John HoodBMO MSCI EAFE Hedged TO CADZDM.TOTOP PICKMay 08, 2015

The CAD vs. the world has been weak for quite a while and likely will continue until the current government can right-size the Canadian economy and grow it again. We're in a recession now, so the CAD will underperform. So, buy hedged. Go unhedged when the CAD is stronger. So, buy ZDM now.

(A Top Pick January 13/17 Up 17%) The return followed the market as was expected, due to its beta based on the international market. He likes it as a core holding. The ETF is quite liquid and has a built in currency hedge with exposure to large cap European and international holdings.

This is a broad market ETF with a hedge to Canadian dollars. Japan represents about 25% of the holdings. Ishares has an ETF (CJP-T) that with hedged currency that he likes. He currently holds about 2% of Japan in his portfolio, looking to buy more on weakness.

There are many EAFE. This is cheap. That is why he likes it. Doesn’t have small caps.

Is the hedging aspect hurting the performance? This was a core holding for him. Earlier in the year he moved from being currency hedged to unhedged. Currencies in the EAFE index will be accretive, so you are better not to have the currency hedged.

(Top Pick Jan 13/17, Up 3%) It weights companies by market cap. It is one of his core ETFs for the world outside of Canada/US.

An example of a core holding for an international equity. It is currency hedged, so it is hedged against the fall of other global currencies relative to CAD, mostly euro and Asian currencies. If you believe that international equities are going to perform well over the future, but it is going to be export driven companies that do well, you may wish to bias towards large caps.

Stocks outside North America such as UK, Japan and so on. It is good filler in your portfolio because everyone is too much in North America. He is not crazy about the hedge on it. The Canadian dollar has more headwinds than tailwinds.

A good ETF. He prefers FEZ-N, an unhedged version of the European stock index. If you look at where the euro is now, he can’t see any reason to hedge it out.

(Top Pick May 8/15, Down 11.57%) He never does well on Europe. It suffered along with the rest of them.

(Market Call Minute.) He doesn’t like Europe. This is hedged back to the Cdn$. If Europe expands, the euro is going to rise and is going to be hedged out, which is where you are going to get the benefit of it. At best this is a Hold.

Down 14%, but hang in there. One of the reasons he likes this is that it does have about 20% Japan in it. He likes the idea.

He likes that this is EAFE (Europe, Australasia and Far East). It is about 20% Japan, 22% UK, 10% each for England, France and Germany and it is more large caps, along with some individual stocks.