Tag: personal investing

What’s in my retirement portfolio (May 2025)

RobH3 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 accounts1, (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.

The view as of this morning

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

Retirement holdings by ETF, May 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 were caused by two events that happened over the past 30 days:

  • I did a small rebalancing exercise to reduce my exposure to the Canadian equity market, selling VCN in favor of XEQT. (XEQT is only 23% Canadian equity per dollar invested; VCN was 100%). This sort of rebalancing happens whenever I drift more than 1% off of my target allocations.
  • I took some cash from a HISA and invested it in ZMMK; for reasons too boring to report here, that money was effectively not being tracked in these pages until this month — that anomaly won’t be repeated in subsequent months since ZMMK and ICSH are where I park the “cash” position of my portfolio.

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)

So, the plan for next month is, do nothing out of the ordinary. Reinvest cash (dividends, TFSA contributions) in one of AOA, XEQT/XGRO, ICSH or ZMMK depending on the asset category most in need on the day of the reinvestment. All these ETFs are covered on my ETF All-Stars page.

One thing I may do is to try to make shifts2 to get a little more return out of my cash position. US interest rates are quite a bit higher than Canadian rates, and so if my cash position is held in USD, I stand to eke a few more points of return there. TBD.

Overall

My retirement savings had a nice bounce-back this month, looks like I can cancel the mega-pack of pot noodles I had on order.

Monthly retirement savings, as percentage of Jan 2025 value

The salary I collect month to month recovered a bit, too, although not as quickly. That’s the magic of using VPW’s cash cushion — neither boom nor bust months translate into large changes in the take-home pay.

Monthly salary, as percentage of Jan 2025 salary

  1. That’s up one from the previous month. In order to collect on Questrade’s transfer bonus, (which they have yet to pay me, they are apparently in a world of hurt on the IT front) you have to have a non-registered account to get paid into. The other 3 are “normal” — one non-registered account for me, one for my spouse, and jointly held one that serves as a cash cushion to smooth out month to month variations in my retirement salary. Read more about that over at https://moneyengineer.ca/2025/01/31/im-retired-now-how-do-i-get-paid/ ↩︎
  2. With Questrade, all ETF trades are free to make, so I don’t have any real reason not to make such changes. ↩︎

What’s in my retirement portfolio (April 2025)

RobH3 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
  • 3 non-registered accounts1, (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.

The view as of this morning

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

Overall retirement portfolio by holding, April 2025

The portfolio, as always, is dominated by AOA and XGRO which are 80/20 asset allocation funds in USD and CAD, respectively. The rest are primarily either cash-like holdings in two ETFs: ZMMK in CAD and ICSH in USD) or residual ETFs held in non-registered accounts for which I don’t want to create unnecessary capital gains just for the sake of holding AOA or XGRO.

The biggest month over month change was a small decline in AOA and a small uptick in XEQT, about a 1% shift overall. This was because I shifted some of my USD assets to CAD assets in the RRIF using Norbert’s Gambit2. I chose XEQT over XGRO because the contribution of bonds in the portfolio was slightly over my asset allocation target3. XEQT is essentially XGRO, minus the bond holdings (it’s a 100% equity fund).

There was also a noticeable reduction in the contribution of ICSH to the portfolio; this was largely due to the unfavourable change in the USD/CAD exchange rate over the course of the month, and not due to any change in the holdings there.

Plan for the next month

The asset-class split looks like this

Overall retirement portfolio by market, April 2025

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)

So, the plan for next month is, do nothing out of the ordinary. Reinvest cash (dividends, TFSA contributions) in one of AOA, XEQT/XGRO, ICSH or ZMMK depending on the asset category most in need on the day of the reinvestment. All these ETFs are covered on my ETF All-Stars page.

Overall

My retirement savings declined 5.75% over the month (down 7% since January) due to the continuing meltdown in the equity markets. It’s not a pretty picture!

Net worth of retirement savings compared to start of retirement

This has not translated to a the same degree of change in my monthly salary. Why? My retirement payouts are calculated by Variable Percentage Withdrawal (VPW), which I cover here. VPW has a built-in cash cushion, which serves to dampen month to month swings in my net worth, either up or down. As you can see in the chart below, my monthly salary has stayed within a 1% band of the first salary I drew in January.

