercise to survey what the major all-equity and high-growth funds have under the hood. And so, I present this comparison:

A few notes on the above:

  • Canadian Equity: Some use an all-cap index (TGRO, VGRO) while some use a capped composite index (ZGRO, XGRO).
  • US Equity: VGRO and XGRO use an all-cap index, TGRO sticks to large cap, and ZGRO holds large, mid and small cap indices. TGRO is a bit of an outlier because it doesn’t hold small cap..
  • International Equity: TGRO takes an all countries approach, whereas the other three split between developed and emerging markets. Net effect is pretty much the same thing.
  • Bonds: Here you find the greatest variation; VGRO is the only ETF to hold bonds outside of North America whereas TGRO holds only Canadian bonds. XGRO and ZGRO are pretty similar, with XGRO having a bit more Canadian bond exposure over ZGRO.

The most notable difference between my allocations and the average allocation of the big 4 funds is that I have more international exposure than other funds, and that’s because I’ve chosen to hitch my wagon to the iShares/XGRO family.

The reason? I started investing in the iShares family some time ago because it was the family that my old provider (QTrade) allowed me to trade without fees. With my current provider (Questrade), all of the families are free to trade, and hence my continued devotion to iShares/XGRO no longer holds that attraction — I could buy any of the all-in-ones. (Indeed, I’ve actually been adding some TD all-in-ones because their management fees are a bit lower).

But this exercise has given me food for thought; perhaps I have a bit too much bias to the international equity portion of the portfolio. But honestly, I can’t believe it makes that much of a difference, and churning my portfolio simply to reduce my international exposure a point or two seems unnecessary3.

  1. Why XGRO and not an all-in-one from another company? Read on. ↩︎
  2. I’m slowly converting my main holding (AOA, which trades in USD) to XGRO on a quarterly basis so that I’m never over exposed to foreign exchange variations. I convert a percentage of these holdings annually, corresponding to the percentage at which I’m draining my RRIF. ↩︎
  3. Running some numbers through https://www.dividendchannel.com/drip-returns-calculator/ demonstrates that XGRO is the bottom of the performance pile over the past 5 years or so as compared to TGRO, ZGRO and VGRO. The difference isn’t massive, and the window is short because these funds haven’t been around all that long, but it’s another data point to consider…p.s. the tool above doesn’t (yet?) understand the 3 for 1 reverse split ZGRO undertook in August, so best to end any simulation involving the BMO funds at August 1,2025. ↩︎

What’s in my retirement portfolio (Aug 2025)

RobH1 Comment

This is a monthly look at what’s in my retirement portfolio. The original post is here. Last month’s is here.

Portfolio Construction

The retirement portfolio is spread across a bunch of accounts:

  • 7 RRIF accounts (3 for me, 3 for my spouse, 1 at an alternative provider as a test)
  • 2 TFSA accounts
  • 4 non-registered accounts, (1 for me, 1 for my spouse, 2 joint)

The target for the overall portfolio is unchanged:

  • 80% equity, spread across Canadian, US and global markets for maximum diversification
  • 15% Bond funds, from a variety of Canadian, US and global markets
  • 5% cash, held in savings-like ETFs.

You can read about my asset-allocation approach to investing over here.

The view post-payday

I pay myself monthly in retirement, so that’s a good trigger to update this post. At market close, August 22, this is what it looks like:

Retirement holdings by ETF, August 2025

The portfolio is dominated by my ETF all-stars; anything not on that page is held in a non-registered account and won’t be fiddled with unless it’s part of my monthly decumulation. Otherwise I’ll rack up capital gains for no real benefit.

The most noticeable change is a growth in the importance of ICSH to my portfolio at the expense of ZMMK. I did the math to justify performing a Norbert’s Gambit of the CAD generated by selling ZMMK and picking up ICSH. The amount of HXS remaining in the portfolio is dwindling, and may be gone altogether by next month. I choose which assets to sell out of my non-registered accounts by simply determining which asset category needs to be trimmed based on my multi-asset spreadsheet.

