Stock price when the opinion was issued
Likes exposure to Europe, of which many Canadians have minimal exposure. ZWE looks at the dividend yields of its holdings. Plus, it does some covered writing, which gives you income along the way in tradeoff for upside. Attractive yield, but consider also owning some European stocks on their own. Nice piece of diversification for your portfolio, good bit of income.
Right now, this is his preference. Going over the history of this ETF, the extreme was $1.50-1.60 CAD to euro. So anything above $1.50-1.55, you'd want to be hedged. Anything lower than $1.35-1.40, you want to be exposed to the foreign currency.
Recently we got back above $1.50. If it keeps going higher, that's fine. When you're hedging the CAD relative to Europe, their interest rates are lower than ours, and so you actually earn extra doing it.
ZWC vs. ZWE vs. ZWU. ZWC has a lot of the good dividend payers with a covered call overlay. ZWU is lower risk than ZWC, as it doesn’t have exposure to energy and financials. If interest rates go up in a big way, ZWU will underperform, and could easily go down 3-5%. The dividends for these are safe. ZWU is attractive from a defensive standpoint. ZWE has exposure to the 3 biggest country markets, very few financials, a currency hedge, little Italy exposure. It could fall 5-7% in the next months, and then it would be a pretty decent buy.