Mutual Funds and ETFs Update – March 2012
In our March issue, Gordon Pape highlights a few of his favourties small cap funds that he expects to perform well in a rising market. We review our ETF Recommended List and highlight some recent additions which will provide you with even greater diversification opportunities in your ETF portfolios. Next up, we highlight the much improved performance of our Couch Potato Portfolio. No doubt emerging markets have been popular, but many investors may be under represented. Dave highlights some great emerging market options for investors. And finally, in what will surely be a controversial topic, Dave explains why mutual fund fees don’t matter.
Read MoreFifteen Years of Futility
In these days of instant online trading, 15 years is an inordinately long time horizon. Given the financial industry’s continual message of “stocks for the long run” (defined as at least five years), the Financial Post’s 15-year mutual fund performance numbers make for counterintuitive reading.
Read MoreCI Signature Canadian Balanced Fund
The CI Signature Canadian Balanced fund has been managed by Eric Bushell and the Signature Global Advisor team since July 2002. The fund is managed using a top down approach which is used to set the overall asset mix and sector exposure of the fund, combined with a fundamentally driven, bottom up security selection process.
Read MoreBMO Monthly Income Fund
The BMO Monthly Income Fund is designed to provide investors with a monthly distribution while preserving the investor’s capital. The fund pays out a monthly distribution of $0.06 per unit, which works out to an annualized distribution yield of 9.4% at current prices. While the yield may be attractive, we do have questions as to its sustainability over the long term. The managers will have to earn a total return of more than 9.4% in order for there not to be an erosion of capital over the long term for those investors who are taking the distributions in cash.
Read MoreTD Dividend Growth Fund
Like other dividend funds, the TD Dividend Growth Fund seeks to provide a high level of after tax income and steady growth. To achieve this investment, the management team of Doug Warwick and Michael Lough screen the universe of dividend paying stocks and rank them based on a number of fundamental criteria which includes market cap, earnings growth, and dividend yield. Once the least desirable stocks have been weeded out, the team conducts a more detailed fundamental analysis on the remaining names.
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