Tag: stocks

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! ↩︎

ETFs for parking your money safely

RobH21 Comments

Since my new DIY broker (Questrade) does not support the purchase of high interest savings accounts (HISAs), I need to find a free-to-trade alternative. 5% of my retirement portfolio is invested in what is characterized as “cash”, but I expect that money to earn some sort of return with essentially zero risk. (Another 15% of my portfolio is in the bond market, which, as we all learned in the last few years, has its downsides1.)

Questrade (like Wealthsimple) offers free trades of all ETFs. So it makes sense for me to go looking for ETFs that invest in safe havens. Here’s what I turned up for investments in Canadian dollars, based on some Google searches and some reading of similar questions posted in the public domain. Not all of them are what I would call “equivalent” to a HISA.

Fund SymbolFund CompanyWhat it invests inMERCurrent annual yield2Commentary
CASHGlobal X“high-interest deposit accounts with one or more Canadian chartered banks”0.11%2.68%This invests in the HISAs I currently invest in
CBILGlobal X“short-term Government of Canada T-Bills”0.11%2.88%Not a HISA but a safe investment
HISAEvolve“high-interest deposit accounts”0.15%2.71%Equivalent to CASH but with a higher MER
MCADEvolve“Canadian dollar high-quality short term debt securities (with a term to maturity of 365 days or less)”0.20%3.17%Very short term bond fund. 18% of holdings have due dates of less than 30 days
ZMMKBMO“high-quality money market instruments issued by governments and corporations in Canada, including treasury bills, bankers’ acceptances, and commercial paper. 0.13%3.6%Not a HISA but a very short term bond fund3. 31% of holdings have due dates of less than 30 days.
CAD ETF Candidates for investing Canadian dollars

Based on this quick analysis, ZMMK looks pretty attractive — a lot of very short term (and hence safer) debt as compared to MCAD, excellent returns. It is clearly a riskier investment than something like CASH or HISA. Between CASH and HISA I lean to smaller MERs every time, so CASH wins. CBIL might be a sort of happy middle ground…a T-Bill ought to be as good as a bank. All of these ETFs have a pretty stable NAV, either $50 or $100 per unit, so there should be little to worry about in terms of capital gains.

Since I hold a lot of USD, (not convinced this is a good idea), I need to do the same exercise for USD safe havens.

Fund SymbolFund CompanyWhat it invests inMERCurrent Annual Yield4Commentary
HISUEvolve“primarily in high interest US dollar deposit accounts”0.11%4.05%This invests in the HISAs I currently invest in
HSUVGlobal X“primarily in high interest U.S. dollar deposit accounts with Canadian banks…not currently expected to make any regular distributions”0.2%n/aGlobal X “corporate class” ETFs convert interest payments into capital gains. This sort of ETF makes sense in a non-registered account to minimize taxes.
ICSHBlackRock“broad range of short term U.S. dollar-denominated investment-grade fixed- and floating-rate debt securities and money market instruments”0.08%4.31%Not HISA but 46% is invested in debt with less than 30 days maturity
MUSDEvolve“primarily in U.S. dollar-denominated high-quality short term debt securities (with a term to maturity of 365 days or less).”0.20%3.49%Similar in strategy to ICSH, but only 20% in debt with 30 days maturity and only 40 holdings.
UCSHGlobal X“primarily invests in high-interest U.S. dollar deposit accounts, which provide a higher interest rate than a traditional USD savings account.”0.16%4.08%HISA-like, based on term deposits
USD ETF Candidates for investing US dollars

ICSH is the clear winner in terms of return, but, like ZMMK, a little riskier than a simple bank account. It has a nice broad portfolio (363 individual holdings) which makes it feel safer. HISU looks like the straight-up HISA replacement.

What ETFs do you use to park your cash? Let me know at comments@moneyengineer.ca.

  1. Excellent graphic of historical returns available at https://themeasureofaplan.com/investment-returns-by-asset-class/ ↩︎
  2. Take the latest monthly distribution, divide by the unit price, multiply by 12. If BoC holds their interest rates steady for the year, you could expect to achieve this rate for the next year. As of March 3, 2025. ↩︎
  3. “Commerical paper” refers to very short term debts, 30 days average maturity. Like a credit card debt, maybe. ↩︎
  4. US based funds like this one report a “30 day SEC yield”, it represents “interest earned after deducting the fund’s expenses during the most recent 30-day period by the average investor in the fund”. ↩︎

What’s the deal with AOA?

