Topic: How To Invest

Q: Pat: I’m leery of buying American stocks because I think there’s a chance that the Canadian dollar will rebound significantly. How do you protect against that?

Article Excerpt

A: No one can consistently predict currency movements, and we still feel that most Canadian investors should hold, say, up to 30% of their portfolio in U.S. stocks. Note that even if the U.S. dollar falls against the Canadian dollar, your U.S. stocks can appreciate even while the currency sags. But looking at your question: There is no easy way to hedge individual U.S. stocks against a drop in the U.S. dollar. If you want to buy U.S. stocks and hedge against currency movements, however, you could buy a hedged ETF. Hedged ETFs are ETFs sold in Canada that hold U.S. stocks. However, they are hedged against any movement of the U.S. dollar against the Canadian dollar. That means that the ETF’s Canadian-dollar value rises and falls solely with the movements of the stocks in the portfolio. For example, if a stock rises 10% on say, New York, but also rises a further 5% for Canadian investors due to an increase in the U.S. dollar,…