Exchange traded funds trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks. Investors can buy them on margin, or sell them short. The best exchange-traded funds offer well-diversified, tax-efficient portfolios with exceptionally low management ETF fees. They are also very liquid.
Investors use ETFs in a variety of ways, and some investors work only with ETFs and no other type of investment in portfolio creation.
An amazing aspect of ETFs is their diversity. Some investors may create an entire portfolio solely from a few well-diversified ETFs.
ETFs trade on stock exchanges, just like stocks. That’s different from mutual funds, which you can only buy at the end of the day at a price that reflects the fund’s value at the close of trading.
Prices of ETFs are quoted in newspaper stock tables and online. You pay brokerage commissions to buy and sell them, but their low management fees 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 taxes generated by the yearly distributions most conventional mutual funds pay out to unitholders.
ETFs have a place in every investor’s portfolio, at TSI Network we also recommend using our three-part Successful Investor strategy:
- Invest mainly in well-established companies;
- Spread your money out across most if not all of the five main economic sectors (Manufacturing & Industry; Resources & Commodities; the Consumer sector; Finance; Utilities);
- Downplay or avoid stocks in the broker/media limelight.
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The best of these funds offer a diversified group of stocks and charge you low management fees. Here are five ETFs we like, and one we think you should pass on buying for now.
The fund gives you direct exposure to some of this East Asian economy’s top public companies—its largest holding is Taiwan Semiconductor, at 21.2% of overall assets.
ETFs in brief
Exchange-traded funds are set up to mirror the performance of a stock-market index or sub-index. They hold a more or less fixed selection of securities that represent the holdings of that index or sub-index and will allow the fund to “track” its performance.
The extraction and processing of these materials are heavily concentrated in a handful of nations—with China refining over 85% of global rare earths and controlling 50% of copper smelting. As a result, supply chains are vulnerable to geopolitical tensions.
While the overall group of biotechnology companies have performed well over time, the difference in returns of the winners and losers has been exceptionally wide. The reward for developing novel treatments is significant—but the risk of failure looms large.
Mining companies generated excellent returns during August as the prices of precious and base metals remained strong. Gold miners (New York symbol GDX) advanced by 32.9%, while copper miners (Toronto symbol COPP), and uranium miners (Toronto symbol HURA) were not far behind. Also noteworthy was the 16.3% gain from software companies ETF (New York IGV) in the wake of big declines on concerns that artificial intelligence would destroy software developers.
Caldwell, Lazard CorePlus Infrastructure ETF $11.73 (Canadian Securities Exchange symbol CPIF) invests mainly in companies involved in infrastructure-related business.
The ETF holds a portfolio of global equities involved in infrastructure development and management.
In 2026, 10 Indian companies made the list, of which five are also held in the ETF discussed above. Energy and telecom giant Reliance Industries, as well as Tata Motors, and several of the major Indian banks were on the list.
Below we discuss an ETF that offers access to the top 50 Indian companies—including top Indian companies that operate internationally such as Infosys, HCL Technologies, Tata Group, and Bharti Airtel.