RobH6 Comments

***Updated numbers February 2026***

As mentioned elsewhere, I rely heavily on all-in-one ETFs in my retirement portfolio. New to all-in-ones? Read a bit about them here.

Previously ,I covered what’s in XGRO, which is an all-in-one you can purchase on the Canadian market. Because I also happen to have a lot of US dollar-based retirement savings, I have the majority of those funds invested in AOA. AOA is an 80/20 fund 1 offered by BlackRock. It seems that this sort of all-in-one is not as popular in the US as Canada, not sure why2. I see offerings from State Street that sound similar. BlackRock has other members of their asset allocation family with different equity percentages — there’s something for everyone!3

I thought it would be interesting to see what, exactly, is underneath every $100 you invest in AOA. So by reading AOA’s ETF description, following the ETF descriptions of what’s inside AOA, and doing a little math, I came up with the following breakdown4:

FundWhat is it?How much?Colour Commentary
IVV US stock coverage that tracks the S&P 500 Index, 500 of the largest US companies $44.53 of your $100 investment

(of which ~3.50$ is in Nvidia, ~$3 in Apple, and ~$2 in Microsoft, with ~$1 in Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Broadcom and Tesla)		The Magnificent 7 and 493 other companies
IDEVBroad international (ex-US) developed market stock coverage that tracks the MSCI WORLD ex USA IMI Index, about 2250 companies $23.02 of your $100 investment

(of which ASML gets 42 cents, Roche gets 26 cents…)		This also includes a tiny slice of Canada…top holding is RBC at 18 cents of your $100
IUSBBroad US Bond market exposure, about 16,000 bonds from government and corporate entities$16.36 of your $100 investment

(of which $6.45 is in US Treasury, $1.44 is in the Federal National Mortgage Association…)		12 month trailing yield is 4.18%, not too shabby
IEMG3500 or so international companies from emerging markets, following the MSCI Emerging Markets Investable Market Index $9.29 of your $100 investment

(of which $1.06 is in Taiwan Semi, 42 cents is in Samsung..)		23% China, 22% Taiwan, 16% South Korea, 14% India, …
IAGGAbout 5800 international bonds tracking the Bloomberg Global Aggregate ex USD 10% Issuer Capped (Hedged) Index5$2.83 of your $100 investment

(of which 30 cents is Japanese T-Bills)		Trailing 12 month yield = 3.27%, has lost a full point in the last year
IJHUS Midmarket stocks that track the S&P MidCap 400 Index$2.59 of your $100 investment (of which 2 cents is in Lumentum, who I’ve never heard of)25% Industrials, 15% Financials…
IJRUS Small Cap stocks that track the S&P SmallCap 600 Index $1.22 of your $100 investment
(largest holding is Solstice Advanced Materials)		IJH+IJR+IVV is sort of similar to ITOT
Main components of AOA as of February 2025

Like XGRO, investing in an all-in-one like AOA provides you with exposure to a bunch of different asset types across many different geographies in one product, including all of the “hot” stocks you read about ad nauseam. Diversification under one banner.

The big difference from XGRO is the very tiny representation of Canada overall. I worked it out to about 2.5% of the overall number, which makes sense given the size of Canada on a global scale.

I came across the “Three Fund Portfolio” popularized by Bogleheads over 15 years ago. AOA and its family members is more or less that concept.

  1. Shorthand for “80% equity, 20% bonds”. There remains a lot of disagreement about the appropriate asset allocation, e.g. https://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=210178 ↩︎
  2. Instead, I see a lot of “target date” retirement ETFs, which are in some ways similar, but lower the equity percentages as you get closer to the target date. ↩︎
  3. There’s also AOR (60% equity), AOM (40% Equity) and AOK (30% Equity) ↩︎
  4. Compare with the XGRO breakdown at https://moneyengineer.ca/2025/01/30/whats-the-deal-with-xgro/ ↩︎
  5. That’s a mouthful. ↩︎

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. ↩︎

Ok, I’m ready to fire my advisor. What do I need to do?

