Five North American ETF buys

Article Excerpt

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are set up to mirror the performance of a stock-market index or subindex. They hold a more-or-less fixed selection of securities that represent the holdings that go into the calculation of the index or sub-index. ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks. In contrast, you can only buy conventional mutual funds at the end of the day, at a price that reflects that fund’s value at the close of trading. ETF prices are quoted in newspaper stock tables and online. You pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell ETFs, but their low management fees still give them a cost advantage over most mutual funds. As well, shares are only added or removed when the underlying index changes. As a result of this low turnover, you won’t incur the regular capital gains bills generated by the yearly distributions most conventional mutual funds pay out to unitholders. Below we update our advice on six ETFs—five buys and one…