Comments on: CIBC Index Mutual Funds

By: Canadian Capitalist

Canadian Capitalist — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:27:50 +0000

@Allen: I don’t know if CIBC charges a fee on TFSA withdrawals. Many institutions have a limited number of free withdrawals and you can avoid the transfer fee by withdrawing the entire balance from a TFSA account in the last week of December, wait until the new year and contributing the same account to a new TFSA account. I realize this may not help you much now since your transfer is already done but it may be useful in the future.

By: Allen

Allen — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 18:37:18 +0000

Whatever investing you plan to do with or through CIBC be very sure you will be happy with your transactions before signing up. Keeping in mind if you decide to transfer your account to another institution that CIBC will be charging you a transfer fee of $ 135.00 plus tax or a $ 141.75 !!! I am a victim of their system when I moved my TFSA to another institution with much better returns than the 1.2376% CIBC paid me over a year!

By: dave

dave — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 11:36:22 +0000

Regarding CIBC and other Canadian companies offering Index funds – we bother with them at all?

db-xtrackers, Vanguard or Schwab all have lower priced etfs

You only need funds really – a MSCI World Equity + a Global bond fund..

By: J. Allen Strople

J. Allen Strople — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 03:30:31 +0000

Why does CIBC charge a $ 40. fee for someone holding mutual funds from another institution who wishes to sell any amount of these funds. I am thinking in particular when the CIBC is managing a substantial amount of their investment portfolio and are in receipt of trailer fees in excess of $5,000. per year. It strikes me as an overly greedy approach to financial management. I would appreciate some logical explanation for this practice.

By: Wealth Manager

Wealth Manager — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 00:58:46 +0000

Scratch that question – not sure what I was thinking at the time!

By: Wealth Manager

Wealth Manager — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 17:08:47 +0000

One question here: I’ve been buying the CAD$ (CIB484) version of the US Broad Market Index but there’s also the US$ denominated version (CIB884).

I recently read somewhere USD$ fund versions are unhedged and elsewhere the CAD$ versions are unhedged.

Can someone shed some light on this.

By: Wealth Manager

Wealth Manager — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 02:39:31 +0000

I use the CIBC Index funds as a place to put my money until I have enough to justify an ETF purchase (min $2500 is my rule; more often $5000). Rebalancing is normally once/twice a year so the hit isn’t a big deal and there’s no cost to buy/sell so it works well in my case.

By: TStrump

TStrump — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 00:56:03 +0000

I currently own the CIBC Monthly Managed Balance Income Fund and I have not been happy with it.
Their managed fund hold portions of some of their other funds and ‘re-balance’ occasionally.
I actually don’t know what the MER is – guess I should know that, but I find it quite expensive.
It’s time to change I think – I like ETF’s.

By: Intelligent Speculator » Blog Archive » Investment Talking

Intelligent Speculator » Blog Archive » Investment Talking — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:44:08 +0000

[...] Canadian Capitalist makes a review of CIBC Index Mutual Funds. [...]

By: Canadian Capitalist

Canadian Capitalist — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:22:46 +0000

EconStudent: MER = Management Fee + Operating Expenses. My understanding is that operating expenses are the variable part of the equation and may vary. Maybe that accounts for the difference, assuming they are talking about different years.

I wrote about bonds in an old post:

http://www.canadiancapitalist.com/2007/07/04/short-term-versus-long-term-bonds

But I should clarify that the view isn’t unanimous. Some opine that taking a bit of interest-rate risk is a good thing because it is a different kind of risk. Still, I avoid it because the excess return on long-term bonds is very small.

It’s a good point about PC Financial and worth checking out. I don’t know about trailer fees after the discount. I agree that it’s hard to compete with Vanguard’s rock-bottom fees.

Russell: I was asked this question before and kind of answered it in the comments section of this post:

http://www.canadiancapitalist.com/2008/05/28/switching-from-index-mutual-funds-to-etfs

I’ll clean it up and post about this next week. Thanks for the idea.