Topic: How To Invest

Q: Pat, when balancing economic sectors in my portfolio, where do I assign these two ETFs that you recommend as buys: XDV and SPY? Thank you.

Article Excerpt

A: Both of these ETFs hold stocks in most or all of the five main economic sectors: Finance, Utilities, Resources, Consumer and Manufacturing. The iShares Canadian Select Dividend Index ETF, $26.84, symbol XDV on Toronto (Units outstanding: 57.5 million; Market cap: $1.5 billion; www.blackrock.com/ca), holds 30 of the highest-yielding Canadian stocks. The fund’s MER is 0.55%, and it yields 4.3%. The ETF’s rough breakdown by sector is Finance, 53%; Utilities, 22%; Resources, 12%; Consumer, 11%; and Manufacturing, 2%. If you have 10% of your portfolio in this ETF, you could break that 10% down to a significant 5.3% in Finance; a noteworthy 2.2% in Utilities; a marginal 1.2% in Resources and 1.1% in Consumer; and a not-worth-mentioning 0.2% in Manufacturing. iShares Canadian Select Dividend Index ETF is a buy. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF, $445.71, symbol SPY on New York (Units outstanding: 917.8 million; Market cap: $409.1 billion; us.spdrs.com), holds the stocks in the S&P 500 Index, which is made up of 500 major U.S….