Low-fee ways to invest outside Canada

Article Excerpt

Pennsylvania-based Vanguard Group is one of the world’s largest investment management companies. In all, it administers over $5 trillion U.S., spread across 388 mutual funds and ETFs. Generally speaking, Canadians are blocked from buying mutual funds that are registered in the U.S. unless those funds are also registered with provincial securities commissions. Moreover, some Canadian funds are only available in a limited number of provinces. Canadians can, however, buy Vanguard exchange-traded funds listed on stock exchanges. Here are two low-fee mutual fund alternatives we see as buys. VANGUARD GROWTH ETF $142.68 (New York symbol VUG; buy or sell through brokers) aims to track the Center for Research in Security Prices (CRSP) U.S. Large Cap Growth Index. It’s a broadly diversified index that consists mainly of big U.S. companies. The $75.2 billion fund holds Apple, Alphabet, Amazon.com, Facebook, Comcast, Home Depot and Visa. Its other stocks include Philip Morris International, Mastercard and Boeing. Vanguard launched the ETF on January 26, 2004. Its MER is just 0.06%. The fund’s…