IShares MSCI EAFE IMI Index (XEF.TO)

XEF is the biggest of the international ETFs, where IMI stands for "investable market index"; developed countries that are not NA, but not EM countries either. Less risky than EMs. Good entry point at only 22 bps.

ZEA tracks just the vanilla MSCI, and it's just the large caps.

Be careful mixing and matching international with EM exposure. For example, FTSE and Vanguard consider South Korea to be a developed country, but MSCI does not. So you may end up with gaps or overlaps.

Good way to get safe exposure to Asia markets. Low MER and safe dividend yield. 

It is one of his core ETFs for international exposure. He likes the broad diversification and the low cost.

XAW-T vs. XEF-T. XAW-T is an all world ETF with broader exposure. His favourite way to play international is good quality, high dividend paying stocks in Europe with a covered call overlay. ZWE-T is his choice.

Is this a long term holding? Similar to iShares MSCI EAFE Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) (XIN-T) which is hedged. This ETF goes into some small caps where XIN-T doesn’t. He is comfortable with that for EAFE. He thinks there is nothing wrong with this one. He would buy it as a long term holding.

Sell this and Buy the hedged version? He just took off of his Canadian hedges today. The Cdn$ has had a strong run up, and there are built-in expectations by the Bank of Canada that the Cd$ is going to go higher. Thinks Bank of Canada has gotten a little ahead of itself and the inflation and growth forecasts for next year are a little too robust. He wouldn’t be worried about the Cdn$ going up further. If you want to be long the US market, you want to stay with the unhedged version.

(A Top Pick Dec 16/16. Up 12.11%.) He would encourage people to start looking more seriously outside of North America, and the 1^st stop is the EAFE index. This is essentially the equivalent of the S&P 500, every big brand name that you can think of outside of New York. He likes that this has less of a tech focus than the S&P 500.

An international market ETF, and he likes it for diversification. A great idea for a lot of Canadians who have a home bias. It includes mid-cap and small-cap companies, but is not currency hedged. (See Top Picks.)

This is like the S&P 500 outside of North America. It is all the big famous companies around the world. What he likes is that there is going to be a surprise in 2017 on UP indexes. He expects a fair amount of investment flow to come from the US into foreign markets. Because there is a lot of bad news in this one, it is quite cheap compared to anything in North America.

It is not hedged and he likes that. The MER is reduced to an attractive price. He prefers the emerging markets to the States. He likes to have adequate global diversification. It is very diversified.

This is his primary MSCI EAFE holding. Very inexpensive and there is a lot of liquidity in it.