He often gets asked about preferreds, because it is a very popular asset class for retail investors and has a very nice yield. Lately it has been extremely volatile. A very small market, anywhere between $40 billion and $60 billion. Because it is so small and the issues are so complicated, this is one of the few areas where active management may be able to help the investor. It is actively managed, not an index product, and has handily outperformed the S&P/TSX Preferred index. Buying an ETF for this asset class makes a lot more sense than using an individual issue, because you are diversified and you have the active management as well. Dividend yield of 4.2%.

Fixed income or bond ETF? When he talks about bond ETF’s, he begins with what he thinks of as the core holdings. The core holdings will be the most liquid with the lowest fees and access to the whole market. These are for long-term Hold positions. The asset class he favours is aggregate bonds, a mix of government and corporate. In Canada, there are a good number of them. This Index recently had its fee dropped, and he believes it makes them the lowest cost one in Canada. A long-term aggregate Bond ETF, and will have duration risks, so if there are rate movements in Canada, it could suffer. He thinks Aggregate Bonds are the way to go. Dividend yield of 3.1%.

Healthcare is a subsector that he believes has the most political risk. As a long-term play, it makes a lot of sense given the aging population globally and the growing biotech industry, that will subject you to the day to day volatility which happens whenever there is a headline out of the US.

An international market ETF, and he likes it for diversification. A great idea for a lot of Canadians who have a home bias. It includes mid-cap and small-cap companies, but is not currency hedged. (See Top Picks.)

S&P 500? There are at least a dozen ways to buy this in Canada. Four of the ETF’s each offer at least 2 of the versions. Also, you can get it currency hedged or unhedged. The vast majority of these ETF’s are very similar to one another. Most of them are very, very cheap. This one is among the lowest cost. A great way to get US Large Cap in an unhedged way.

This is called a Global Gold ETF, but has about 70% exposure to Canadian gold companies, so it is really Canada centric. He thinks of it as a Canadian equity ETF. If you want to diversify, this is probably not the way to go. As an alternative, you could buy a gold bullion ETF.

(A Top Pick May 26/16. Up 5.22%.) Global, so it can hold US companies, Canadian companies, etc. This has one of the longer track records, so he can analyse its performance. Has found that it has lower volatility.