Well Hello!
Welcome to my latest Weekend Reading edition where I share some of my favourite articles from the week that was across the personal finance and investing blogosphere.
You can find my previous Weekend Reading edition below!
Wow, quite the week of U.S. election coverage…right? *Understatement of the year*
I won’t add many more political views here (I’ve shared enough on Twitter over the last few months), but I find this election interesting for many reasons. Let’s hope things are resolved soon and that country can move ahead – somehow – after taking the country back generations in time in terms of values.
Got plans for this weekend?
It’s going to be 20 Deg. C in Ottawa today. That is not a typo! I plan on getting chores done soon, then a walk to groceries and then a nice long bike ride. Can’t wait to be outdoors!!
Enjoy your weekend, stay safe and well!
Mark
Weekend Reads
Don’t forget about my post this week – the start of my epic financial independence plan revealed!!
Another Loonie highlighted some great Canadian dividend ETFs.
I think the list is good, but I have a different favourite if I was going to invest my money into a Canadian dividend ETF/index fund in Canada: iShares XIU.
You can see my list of top, low-cost ETFs on this dedicated ETFs page here.
But, as readers on this site may know by know I don’t invest in any Canadian dividend ETFs for these reasons.
Instead, I’m a hybrid investor: owning many Canadian dividend paying stocks for income and growth and owning some low-cost ETFs to invest beyond Canada’s borders. So far, that approach is working well.
Other bloggers and authors use a very similar strategy. A reminder about this approach is nicely packaged in a book I profiled on this site before – check it out:
Great stuff by Larry Bates on MoneySense this week. I had Larry on my site before when we discussed his book Beat The Bank.
Larry highlighted some simple steps for the more transparent declaration of fund fees.
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve used the free calculator that Larry cited in that article on my site before and I encourage you to try it again to see how your funds stack up. Remember, money management fees paid are lost forever!
How and why to ditch your expensive mutual funds
Try this free fund fee calculator among other free money tools on my dedicated page here.
Pedal down by Rob at Passive Canadian Income! His October 2020 dividend income is growing and snowballing.
We’re still working on being mortgage free. Our day is coming. This is how life changed for Financial Pilgrimage when they killed their mortgage.
Reader question of the week!
Hi Mark, love the blog!
Just curious how many different types of holdings you have – meaning, some of your ETFs, Canadian and U.S. stocks?
I currently have 4 ETFs, 17 Canadian quarterly dividend payers, 14 Canadian monthly dividend payers, but I’m looking for more U.S. holdings that increase their dividends. There seems to be a large list. So, I guess my other question is, do you have a preference towards CAD or U.S. dividend paying stocks?
Thanks Mark!
Good questions – let’s go!
You know, I get a number of reader questions about my portfolio and my dividend holdings every single week. Why don’t I start a new, dedicated “FAQs” page on my site and start a running list there??
Would that be helpful? Let me know please!
OK, here are some answers to your questions…
First, I don’t disclose my entire portfolio, values and assets for privacy and security reasons but I can say for a fact I own the following low-cost ETFs at the time of this post:
- iShares Core S&P U.S. Total Market Index ETF (XUU) – a great way to invest in the U.S. market in Canadian dollars and obtain total U.S. market returns from thousands of U.S. stocks for MER = 0.07%.
- Invesco QQQ (QQQ) – is a U.S. listed ETF based on the Nasdaq-100 index; holds the top 100 largest domestic and international non-financial companies (think mostly tech and communications) on that index. Top holdings include at the time of this post are Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Adobe and more. Total expense ratio of 0.20%. I own QQQ because I don’t need to guess about tech stocks long-term 🙂
I have static pages about the dividend stocks and low-cost ETFs that I own on these pages below:
Do you have a preference towards CAD or U.S. dividend paying stocks?
Not really although my financial plan calls for me to own more low-cost U.S. ETF units over time as I work towards semi-retirement in the coming years. You can check out my latest financial independence update here.
Happy investing and see you in the comments section!
Mark
You know, I get a number of reader questions about my portfolio and my dividend holdings every single week. Why don’t I start a new, dedicated “FAQs” page on my site and start a running list there??
Would that be helpful? Let me know please!
THIS SOUNDS LIKE A GREAT IDEA MARK… AND I’m sure many of us would regularly refer to it… so yes PLease!
Great and done! Thanks for the feedback!
Greetings Earthling, been a while since my last visit! So a few interesting investment tweets I picked up this week.
Excellent insight into human nature via a description of the Guinness IPO in 1886, and investor mania. (the language was a bit archaic but still interesting!
https://twitter.com/InvestorAmnesia/status/1325972529496940547?s=20
Continuing the Canadian obsession with all things real estate Steve Saretsky does his weekly update – highly recommend following him
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqctGjpo3hU&t=4s&ab_channel=SteveSaretsky
And of course the biggest question mark hanging over investors “is money printing inflationary or deflationary”. Well it’s actually both
https://twitter.com/CrusoeEconomics/status/1321679670685753344?s=20
Adios till next time
Thanks for the interesting links! Stay well Rob.
I just found out that Telus raised dividend last Friday by 6.8%. Wow, what a good surprise for me. I am pretty heavy on Telus and quite happy.
Indeed. I forgot to mention it on my blog…just blew past me and I was busy doing other stuff. That’s a good sign 🙂
Congrats May! Happy for my 1,000+ shares as well 🙂
In my RRSP for the US and INTL portion I use ZDY (3.7% yield) and ZGQ along with 6 different Canadian Dividend Stocks. I really like the global quality factor for my Growth Portion of my RRSP. For my TFSA, along with my 9 Canadian Dividend Stocks I hold ZQQ and ZUH (equal weight US Healthcare). I hold these in my TFSA due to the low yield and high growth. These are different choices but they seem to suit me for my hybrid style of investing like you.
Those BMO funds are good ones to own I think. ZQQ is a good way to earn growth in the Nasdaq as well without QQQ / currency-conversion costs.
There is nothing wrong with low-cost growth-oriented ETFs. I am consider ZQQ myself for the TFSA in 2021!
Mark
I see that you have not mentioned the Horizon all in one ETF’s in any of your publications.
Thank you
Eugene
Good catch Eugene. I hope to change that in some upcoming posts over time. Thanks for the encouragement 🙂
Thanks for the share, Mark! It seems that being a hybrid investor is very popular these days. People love to buy individual companies but also understand the benefits of investing in ETFs.
Low-cost ETFs are great. No denying that. Did you see what I own too? 🙂
Cheers,
Mark
Been an interesting week watching the US election and wondering if Trump would actually be re-elected. Today it appears he’ll become a one-term president.
I love No fees, which are as transparent as they can get.
Have a good weekend!
No fees are good fees 🙂 Stay well!