I also have a new way to track my AOA splits; since it rebalances itself twice annually, it seems to me wiser to fix its bond contribution at 20% in my multi-asset tracker. The equity splits between US, International, and Canadian are still dynamically calculated at least monthly using a properly weighted formula.

Plan for the next month

The asset-class split looks like this

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 (almost all are buried in XGRO and AOA)
  • 20% Canadian equity (mostly based on ETFs that mirror the S&P/TSX 60)
  • 36% US equity (dominated by ETFs that mirror the S&P 500, with a small sprinkling of Russell 2000)
  • 24% International equity (mostly, but not exclusively, developed markets)

I don’t really see a need to make changes based on what I see here. Cash flowing in to the account (bonus payments, regular TFSA contributions) will be re-invested in one of XEQT or XGRO1, typically2.

Overall

The retirement savings had a great month. Overall, I’m ahead of where I started even though I’ve been drawing a monthly salary since the beginning of the year. This is aligned with what my retirement planner told me to expect, but as you can see, the journey has had some interesting ups and downs already.

Monthly retirement savings, as percentage of Jan 2025 value

My VPW-calculated salary has hit a new high this year, 2.41% higher than my first draw in January3. This is also expected, since it tracks the value of the retirement portfolio, albeit in a much more controlled way. The VPW “cash cushion” smooths out the ups and downs of the monthly returns. I suppose I really should see an increase in my salary on par with inflation so that I maintain my spending power. I’ll have to think about how to track that4.

Monthly salary, as percentage of Jan 2025 salary
  1. I have purchased some TEQT lately since it has a lower MER. I covered TD’s family of all-in-ones here. ↩︎
  2. Since my target is 15% bonds, and XGRO is 20% bonds, I have to offset some of the XGRO purchases with 100% equity purchases. ↩︎
  3. Not a bad raise. ↩︎
  4. Looks like https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/subjects-start/prices_and_price_indexes/consumer_price_indexes is a good place to start. ↩︎

What’s in my retirement portfolio (July 2025)

RobH4 Comments

This is a (hopefully monthly) look at what’s in my retirement portfolio. The original post is here. Last month’s is here.

Portfolio Construction

The retirement portfolio is spread across a bunch of accounts:

  • 7 RRIF accounts (3 for me, 3 for my spouse, 1 at an alternative provider as a test)
  • 2 TFSA accounts
  • 4 non-registered accounts, (1 for me, 1 for my spouse, 2 joint)

The target for the overall portfolio is unchanged:

  • 80% equity, spread across Canadian, US and global markets for maximum diversification
  • 15% Bond funds, from a variety of Canadian, US and global markets
  • 5% cash, held in savings-like ETFs.

You can read about my asset-allocation approach to investing over here.

The view as of this morning

As of this morning, this is what the overall portfolio looks like:

Retirement holdings by ETF, July 2025

The portfolio is dominated by my ETF all-stars; anything not on that page is held in a non-registered account and won’t be fiddled with unless it’s part of my monthly decumulation. Otherwise I’ll rack up capital gains for no real benefit.

There weren’t big changes this month. My monthly decumulation from my RRIF accounts involves selling enough XGRO to meet RRIF-minimum payments, and the rest of my retirement paycheque is funded by my non-registered accounts. This month, given the run in the US stock market of late, that involved a sale of some shares of HXS1.

Plan for the next month

The asset-class split looks like this

The bond portion of the portfolio is a little smaller than I would like. The targets for my portfolio are unchanged:

  • 5% cash or cash-like holdings like ICSH and ZMMK
  • 15% bonds (almost all are buried in XGRO and AOA)
  • 20% Canadian equity (mostly based on ETFs that mirror the S&P/TSX 60)
  • 36% US equity (dominated by ETFs that mirror the S&P 500, with a small sprinkling of Russell 2000)
  • 24% International equity (mostly, but not exclusively, developed markets)

The change in the bond portion of the portfolio was amplified because I hadn’t updated the asset split of AOA in my multi-asset tracker in a while. AOA has drifted quite a bit since it only rebalances twice a year (next time in October). More on drifting in multi-asset ETFs here.

