All‑in ETFs vs. DIY Underlying ETFs

In this episode, my goal was to make it relevant for both types of listeners:

First, for those who are just getting started in do-it-yourself investing or are looking to transition to becoming passive index investors instead of trying to beat the market by stock picking or owning expensive actively managed funds.

We’re going to build a strong foundation for you here to help you get started, such as discussing what it actually means to be a total market index investor, and what the research says about passive index investing versus actively trying to pick investments that will beat the market. We'll also talk about the different ways you can be a DIY passive index investor here in Canada and the pros and cons of each.

Next, we’re going to tackle something that’s a bit more intermediate level and something that I’ve personally been deliberating and have been curious about for quite some time: When it comes to the more stable, fixed-income portion of our investment portfolio (often called the bond portion), what are some of the options available to us here in Canada, and what are the pros and cons of each?

We’ve all heard of high-interest savings accounts, GICs, and all-in-one bond ETFs that capture the aggregate bond index and have an assortment of bond types in them. But what if we only want a specific type of bond in our portfolio because of the degree of volatility and income that it provides? What are these different types of bond ETFs that we can buy, and what’s the trade-off that we incur by choosing one over another?

In the past, we have had both stocks and bonds fall at the same time (2022), so what are our options and tradeoffs when it comes to specific types of bonds that we can choose, so that we can avoid or mitigate the large drops in the “safe/less volatile” portion of our portfolio?

Links from the Episode

ETF Comparison Tool. This is especially useful for comparing fees (the management fee and MER) among similar ETFs. At this link, I've already included some comparisons for you.

Here is the episode on fixed-income choices that I mentioned during the episode: Fixed Income ETFs Episode

ETF Market Insights YouTube Channel

Investor Profile Questionnaire (to help you determine your asset allocation)

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