ishares

A: iShares MSCI United Kingdom ETF, $31.89, symbol EWU on New York (Units outstanding: 77.8 million; Market cap: $2.5 billion; www.ishares.com), is an ETF that invests in 109 large and mid-sized companies in the U.K.


The ETF’s top holdings are Royal Dutch Shell, HSBC Holdings, British American Tobacco plc, BP plc, GlaxoSmithKline plc, Diageo plc, AstraZeneca, Vodafone Group and Reckitt Benckiser Group.


iShares launched the ETF on March 12, 1996....

CI Canadian Bond Fund	$ 31,286
CI Canadian Equity	$ 73,406
CI Corporate Bond	$ 37,783
iShares Cdn S&P/TSX60	$ 22,640
iShares MSCI JAPAN ETF	$ 22,640
BCE Inc.	$ 7,592
SPDR S&P China ETF	$ 6,783
WestJet Airlines	$ 12,090
Cash	$ 3,489
TOTAL Investments	$ 217,710

A: We don’t generally recommend that investors hold mutual funds, mostly because of their higher fees.


In particular, we also don’t recommend bond funds: Bonds are unlikely to perform well over the next few years, if only because interest rates will likely hold steady or rise....

Dear safe-money investor:


We’ve selected our top picks for 2017—one stock, one real estate investment trust and one ETF. Each offers a particularly attractive combination of long-term growth prospects and a reasonable price.


We feel that investors will profit the most by holding a well-balanced portfolio of high-quality stocks and REITs—like our first two recommendations below.


If you want to supplement your individual stock holdings, then ETFs, like our third recommendation, provide a sound alternative.


BANK OF NOVA SCOTIA $77.89 (Toronto symbol BNS; Shares outstanding: 1.2 billion; Market cap: $94.0 billion; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; Dividend yield: 3.8%, www.scotiabank.com) is the third largest of Canada’s five biggest banks.


In the three months ended October 31, 2016, the bank earned $1.9 billion, or $1.58 a share....

We think conservative investors can hold up to 10% of their portfolios in foreign stocks. One way to do that is to buy carefully chosen exchange-traded funds (ETFs) that have an overseas focus.


The best ETFs continue to offer very low management fees and well-diversified, tax-efficient portfolios of highquality stocks.


Here’s a look at four international ETFs we see as buys, and two we feel you should hang on to:


ISHARES MSCI EMERGING MARKETS INDEX FUND $37.36 (New York symbol EEM; buy or sell through brokers) aims to track the MSCI Emerging Markets Index.


The fund’s geographic breakdown includes China, 26.1%; South Korea, 14.7%; Taiwan, 12.0%; India, 8.1%; Brazil, 8.0%; South Africa, 6.6%; Russia, 4.2%; Mexico, 3.4%; Indonesia, 2.5%; Malaysia, 2.5%; Thailand, 2.3%; and the Philippines, 1.2%.


Its top holdings are Samsung Electronics (South Korea), 4.1%; Tencent Holdings (China: Internet), 3.6%; Taiwan Semiconductor (computer chips), 3.5%; Alibaba Group (China: e-commerce), 2.7%; Naspers (South Africa: media and Internet), 1.7%; China Mobile, 1.7%; China Construction Bank, 1.5%; Baidu (China: Internet), 1.1%; Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, 1.1%; and Hon Hai Precision (Taiwan), 1.0%.


iShares launched the ETF on April 7, 2003....

ISHARES MSCI JAPAN INDEX FUND $50.84 (New York Exchange symbol EWJ; buy or sell through brokers; us.ishares.com) is an ETF that tries to match the return of the Morgan Stanley Capital International (MSCI) Japan index.


The fund’s top holdings include Toyota, 5.2%; Mitsubishi UFJ Financial, 2.2%; KDDI Corp....

A: iShares S&P/TSX SmallCap Index ETF, $16.97, symbol XCS on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 8.3 million; Market cap: $140.9 million), holds the 200 stocks in the S&P/TSX SmallCap Index. That index is made up of the smaller companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange....

These six ETFs hold mostly blue-chip stocks that are widely traded on Canadian and U.S. exchanges. Each ETF mirrors, or tracks, the performance of a major stock market index. That’s different from narrower indexes that focus on resources or themes such as solar power or biotech.


Of course, you pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell these ETFs....

ISHARES CHINA LARGE-CAP ETF $35.51 (New York symbol FXI; buy or sell through brokers) holds the 50 largest, most-liquid Chinese stocks.


The ETF’s top holdings include Tencent Holdings, China Mobile, China Construction Bank, Bank of China, Ping An Insurance, and China Petroleum and Chemical Corp....

ISHARES CDN REIT SECTOR INDEX FUND $16.09 (Toronto symbol XRE; buy or sell through brokers; ca.ishares.com) holds all 16 Canadian real estate investment trusts in the S&P/TSX REIT Index.


The fund’s MER is 0.61%, and it yields 5.1%.


The ETF’s top ten holdings are: RioCan REIT at 19.6%, H&R REIT (14.2%), Smart REI...

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....