Remove SPY's expense and just go VTI + tilt to small/mid as you feel necessary. Yay to VNQ(put in tax advantaged if possible) and I'd throw a decent amount of VEU in there as well.

+1 to VTI & tilt (VOE, VBR)

+1 to VNQ in tax sheltered account.

I personally team up VEA & VWO to mix and match developed vs. EM in the ratio I want. If you do that, you don't need VEU. If you want a single Intl ETF, definitely +1 to VEU or VXUS.

Okay thanks guys!

So, will be putting VNQ in my TFSA, but will not have enough room in the account to fill out my proportions properly. Easier to just size down VNQ and fit it all in TFSA, or just add some more in my non-reg?

Tentative allocations:

VTI 40%

VEA 15%
VNQ 15%

VWO 10%
VOE 10%
VBR 10%

oh heeeeell no don't do that. You don't put American dividend payers in a TFSA. Only in your RRSP. That's really important. Any US dividends in your TFSA you're going to pay tax on.

Also toss VOE, VBR and VTI into google finance and you get this. Is that as diversified as you'd hoped?

What did you do to make that chart?

Whats the general concesus regarding currency risk as a Canadian whose dollar is at ~.82 compared to USD when buying american etfs?

Not entirely sure what you're asking. Like how to use the compare feature?

Ok, lets talk macro.

How does this Trump presidency affect things?

Financials go up?
Industrials?
Real Estate?

Do we see higher interest rates? Does that crash the market temporarily?

Inflation?

What would be a prudent move right now? I'm thinking TIPS, and taking a little risk off and sitting on cash to take advantage of the volatility.

But part of me thinks, that nothing will really change much. The lobbyists and big corporation will still do their thing, and the establishment isn't going to crumble in 200 days.

So Financials definitely went sky high, Industrials, and Defense.

I added some TIPS, VTV, and have mostly been sitting on the rest of my cash.

My only play at moment is possibly with TAN. Is it time to invest in the solar industry? In the last 6 months its shown a lot of promise. Is it too risky because of the fear that Trump may cut the incentives? From my calculations, in a couple of years it still may be profitable enough to withstand the cut in government rebate.

TAN also has a 4.63% dividend yield which is pretty attractive?

Healthcare is still doing well to. I picked up VHT late last year. Thanks for TAN. thats a good one. I cant vouch for the longterm of US solar because people have been expecting something to happen w it since the early 2000's. But its coming off trend support that began around Nov. I like that yield to. Worth a shot in my longterm acct. I hold PFN FSEAX to..

yeah, it may be a little bit of confirmation bias on my part, since my solar panels just got installed on my home a week ago. Watching the energy production on my solar city app, is a twice a day occurrence.

I put zero money down, and I'm paying about $106 a month for 15 years. 98% of my energy use should be completely solar. After that, I won't pay anything for my energy usage. Now If I buy an electric car, and it powers on solar?

Google Finance! You can choose any stock then compare with others over various timeframes. Amazing web tool.

Is there any equivalent fund/ETFs that I can buy on Vanguard? (no fees on Vanguard funds/ETFs)

I've spent a decent amount of time on Vanguard's website and I don't think they have a solar ETF.

I'm pretty sure thats the only one.

Another ETF I like that's kind of off the radar is SKYY. Its a cloud based ETF. I've done really well with it the last few years, mostly due to Amazon's rise and success with AWS.

Its a cool way to invest in cloud based computing, and Amazon, without investing in a single stock.

Paid the $7 fee (24 discount trades left) and bought $2k of TAN. Planning to hold for multiple years.

I put some CGW Guggenheim S&P Global Water index in my roth about a month ago. There are so much better options in these water ETFs now. Ten years ago PHO was the best liquid one. There's the "water is one of the scarcest resources" play here but I see it as more of a stalwart, utility longterm. Its a little added diversification to an already sound diversified equity component. I like it as a one time buy,small percentage of a portfolio. Not dollar cost averaged into regularly. .64 expense ratio, 1.50% dividend yield.

BOTZ appears to be the best play in the US for a robotics and artificial intelligence ETF. AI is expected to grow from $600 mil to a roughly $32 billion industry by 2025. Looked at ROBO also but BOTZ looks to be the best. Puru Saxena who I got the idea from went with another one but its not ADR, RBOT.

Water will get more scarce as the population increases obv. But how do the companies held in this etf make money? Are there companies holding stockpiles of water somewhere? Is it companies that make water treatment equipment? Companies that sell bottled water?

Water isn't exactly like other commodities. The supply of the vast majority of the water people consume is controlled by municipal governments in most areas. When water shortages happen, they tend to implement rationing to control the output, instead of just allowing market forces to increase the price, like with other commodities.

I'd like to hear other opinions tho.

Any thoughts on smart beta ETFs?

https://www.etftrends.com/2017/03/in...small-cap-etf/

I currently have 100% of my portfolio in SCHA. I'm considering getting some FNDA. It's outperformed SCHA slightly since inception 4 years ago, despite the expense ratio being .2% higher.

It's diversified with different industries.
From the prospectus,
"The Index is comprised of 50 securities selected based on the relative importance of the global water industry within the company’s business model. The Index is designed to have a balanced representation from different segments of the water industry consisting of the following two clusters: 25 water utilities and infrastructure companies (water supply, water utilities, waste water treatment, water, sewer and pipeline construction, water purification, water well drilling, water testing) and 25 water equipment and materials companies (water treatment chemicals, water treatment appliances, pumps and pumping equipment, fluid power pumps and motors, plumbing equipment, plumbing pipes, fluid meters and counting devices) based upon S&P’s Capital IQ (“CIQ”) business development and segment breakdown. To determine whether global demand for water is a major component of a company’s business, the Index Provider implements the following methodology:"

For my fundamental research for ETF's and mutual funds I use Morningstar.com. You can view the funds prospectus there to.

I don't think this is at all obvious, and in fact, is probably fundamentally wrong (which then undermines the rest of the presumptions in your post).

This is basically why I doubt that water will get more scarce as the population increases:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simon–Ehrlich_wager

Also, this:

Yeah it makes sense in some respects, but I feel like it goes against the very idea of the passive ETC, plus most ETF's are already weighing their exposure anyway. Seems like a new way to get people's money. The new version of the investment industry's attempts at tricking uninformed people out of gains.


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This is great and something I hadnt thought of before. I need to dig into this for sure. This is why I started this thread, for posts exactly like this.


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How do you guys know what are some good ETFs? For me, this just feels like gambling, but I guess that's better than having money sitting in the bank.