Overall

The retirement savings look quite healthy; even though I’ve been drawing a monthly salary for 7 months, I’m now ahead of where I was when I started my retirement journey. This is aligned with what my retirement planner told me to expect, but as you can see, the journey has had some interesting ups and downs already.

Monthly retirement savings, as percentage of Jan 2025 value

My VPW-calculated salary has hit a new high this year, a dizzying 0.77% higher than my first draw in January. This stability is thanks to the built-in shock-absorber of the VPW model (a 6-month cash cushion which smooths out the market gyrations considerably). I also think it’s an endorsement of my choice to take retirement payments monthly; my exposure to short-term market hiccups is greatly reduced since I’m not making big sales of ETFs to fund a year of spending all at once.

Monthly salary, as percentage of Jan 2025 salary
  1. Which particular ETF I sell from my non-registered portfolio is based on what asset class is the most overweight at that point in time. If it’s US Equity, then I sell US Equity. If it’s Canadian Equity, then I sell Canadian Equity. ↩︎

What’s in my retirement portfolio (June 2025)

RobH4 Comments

This is a (hopefully1 monthly) look at what’s in my retirement portfolio. The original post is here. Last month’s is here.

Portfolio Construction

The retirement portfolio is spread across a bunch of accounts2:

  • 7 RRIF accounts (3 for me, 3 for my spouse, 1 at an alternative provider as a test)
  • 2 TFSA accounts
  • 4 non-registered accounts, (1 for me, 1 for my spouse, 2 joint)

The target for the overall portfolio is unchanged:

  • 80% equity, spread across Canadian, US and global markets for maximum diversification
  • 15% Bond funds, from a variety of Canadian, US and global markets
  • 5% cash, held in savings-like ETFs.

You can read about my asset-allocation approach to investing over here.

The view as of this morning

As of this morning, this is what the overall portfolio looks like:

Retirement holdings by ETF, June 2025

The portfolio is dominated by my ETF all-stars; anything not on that page is held in a non-registered account and won’t be fiddled with unless it’s part of my monthly decumulation. Otherwise I’ll rack up capital gains for no real benefit.

The biggest changes over the last 30 days was due to a small rebalancing exercise I executed. I sold off some AOA in order to pick up more ICSH. The stock market has been roaring lately, and it caused my target allocations to become a bit cash-poor; ICSH is not, strictly speaking, “cash”, but for my purposes, it’s close enough. (You can read about my cash thoughts here). I could have instead sold XGRO to pick up more ZMMK, but US interest rates are a lot better than Canadian ones at the moment, so I figured I’d enjoy the extra few percentage points of return on my cash holdings.

Plan for the next month

The asset-class split looks like this

This looks to be pretty close to my target percentages which haven’t changed:

  • 5% cash or cash-like holdings like ICSH and ZMMK
  • 15% bonds (almost all are buried in XGRO and AOA)
  • 20% Canadian equity (mostly based on ETFs that mirror the S&P/TSX 60)
  • 36% US equity (dominated by ETFs that mirror the S&P 500, with a small sprinkling of Russell 2000)
  • 24% International equity (mostly, but not exclusively, developed markets)

The pie is looking almost perfect at the moment. I don’t see any near-term need for fiddling with what’s there.

Overall

The retirement savings look quite healthy; even though I’ve been drawing a monthly salary for 6 months, I’m now ahead of where I was3 when I started my retirement journey. This is aligned with what my retirement planner told me to expect, but as you can see, the journey has had some interesting ups and downs aready.

Monthly retirement savings, as percentage of Jan 2025 value

My VPW-calculated salary has gone back to more or less where I started at the beginning of the year. And even with the crazy market swings we’ve seen, it’s stayed remarkably stable4. That’s thanks to the built-in shock-absorber of the VPW model (a 6-month cash cushion which smooths out the market gyrations considerably). I also think it’s an endorsement of my choice to take retirement payments monthly; my exposure to short-term market hiccups is greatly reduced since I’m not making big sales of ETFs to fund a year of spending all at once.