RobH2 Comments

So you’ve decided to make the leap and keep more of your own money. Congratulations! Here’s a list of things you need to do to put that plan into action.

Disclaimer: I treat my retirement assets separately from any other assets (rainy day funds, day-to-day expenses). If you blend these sort of things together, it may change things like step 1.

1. Determine your desired asset mix

“Asset mix” is just another way of describing your risk profile, or in really plain English, what percentage of your portfolio is going to be invested in equity. There’s a quick questionnaire over here that will put you in one of 5 buckets:

  • Very Conservative: This means 20% Equity.
  • Conservative: This means 40% Equity.
  • Balanced: This means 60% Equity.
  • Growth: This means 80% Equity.
  • Aggressive Growth: This means 100% Equity.

If you’re happy with the way your existing portfolio is performing, then you can instead calculate the percentage of equity in it and use that as your asset mix. For simplicity, I would consider any stock as “equity” and any cash, HISA, Bond fund or GIC as “not equity”. If your portfolio holds ETFs, then you need to see what’s inside them. You can typically read that on the “fund facts” page. They are usually one or the other, unless you already hold funds like XGRO.

2. Choose your platform and create login(s) for it

But which one? I talk about some of the things to consider over here, or you can investigate a trustworthy source like the Globe and Mail’s annual rankings. Some providers (e.g. QTrade, Questrade) allow you to make trial accounts to test drive them. I myself use QTrade for my investments. Like all providers, it does some things really well, and others, not so much. I have either personal experience or friends using (in alphabetical order) BMO Investorline, Interactive Brokers, iTRADE, QTrade, Questrade and Wealthsimple. Any of them will do. Many of them run promotions1 trying to entice you to switch. Might as well take advantage of that if it makes sense23. Also consider if they will reimburse you the transfer fees imposed by your soon-to-be-ex provider of choice4.

The heading of this section says “login(s)” because if you’re part of a spousal team, you should really do this as a team.

This step also usually entails form-filling and proof of life uploads/emails/faxes5 (photo ID, banking info….). Put on your favourite tunes and the time will be filled with pleasant sounds.

3. Figure out how to move money to and from your new platform

If you’re still contributing to your TFSA/RRSP/RESP, or if you have non-registered accounts, or are close to retirement and about to set up a RRIF, then it’s pretty important to know how money will move in/out of these accounts. Typical things you’ll have to do are

  • set up your new account(s) as “Bill Payees” online banking6
  • set up EFTs7 between your bank account and new platform
  • set up new Interac eTransfers8
  • Get cheques/bank card for your non-registered account, if applicable9

4. Collect all your existing account information

To successfully complete the transfer, you are going to need to know the details of all your existing accounts. The usual information requested is found on your monthly/annual statements. Client number, account number, rough value of what’s in each.

If applicable, you’ll also want to have a very good handle on exactly how much you’ve contributed to capped government savings vehicles (e.g. RRSP, TFSA) so you don’t inadvertently over contribute in the year you make the shift10.

There may be a snag at this step. You may hold assets at your old provider that are not supported at your new provider. This may or may not be a big deal. Typical issues are caused by

  • GICs11. The reason you get good interest rates from them is because the money is locked away. You may or may not be able to move them without incurring penalties. You’ll have to ask your new provider what they are willing to do. In most cases, the answer will be “sorry, can’t help you, if you want to move them, you’ll have to sell them first”12.
  • Mutual Funds. Many of these are private to that provider,13 and constitute, in their estimation, considerable value add. For these, you are almost certainly going to have to say goodbye (and good riddance) .

For GICs, you can choose not to move those assets, wait until they mature, or eat the cost of cashing them in early.

For Mutual Funds, selling them usually isn’t a concern, unless you hold them in a non-registered account, in which case there may be undesirable capital gains that will cause a tax hit.

For most people, the costs involved in moving assets are small compared to the money you’ll ultimately save by firing your advisor. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

5. Initiate account transfers from your newly selected platform

This is the first step where things get real.

Different providers will do this somewhat differently, but it’s usually called something like “Transfer Account”. In my experience, providers are highly motivated to be highly helpful at this stage ;-).

