Topic: How To Invest

Q: Pat: Could you share your views on the First Asset Tech Giants Covered Call ETF? Regards.

Article Excerpt

A: First Asset Tech Giants Covered Call ETF (CAD Hedged), $17.95, symbol TXF on Toronto (Units outstanding: 6.1 million; Market cap: $109.5 million; www.firstasset.com), invests in what it sees as the biggest and most innovative U.S. technology companies. The largest 25 tech stocks by market capitalization and listed on New York or Nasdaq are represented on an equally weighted basis. They get rebalanced on a quarterly basis. The $168.6 million ETF started up on October 24, 2011, and has a relatively high 0.65% MER. C.I. Financial owns the fund. The ETF’s top holdings include Micron Technology, HP Inc., Corning, Intel, Applied Materials, Facebook, Microsoft, Adobe Systems, Salesforce.com, Cisco Systems, Alphabet, Intuit Inc., Nvidia and Qualcomm. First Asset Tech Giants has a high 6.0% yield. However, the ETF’s portfolio does not provide enough dividend income to cover the fund’s management expenses and fees, plus its own high dividend to unitholders. To make up the difference, the fund’s managers trade the portfolio’s securities for capital…