Pass on this ETF

Article Excerpt

FIRST ASSET ACTIVE CANADIAN DIVIDEND ETF $9.40 (Toronto symbol FDV; TSINetwork ETF Rating: Aggressive; Market cap: $32.1 million) aims to invest in Canadian dividend payers with the potential for capital gains. Its own dividend yield is a high 4.0%. The ETF takes an active management approach: it relies on difficult-to-read market trends to pinpoint the economic sectors most likely to see significant growth; it then applies its own evaluative formula to companies in order to decide on the fund’s holdings. The result is Energy comprises 27% of assets, followed by Financials (19%), Real Estate (15%) and Industrials (10%). The fund has 46 stocks. Its top holdings include Waste Connections (4.4%), TD Bank (3.1%), Pure Industrial REIT (3.1%), Keyara (3.0%) and Bank of Nova Scotia (3.0%). The ETF carries a large cash position: on September 30, 2017, that amounted to 26% of the total portfolio. In a rising market, large cash holdings can limit portfolio performance. With a return of just 5.7% over the past three…