But in essence, initiating an account transfer will involve two things:

  • The creation of the kind of account you’re moving (e.g. TFSA, RRSP, Spousal RRSP, RRIF14) AND
  • The details of that account (client number, account number….all collected in the previous step)

It’s also possible you have to create the account (TFSA, RRSP….) on your new platform FIRST, and once it’s created THEN you can initiate a transfer.

You will have to answer a question of moving the existing assets “in kind” or “as cash”. If you hold portable assets at your old provider (e.g. cash, stocks, ETF), “in kind” is fine. If you don’t (e.g. GICs, mutual funds) then “as cash” will allow your new provider to trigger a sale of those assets.

You will have to do this for EVERY account you’re moving. Were I to switch, I’d have to move

  • 4 RRIF accounts (2 each for me and my spouse; one in CAD, one in USD)
  • 2 spousal RRIF accounts (1 for each spouse)
  • 2 TFSA accounts (1 for each spouse)
  • 5 investment accounts (2 for me, 1 for my spouse, and 2 joint15)
  • 1 RESP account

6. Wait for the funds to arrive

This always seems to take forever. Expect a delay of 5-10 business days at this point. Expect a panicky call from your soon-to-be-ex advisor. Take the time to set up Trading Authority (TA) for your personal accounts (spouse, adult child, other relative) so they can make trades on your behalf. There’s a form for that. Having TA for my spouse’s accounts means I can see our ENTIRE retirement portfolio from my login which is Highly Desireable.

7. Buy the correct ETF in line with step 1.

As as example, if you were to use the Blackrock family of asset allocation funds:

  • Very Conservative: This means 20% Equity. This means XINC.
  • Conservative: This means 40% Equity. This means XCNS.
  • Balanced: This means 60% Equity. This means XBAL.
  • Growth: This means 80% Equity. This means XGRO.
  • Aggressive Growth: This means 100% Equity. This means XEQT.

The reason for choosing an asset allocation fund is for automatic re-balancing. You pay about 0.15% for that service, which is baked into the price of the fund. It’s more or less what your advisor should do for you today.

8. Pay as much or as little attention as you like

As you invest new funds (e.g. for TFSA/RRSP), buy more units. You might also consider setting up a DRIP at this stage so as dividends roll in (typically, monthly or quarterly), you automatically purchase more of the same. Autopilot.

If you want a second set of eyes to assess your holdings, then dropping some cash on a fee-for-service advisor from time to time may make sense.

Eight steps to save potentially thousands of dollars. You’re worth it!

  1. Googling (for example) “Wealthsimple promotion” would be one way to find the current one. ↩︎
  2. Read the fine print, there are almost always caps on rewards, as well as obligations to stick with the provider for a period of time. ↩︎
  3. Here is one rare case where there may indeed be something pretty close to a free lunch. ↩︎
  4. Almost all providers do this; there is almost always some sort of lower limit…$15k is pretty typical. ↩︎
  5. Any provider wanting faxes should disqualify them as a provider, just sayin’. ↩︎
  6. This is how QTrade does it. ↩︎
  7. Electronic fund transfers. You provide institution/transit/bank account number using a blank cheque. That’s how QTrade knows where to put my RRIF payments. Another form to fill. ↩︎
  8. Only Wealthsimple seems to allow this. It’s fast, but has upper daily/weekly/monthly limits that may make it impractical. ↩︎
  9. Both BMO Investorline and Wealthsimple allow this. I’m guessing that it’s a common feature for providers that also operate bank services (e.g. CIBC, TD, National Bank, Scotiabank). My provider (QTrade) does not. ↩︎
  10. Your new provider will have no idea what your TFSA limits are; only CRA knows that. Most providers will track what you contribute IN THEIR ACCOUNT in a given year, so that’s somewhat helpful. ↩︎
  11. The lack of liquidity of GICs is the main reason I don’t use them. ↩︎
  12. The one exception I’ve encountered thus far is that BMO Investorline was willing to accept the GICs purchased via BMO Advisor Services. There may be others. ↩︎
  13. Manulife and Sunlife, much loved by employers for DPSPs, are notorious for their 1.5% MER index funds. ↩︎
  14. Don’t forget to properly designate beneficiaries or survivor annuitants. ↩︎
  15. These are CAD and USD versions of the cash cushion required by the system I use to pay myself in retirement. ↩︎