Comments on: Sleepy Mini Portfolio Update

By: The Claymore Portfolio Index Allocator | MoneySense

The Claymore Portfolio Index Allocator | MoneySense — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:51:50 +0000

[...] Sleepy Mini Portfolio Update [...]

By: dan

dan — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 02:38:28 +0000

Thanks, not bad at all.

By: Canadian Capitalist

Canadian Capitalist — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:12:04 +0000

@dan: There are no commissions. The MER is the only cost of investing in the TD e-Series funds. There may also be some trading commissions which shows up in the tracking error. Look up the MER on the TD e-Series funds website. The weighted average should be in the range of 0.4%. Your all in costs should be less than 0.5%.

By: dan

dan — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:32:49 +0000

Can you explain the costs?Commissions you paid for each transaction, MER and others if any? For $1,000 the transaction costs should not be ignored.(I am trying to open a RESP account and am in the process of figuring out how much it cost, don’t know much).

By: T-Money Bags

T-Money Bags — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 05:14:25 +0000

As a Canadian, can somebody break down the advantages of having Canadian equities in my portfolio? What percentage of my portfolio should I allocate to Canadian equities, if at all?

By: Nabloid

Nabloid — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 03:00:38 +0000

I am a bit bearish on the U.S. as well… but many (not all) of their problems are common to all G8 nations but they aren’t as obvious in the other nations at the moment due to the extreme cash leak the U.S. has which is starting to bring the problem to the forefront. I hope people demand sweeping changes and get the U.S. back on a financial stable course.

By: Tony Danza

Tony Danza — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 22:35:59 +0000

Phil S., If you were to heed the advice of someone like Warren Buffet now would seem the perfect time to start increasing your position in US equities, be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful. It’s usually when everyone knows something is the worst investment you could possibly make that it is actually the best time to make that investment. It’s also the hardest trade to make.

Personally I am decreasing my Canadian equities and dollar cost averaging an increased weighting in the US market.

By: Canadian Capitalist

Canadian Capitalist — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 15:09:40 +0000

Warren: The trick is getting the initial asset allocation right. The rest is easy. You can dial down risk, if you want to, by increasing the bond portion.

Phil: The US makes up about 45% of the world capital markets. It has an economy that is 1/3 (I think) of world GDP. Yes, there are all sorts of structural problems, but I think it is already baked into the price of US assets. Not only that, everyone is bearish on the US these days. Personally, I’m sticking with market weight of US equities.

Preet: I don’t play around with the asset allocation unless I am adjusting portfolio risk. I do stay in cash if I feel an asset class is overpriced (I have 0% in REITs and 2% in emerging markets but I have planned 5% in both). Other than that, it is mostly sticking to the original asset allocation. I say mostly, because with ETFs you can only get the allocation approximately right.

By: WhereDoesAllMyMoneyGo.com

WhereDoesAllMyMoneyGo.com — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:02:39 +0000

A good case of “boring is beautiful”! This is essentially what all mutual fund of funds wrap programs do, but you have a guaranteed 2% increased ROR by dropping the management fees.

CC – do you ever adjust your weightings based on gut feelings? i.e. if you felt that interest rates were about to have a long slow decline would you increase your weightings to bonds from 20% to 25%? Or if the US had three consecutive negative years, would you bump that up taking a contrarian stance? Or is it more fire and forget and taking advantage of the dips by rebalancing with new deposits?

Thanks!

By: Phil S

Phil S — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 13:58:38 +0000

In Canadian Business magazine, one journalist described the US government’s fiscal situation as “drunken sailor economics”. Whether you want to refer to my investment style as contrarian or value investment or trying to time the market, the fact remains that I continue to be bearish on the US currency and economy until they somehow extricate themselves from Iraq and balance the budget. Until then, I will be excluding US assets from my investment decisions going forward. I do have a US brokerage account that is fully invested and will remain that way, I’m just not putting any new money into the USA until they fix their inherent structural problems. That could still be years away.