RBC Revamps Its Index Fund Lineup
In my last post, I reviewed RBC’s forthcoming lineup of traditional ETFs, which will appear later this summer. The launch of these ETFs will also spark some changes in RBC’s index mutual funds: they’l [...]
RBC Gets Back to Basics With New ETFs
When RBC entered the ETF marketplace back in 2011, it tested the waters with a family of specialized bond ETFs. Since then they’ve created a number of equity ETFs, all with active strategies. However, [...]
How TD Put the “Managed” in ETF Portfolios
What Canadian bank was first to launch a line of ETFs? You might think it was BMO, which is by far the biggest bank in the industry today, with more than 70 ETFs and some $37 billion in assets. But in [...]
Model Portfolio Update for 2017
After two years with no changes to my Couch Potato model portfolios, the 2017 edition comes with an update to the ETF version. Before I get to the details, I feel compelled to stress that if you’re cu [...]
Ask the Spud: Switching From e-Series Funds to ETFs
Q: “I currently have $30,000 invested in the TD e-Series funds. When the time comes to move to ETFs, what is the best way to do this while still making automatic contributions? Should I put my biweekl [...]
Are Index Funds Fatally Flawed?
“No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise,” Winston Churchill famously said in a 1947 speech. “Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those oth [...]
Decoding International Equity ETF Returns
How have international equities performed over the last year? If you research the returns of index funds in this asset class, you may wind up with more questions than answers. I recently received an e [...]
How Taxes Can Affect ETF Performance
In our recent white paper, After-Tax Returns, Justin Bender and I introduced a methodology for measuring the effect of income taxes on ETF returns. Justin also created a downloadable spreadsheet you c [...]
The Couch Potato Mutual Fund is Here At Last
[Note: This was an April Fool's joke!] One of the perennial problems with ETFs is they require you to open a discount brokerage account and learn to trade individual securities. That can be intimidati [...]
The True Cost of Foreign Withholding Taxes
Back in the fall of 2012, I wrote a pair of blog posts about the impact of foreign withholding taxes in US and international equity funds. The first explained the general idea of this tax on foreign d [...]
