Topic: How To Invest

Q: Pat, when balancing economic sectors in my portfolio, where do I assign these two ETFs that you recommend as buys: XDV and SPY? Thank you.

Article Excerpt

A: Both of these ETFs hold stocks in most or all of the five main economic sectors: Finance, Utilities, Resources, Consumer and Manufacturing. The iShares Canadian Select Dividend Index ETF, $29.59, symbol XDV on Toronto (Units outstanding: 58.4 million; Market cap: $1.7 billion; www.blackrock.com/ca), holds 30 of the highest-yielding Canadian stocks. The fund’s MER is 0.55%, and it yields 3.9%. The ETF’s rough breakdown by sector is Finance, 56%; Utilities, 24%; Resources, 10%; Consumer, 6%; and Manufacturing, 4%. If you have 10% of your portfolio in this ETF, you could break that 10% down to a significant 5.6% in Finance; a noteworthy 2.4% in Utilities; a marginal 1.0% in Resources; and a not-worth-mentioning 0.6% in Consumer and 0.4% in Manufacturing. iShares Canadian Select Dividend Index ETF is a buy. The SPDR S&P 500 ETF, $433.96, symbol SPY on New York (Units outstanding: 896.1 million; Market cap: $388.9 billion; us.spdrs.com), holds the stocks in the S&P 500 Index, which is made up of 500 major U.S….