iShares Diversified Monthly Income ETF (XTR-T)

Banks are cutting rates, which is a tailwind, but the market has already priced it into balanced ETFs like this. So, there's limited upside.

The bond markets are impaired and will be for a while. Low interest rates are here to stay. Income focused ETFs with exposure to bonds will not return 4-5%. Are you getting return of capital or yield? Must look into the structure where the returns are coming from. Both are similar. Both ZMI and XTR give you exposure to diversified income. All fixed income has negative return after inflation.

Does iShares collect an MER from all the other ETFs held within XTR? He's asked Blackrock this and, no, they're not double-dipping. Generally speaking, there's no question that MERs of ETFs will continue to decrease because of of competition among ETF compnaies. It's amazing how far they've fallen just in the past few years.

He loves the ETF because it gives you a balanced fund, is diversified, and has 20% US exposure in the high yield market. It yields about 5.5% to 6% so you are getting a payout of capital. You have to think about bond yields and credit risk and how they might increase. Think of it as a Canadian balanced fund. He prefers ZWC-T because it is covered call premium and not payout of capital that gets the yield up to where it is.

It is an actively managed income product. It is important to consider total returns over a period of time. It is designed to be a yield product. The managers have done well in navigating global market sell offs.

For short term holding? An interesting ETF, because it is quite seasoned and has a significant amount of assets. Historically, its origins were income trusts. This is an ETF of ETF’s, so if you really look at its sub holdings and go into its true underlyings, it has asset classes from all around the world. A good, one-time ticket for putting cash to work where you want yield. Dividend yield of 5.3%.

For revenue and safety of capital? A good holding, diversified and everything. Looking at the bigger picture with retirees facing an income crisis, he would favour a different approach. Rather than trying to source income from North America into domestic, he would favour looking further afield for income opportunities, and assemble a portfolio with a diversified yield. It could be an emerging market debt, a high dividend yielding country ETF. He launched this in 2008 and it has been a highly effective strategy.

You are looking for monthly income if you are buying something like this. If you own this, he would balance this with a couple of other positions, a covered call ETF on Canadian banks such as (ZWB-T) and ones on the Canadian utilities such as (ZWU-T).

XTR-T is around 6%, but nothing yields that inside of it so you are getting some of your money back and there is natural erosion of NAV because of that. It is a nice conservative holding for some people. You have to recognize what is in there. There is some market risk later in the year. You want to be patient with cash now.