BMO Canadian Dividend ETF (ZDV-T)

When you go for high-dividend payers in Canada you get the banks, insurance companies, pipelines, and some of the energy names. Yield will be a bit over 4%. A nice way to play.

Vanguard, iShares, and BMO all have offerings, but they all do it slightly differently. BMO has a covered call version, ZWC. There's ZDV, XDV, VDY. Take a look at them all and see what you like. All have different weights to the components. They're all equally good.

ZWC would be his favourite so he can be more defensive. If you are bullish, ZDV would make sense. Markets have some squeeze potential and there is liquidity coming to markets from stimulus. He does not see materially higher highs than where we are up until early next year.

He uses ZWC to be defensive when he's close to the high point to have more buffer for when the markets go sideways or down. From a low point, you want ZDV to get dividends without covered call. He would wait for a pullback before putting new money in.

How to increase dividends. These are all the same thing. You get exposure to Canadian large caps. There is no diversification by being in all three. ZWU-T should replace one of them to get utilities including pipelines and telcos and less reliance on the banks. Still Canada so you need international. ZWE-T is the best international dividend payers yielding 7% with a covered call overlay. ZWS-T is the best in the US. These are the two to add to the three. These should be in a registered portfolios if you are retired because there is no divined tax credit.

He likes this dividend ETF. There is no index that it tracks. Its MER is on the low end. An eligible dividend will pass right through to you so you may not want it in a sheltered account. Consult your tax expert.