Month over month salary, as compared to start of retirement

  1. Since Questrade combines USD and CAD assets under the same account umbrella, I was able to reduce the number here. ↩︎
  2. I shift funds from the USD to the CAD side of the RRIF more or less quarterly since all RRIF payments are currently coming out of the CAD side of the portfolio. ↩︎
  3. That’s the optimistic point of view; it’s perhaps more accurately stated as “bonds haven’t melted down quite as much as the equity portion of my portfolio”. ↩︎

What’s in my retirement portfolio (March 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 accounts1:

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

The view as of this morning

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

Overall retirement portfolio by holding, March 2025

The portfolio, as always, is dominated by AOA and XGRO which are 80/20 asset allocation funds in USD and CAD, respectively. The rest are primarily either cash-like holdings in two ETFs: ZMMK2 in CAD and ICSH3 in USD) or residual ETFs held in non-registered accounts for which I don’t want to create unnecessary capital gains just for the sake of holding AOA or XGRO.

The biggest month over month change is due to switching brokers. My old broker (QTrade) allowed the purchase of HISAs, but my new broker (Questrade) doesn’t seem to offer them4. So I replaced DYN6004 with ZMMK and DYN6005 with ICSH. I made these changes in my QTrade account to avoid any problems with doing an “in-kind” transfer to Questrade.

I’m still in need of USD to pay off some vacation bills, so there is a small hit to SCHF to help out.

Plan for the next month

The asset-class split looks like this

Overall retirement portfolio by market, March 2025

The international equity percentage is below my target of 24%, and so I’ll have to fix that5. VEU looks like it provides exposure to both developed and emerging markets at a rock-bottom price6. XEF would be a perfect fit in the Canadian market, although I should probably also consider XEC to get some emerging markets exposure.The cash position is artificially high because I already did the necessary transactions to get paid out of my RRIF and non-registered accounts (if I did this exercise at the beginning of the month, rather than mid-month, that would disappear). That extra cash will flow to my bank account in the coming days.

A quarterly activity that I’ll be performing this month7 is to shift some of my USD RRIF holdings into my CAD RRIF. I do this to make sure I’m not overexposed to changes in the CAD/USD exchange rate. My current provider reportedly allows me to make RRIF payments natively in USD, so that may be another option to consider. I’ll make an attempt at some point!

One final note: my retirement savings declined 3%8 over the month due to the wild (mostly downward) swings in the stock market, but this leaves me roughly even since my retirement started at the beginning of the year. Here’s the monthly returns for the 2 ETFs that make up the lion’s share of my portfolio9.

XGRO and AOA monthly returns so far
  1. The list is sort-of accurate. I’m in the middle of changing online brokers and since Questrade combines USD and CAD assets in one account, the number of accounts is diminishing. ↩︎
  2. Current 12-month yield: 3.6% ↩︎
  3. Current 30-day SEC yield: 4.61% ↩︎
  4. This specific topic addressed at https://www.financialwisdomforum.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=125308. ↩︎
  5. The observant reader will note I also said this LAST month. That was before I decided to switch brokers. Once my holdings settle at Questrade, I’ll revisit. ↩︎
  6. MER = 0.04%. VEU has some Canadian exposure too, which isn’t ideal, but I don’t think there’s a USD ETF that excludes both Canada and the USA. ↩︎
  7. And should have done last month, sorry. ↩︎
  8. It would have been worse, except the USD also went up versus the Canadian dollar in the time period. Diversification works 🙂 ↩︎
  9. “Without dividends reinvested” since these two ETFs only pay out quarterly. There haven’t been any yet — next month! ↩︎

What’s in my retirement portfolio (Feb 2025)

RobH4 Comments

This is a (hopefully 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:

  • 7 RRIF accounts (3 for me1, 3 for my spouse, 1 at an alternative provider as a test)
  • 2 TFSA accounts
  • 5 non-registered accounts2, (2 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 high interest savings accounts (list available to me shown here)

The view as of this morning

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

Overall retirement portfolio by holding, February 2025

The portfolio, as always, is dominated by AOA and XGRO which are 80/20 asset allocation funds in USD and CAD, respectively. The rest are primarily either cash holdings in HISAs (DYN6004/5 in CAD and USD) or residual ETFs held in non-registered accounts for which I don’t want to create unnecessary capital gains just for the sake of holding AOA or XGRO.

