Richard CroftVanguard Total Stock Market ETFVTICOMMENTJul 30, 2013

Total stock market index. 70% made up of large caps, remaining 30% made up of 1000's of mid- to small-caps. The whole package. iShares has some offerings as well. Many ways to play.

With VUN, you get pretty much the entire US market; not too expensive at 16 bps. Keep in mind that the USD version, VTI, has a MER of 3 bps; be mindful, too, of foreign currency and US estate issues.

Over 3700 positions, market-cap weighted. Top 10 names represent about 20% of the portfolio. Lots of exposure to the tech space. Not all that different from the S&P 500.

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For those starting with ETFs, he recommends a fully diversified portfolio. SPX is based in New York and VTI is for the total global market.

It's everything. Small, mid, large cap. Market weighted. Broadly diversified. At this stage in the economic cycle, he prefers the large cap indices such as SPY or QAL. But VTI will do fine.

He’s looking for small caps, stuff he normally doesn’t have. Likes that it’s all caps. The US tax cuts will continue as long as Trump’s in office and will impact the small caps as well. Contains 18% FANGs, which he still likes.

ZWH-T & ZPW-T are a defensive strategy but what is the favourite go to strategy for the S&P 500. VTI-N is the ETF that echoes this strategy.

A total market ETF, so you are getting every equity, small, big cap stocks. This will give you an over weighted position in the large caps. It is really, really diversified and he is not sure you need that much diversification.

(A Top Pick July 18/14. Up 7.21%.) Relative to what he normally buys, it underperformed by far. That is the broadest he has ever gone and he doesn’t think he is going to do it again.

(A Top Pick July 18/14. Up 9.15%.) He still has this, but hasn’t been buying any more.

Has about 3400-3500 holdings. It is basically the whole market including large caps, small caps, mid-cap and micro-cap. If the recovery is real, this will be picking up the smaller players as well. It will be more volatile if the market turns down.

The whole US stock market, small to large cap. You are not early in the trend and there is some risk. It is a good way to play the markets.

If you think the US$ is going to be strengthening to the Cdn$, this one would serve you very well because you’re not only getting the performance of US stock market, but you also get the strength of the greenback. Has done quite well in the past year. You should probably have a US$ account to do it. If you have a Cdn$ account you are going to have to make a conversion and you might get hit on the conversion.