Monthly salary, as percentage of Jan 2025 salary

  1. I know it’s July 7, but the numbers are accurate for June, more or less. ↩︎
  2. I treat retirement savings as firewalled from my day to day chequing account. ↩︎
  3. Just barely, but I’ll take it ↩︎
  4. I changed the vertical axis of this chart to align with the other chart; it makes its stability much clearer. ↩︎

Mini-Review: PortfolioPilot

RobHLeave a comment

I discovered PortfolioPilot (https://portfoliopilot.com/), a product of Global Predictions, because it’s mentioned in passing on Passiv’s dashboard. (You can read a bit about Passiv over here — the premium version of Passiv used to be offered for free to all Questrade users, but it’s now part of their shiny new subscription service1.)

So what is PortfolioPilot? Let’s hand it over to their AI assistant to weigh in on that question 🙂

PortfolioPilot AI Assistant v1.3 explaining what it is

On Passiv, the data provided by PortfolioPilot is limited to a portfolio score (out of 1000) and a “Forecasted Return” metric. The Global Predictions/PortfolioPilot assessments for my portfolio as presented on the Passiv dashboard are depicted below.

Global Predictions/ Portfolio Pilot’s scoring of my portfolio, as depicted on the Passiv dashboard23

When I headed over to the PortfolioPilot website, I decided to set up an account and take a closer look.

After an initial set of questions to help figure out my risk profile, I was able to enter my entire portfolio manually, since it’s down to just 12 holdings these days. Pro tip: this is a US tool, so if you enter Canadian stocks/ETF, you have to add “.TO” to the name of the holding in question, e.g. XGRO.TO not just “XGRO”.

So once I did that, it spat out all kinds of pretty data. I do like the visualization per ETF held…this one is showing 3 month returns per ETF. Whether or not it’s including dividend payouts is not known.

3 month return of ETFs held in my retirement portfolio

It also gave me a little more insight into my portfolio score4:

Portfolio Score of my retirement holdings, per PortfolioPilot

This view reminds me of how QTrade does their portfolio assessments, something I thought was a plus of that provider. The downside protection warning indicated that I have too much invested in too few holdings, but since I’m on the free version, no further insight was provided. Both AOA and XGRO are tilted towards large US stocks…I suppose my Magnificent Seven holdings are a non-trivial part of the overall portfolio as a result, but I wasn’t able to delve further into this warning. That’s what you get for paying nothing, I suppose.

So some nice stuff here, nice visualizations, customized news based on what’s in your portfolio, all good. But there are some problems I see with their data.

Example one:

PortfolioPilot Asset class view: 35% “unknown”? Blind spot for Canadian ETFs, maybe?

The asset breakdown is very detailed, which I like, but at 35% “unknown”, it’s kinda useless. No way I can see to figure out what ETFs are causing it trouble. Guess I’ll see what support has to say.

They have specific recommendations, which I also like, but again, I see issues:

PortfolioPilot suggested actions

So here, my issue is with action #2. It was recommending replacing XEQT (an ETF all-star) with VE.

Now, setting aside for a moment that VE and XEQT are pretty different in terms of what they hold, (to start, VE has no Canadian or Far East exposure), the REASON the suggestion was made was to save on management fees. PortfolioPilot claimed that VE attracted no fees, making me a sucker for paying 0.20% to hold XEQT. A quick look at the VE page dispelled that idea immediately — the MER is 0.22%. Following their advice would have led me to pay MORE in fees, not less. Shrug.

Anyway, I spent all of 30 minutes with this tool, and although it shows promise, some of the errors I spotted do not fill me with confidence in recommending it to others.

Anyone out there using it? Got other thoughts? Let me know at comments@moneyengineer.ca!

  1. But per some Reddit threads I have seen, users with more assets with Questrade may get it anyway. I await some sort of official communication before commenting further. As of right now, I still seem to have full access to the tool. ↩︎
  2. I dunno, 95th percentile seems “Excellent” to me.
    ↩︎
  3. Not really sure how to interpret that. Does that mean between 8% and 10% annual return, or does it mean -1% to 19% annual return? I would tend to believe the latter, since that’s more in line with an 80% equity portfolio, but no explanation is offered… ↩︎
  4. I suppose my score is a bit higher because it also includes my remaining QTrade holdings, which Passiv doesn’t support. Or maybe not. ↩︎