The biggest month over month change is due to a small re-balancing exercise. I replaced some of my XGRO (which is an 80/20 equity/Bond asset allocation fund) with XEQT (a 100% equity asset allocation fund). I do re-balancing any time my asset allocation drifts more than 1% off my target allocations3. The trigger for me was an overweighting in bonds, which had drifted to represent 16% of my portfolio instead of the desired 15%. Upon reflection, the reason was obvious: both AOA and XGRO are 20% bonds, and if I want only 15% bonds, I will periodically need to fund an all-equity alternative. The net effect will be that you will see more XEQT show up in the portfolio over time.

The observant reader will also notice a bit of a shift between DYN6004 and DYN6005. The reason? I raided some USD from DYN6005 to pay my US credit card bill and replaced it with CAD in DYN6004 using the spot FX rate at the time. Seemed the easiest way to get some USD4 without having to resort to my friends at Knightsbridge.

SCHF percentages drifted down a bit since that’s the ETF I’m selling in my non-registered portfolio to augment my monthly RRIF payments. That will continue for the next few months at least since the USD payouts are needed to fund a few holidays5 I’m taking that are billed in USD.

Otherwise, nothing interesting to see in the month to month changes.

Plan for the next month

The geographic split looks like this

Overall retirement portfolio by market, February 2025

The international equity percentage is below my target of 24%, and so I’ll have to fix that. SCHF seems a good choice in USD6 since it’s free to trade with QTrade. XEF would be a perfect fit in the Canadian market.

A quarterly activity that I’ll be performing this month is to shift some of my USD RRIF holdings into my CAD RRIF. This wasn’t something I had planned to do but since my provider has backtracked on allowing me to get paid out of my USD RRIF in USD, I needed a way to keep the USD exposure at a constant-ish level in the overall portfolio. I’ll talk about the USD in my portfolio in a future dedicated post.

One final note: my retirement savings continue to grow even though I’m now actively removing assets out of it. On paper, this makes perfect sense since an 80/15/5 portfolio ought to grow at a rate greater than my rate of removal. In practice, of course, it’s rather stock market dependent. Here’s the monthly returns for the 2 ETFs that make up the lion’s share of my portfolio7.

XGRO and AOA monthly returns so far8
  1. For me, that’s one personal RRIF that has 2 accounts, one for CAD, one for USD, and one spousal RRIF. My spouse has one spousal RRIF in two currencies, and a personal RRIF. The alternative provider RRIF exists because I wanted to give Wealthsimple a try. ↩︎
  2. For me, two because one each for CAD and USD. The 2 joint accounts are my cash cushion accounts for the VPW methodology outlined here and here. ↩︎
  3. Completely spreadsheet-driven. I don’t trade on news, analyses, gut feelings, hot tips, or guesses. ↩︎
  4. I did hesitate a bit because the interest rate on DYN6005 is over 1% higher, but given the amounts involved, I’m clearly overthinking things. ↩︎
  5. All booked before this current tariff nonsense. Sorry. ↩︎
  6. Although it does have a 9% exposure to the Canadian market so not 100% “international”. Hard to beat the MER of this, though. ↩︎
  7. I don’t think this tool accounts for FX so it’s probably not totally accurate. Check out https://moneyengineer.ca/tools-i-use/ for other useful tools. Canadian dollar gained 1.4% against the USD in the past 30 days, per https://www.bankofcanada.ca/rates/exchange/daily-exchange-rates/ so that will reduce the effective return of AOA by the same amount. ↩︎
  8. “Without dividends reinvested” since these two ETFs only pay out quarterly. There haven’t been any yet. ↩︎