Happy New Year!
Over the last month or so various bloggers and financial experts have been kind to respond to my question: what’s in your portfolio? I asked this question to find out what goals these investors had, learn a little about their investing strategies, uncover some of the products they own and see what advice they might have for other investors. So far, here is what these investors shared:
The Passive Income Earner portfolio
Today’s blogpost will feature the portfolio and investing objectives of Kyle Prevost, one member of the dynamic duo behind My University Money and owner and power contributor to YoungandThrifty, two of Canada’s preeminent blogs targeted at Gen Y.
Kyle, describe your investing goals in one or two sentences:
My investing goals are simply to maximize capital growth as a young person so I can leave the rat race of daily employment behind as soon as possible.
How would you describe your investing strategy helping to fulfill this goal?
For right now I am a dedicated index investor. At some point when I have a little more capital to play with I will likely try my hand at active investing with a very small part of my portfolio, but for the next several years I’m a “couch potato investing” devotee.
List some of the investing products you own that help you with your investing strategy:
I use very low-cost Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) that track broad indexes. My three favorites as of right now are:
VXUS (Vanguard Total International Stock ETF)
VTI (Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF)
VCN (FTSE Canada All Cap Index ETF)
Lastly, what advice do you have for other investors based on what’s working with your approach?
Index investing has been called “couch potato investing” for a reason – it’s by far the easiest way to invest for yourself! Not only is it the easiest, it also has the advantage of statistically guaranteeing you will beat somewhere between 90-99% of investors (depending on what study you read) that use mutual funds or pick their on stocks over the long term. It’s working quite well for me as I can focus on gaining the capital I need (my employment income) and not worry about my overall investment approach.
Kudos to Kyle for getting serious about investing in his 20s and not making some of the mistakes I made a decade or so ago, investing in high priced mutual funds that would eat into my portfolio returns. Kyle also invests in some of the same products I do, along with many other DIY investors, because Vanguard’s products have historically, some of the lowest fees of the bunch along with the best diversification available. You can check out some of my favourite indexed products here.
No doubt if Kyle continues to index, invest regularly and stick to his plan, he will leave the rats racing far behind him and realize early retirement before most.
A big thanks to Kyle Prevost for participating in my series and running a pair of informative personal finance sites, providing quality guidance to thousands of young Canadians.
Disclaimer: The contents of this post are not recommendations for any individual investor but have been shared to educate readers and provide insight into how others are managing their portfolios. My Own Advisor is not a financial professional. Every reader is encouraged to seek help from a financial professional before making any important investment decisions.
What is your opinion on Mawer Balanced Fund? It does have a low mer and quite impressive record. I know its a mutual fund but just wondering about your or other readers thoughts. Great site you have here. I read it daily.