Opinions Richard Croft
iShares S&P 500 Index ETFXSP.TOCOMMENTMay 26, 2014
Richard CroftStock price when the opinion was issued
As of Jun 08, 2026. Market Open.
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The hedged version. Is a core holding of his. Can hold this a long time and can generate income from it instead of buying a covered call ETF.
Richard OrrellInvestor's talking about a way to use some leverage to get exposure to the market. That's a sophisticated strategy, and he wouldn't recommend it for most people. If the S&P valuation is pretty fully valued, then he doesn't love this strategy here. After a correction, sure.
What he does like a lot right now, with capital preservation in mind, is BMO's series of buffer ETFs. Upside potential, but there the covered call pays for some put protection. For the short term, he's more in the camp of "down" than "up". Long term, you have to love the S&P 500; but you just can't love it at 22x forward PE.
He hasn't sold a single share for years, just keeps buying it. Hold on. Has it in all his portfolios.
John Hood
VSP is a hedged version for the S&P index, for those wanting exposure to the S&P but using Canadian dollars. XSP is fairly similar. MER costs are quite low for both. He prefers the market-weighted over the equal-weighted right now. Large and mega-caps will continue to perform well.
His mid-term target for the S&P 500 is 5500, then maybe a pullback in September-October, and then go on to hit 6000 in the first quarter of 2025. Good opportunities in it, even though the market's performed well.
He likes to keep it simple. XSP or VSP are his choices. Both similar, market-weighted, hedged to CAD, track fairly closely to the underlying index. Though there are offerings from other companies, these 2 have the lowest fees.
Good time to write options on this? There is nothing wrong with writing options on this particular ETF. Not a very liquid market for options on ETFs like this. Also, the hedge on the Cdn$ distorts the performance somewhat. Also, there are a couple of US ETFs that actually do buy writes on the S&P 500, Power Shares (PBP-N) and Power Shares PWV-N). He might be more inclined to do that.