iSHARES SP TSX COMP HIGH DIV INDEX ETF (XEI.TO)

MER has fallen from 40 to 20 basis points, and pays a yield over 4%. A good, pure dividend pay with a low MER.

XCV-T vs. XEI-T. XEI-T is a high dividend strategy. XCV-T is a value approach. XEI-T has 24% exposures to each of pipelines and banks. XCV-T has 31% in banks and oil/gas at 16% and these are the major differences. Neither one is particularly good value, but he would go for XEI-T at the moment.

Because of its oil exposure, this had dropped quite a bit, but is now working its way back. There is now some stability in oil prices, so he is holding this. It gives a good yield of 4.9%.

Put your new money into something other than this. If you are on a fixed income, you cannot take this kind of fluctuation and the price. Any time you are looking at these dividends or a high yielding instrument, all of the ETF providers have very good websites, and you can go to them and click on “Holdings”, and look at the top 10 holdings. If you find a name that you are not comfortable with, or if there is a lot of energy, don’t buy it.

(A Top Pick Oct 31/14. Down 10.39%.) He likes this because they chopped the price from 45 basis points down to 20 basis points. This was beaten up last year because it is about 30% oil, 30% financials and 10% telcos. Paying a good yield of about 5.2%.

(A Top Pick Sept 2/14. Down 19.96%.) He didn’t have this initially because of the high fees, but it was one of the ETF’s that iShares chopped substantially down to 20 basis points, so he bought it because he already had a lot of exposure to Canadian banks. There is nothing wrong with this except that it got hit because it has oil stocks and dividends.

He likes this. iShares dropped the price. It was around 45-50 basis points and they dropped it to 20. A very good dividend ETF and he doesn’t see anything wrong with it, but there is some oil exposure that could continue to decline, so be a little bit cautious. (See Past Picks.)

(A Top Pick July 18/14. Down 14.82%.) This was a dividend play and the problem with it was that it was full of oil. There is nothing wrong with this other than that it has oil. There may be some downside, but he is pretty much holding on for now.

(A Top Pick July 18/14. Up 0.42%.) Likes it because it gives a little bit of diversification away from oils and banks.

It is worth hanging onto. The dividend is very attractive. The good quality dividend paying companies should do well over time. He would prefer it over the XIU-T. It is just like XDV-T.

This has a lot of dividends, and a lot of those dividends are coming from oil stocks which have been beaten up somewhat. It is probably in a price range now where you could buy it.

An ETF that would best weather interest rate increases? He would be looking at one of the low cost dividend ETF’s like iShares S&P/TSX Equity Income (XEI-T). This is about 20 basis points. In this interest rate environment, he has quite a bit of Money Market that he is sitting in, because he knows at some point rates are going to rise and you don’t want to be in any long-term bonds.

Good diversification across sectors. It is heavy in energy and oil, however. It is geared toward bigger dividend payers. The average dividend is about 4% or so. It is concentrated, so you have more volatility.