Claymore, the other major purveyor of ETFs in Canada, also has a couple of wrap ETFs that it calls “CorePortfolios”: a balanced income fund (CBD) and a balanced growth fund (CBN). In addition to the MER charged by the underlying ETFs, which are a mixture of offerings from Claymore and iShares, the wrapper costs an extra 0.25%. A quick calculation reveals that that the weighted MER of the current holdings in CBD is 0.5%, so the total cost of these ETFs are in the 0.75% range.
Unlike the competing wrap ETFs from iShares, Claymore has published asset allocation targets for these funds. For instance, CBD has a 45% to 55% split between fixed income and stocks and offers a reasonably simple portfolio in one package. Note that the equity funds held in the wrap are fundamental ETFs, which tend to be more expensive than traditional index funds.
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2 responses so far ↓
1 Jordan Clark // Nov 20, 2008 at 8:27 am
I thought I had read somewhere that funds of funds couldn’t double charge you a management fee if they held their own funds within another. Is it possible the .25% only applies on top of the iShares’ MER and the regular .5% MER applies to the Claymore assets?
CC: Besides these wrappers, do you think Claymore’s underlying fundamental ETFs will outperform a standard index?
2 Makin // Feb 17, 2009 at 12:36 pm
If an ETF selling company goes bankrupt, what happens? (ie. Claymore Investments goes bankrupt)
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