Why run a portfolio when you can buy XEQT?

My personal portfolio is composed of a number of individual accounts holding a diverse mix of stocks and ETFs. I earn a good income from the dividends and the capital gains keep the overall value of my portfolio increasing. Yet, I cannot help but wonder if I could do as well or better by simply owning the iShares ETF XEQT.

XEQT is an exchange-traded fund (ETF) offering investors a complete portfolio in just one ETF. It is a complete portfolio assuming you don't want to hold any bonds. I don't. XEQT is an all-equity ETF. No bonds.

XEQT holds four iShares ETFs: 

• iShares Core S&P Total U.S. Stock Market ETF for U.S. equity exposure (44.6% weight)
• iShares Core MSCI EAFE IMI Index ETF for international developed markets equity (25.7%)
• iShares Core S&P/TSX Capped Composite Index ETF for Canadian equity (24.9%) 
• iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets IMI ETF for emerging markets equity (4.8%)

This one ETF holding four ETFs provides a diversified portfolio of around 10,000 stocks representing the U.S., the international developed markets, the Canada market, and lastly the emerging markets. XEQT gives one exposure to the global equity market for a management fee of only 0.20% when last I checked.

XEQT only yields about 1.89% in dividends but it offers very good long-term capital growth. If I had all my money in XEQT I would have to sell some units annually and add that cash to my dividend income to cover my living expenses.

The simplicity and global diversity of XEQT makes it an appealing answer to portfolio management. I have decided to run a test. I have created a test portfolio composed of only XEQT. The test portfolio opened with a value equal to my portfolio at the close yesterday.

Today, as I write this XEQT is ahead by $518.07. This means very little but stay tuned. Getting out of the business of buying and selling stocks maybe possible. 😊 If you prefer Vanguard to iShares, Vanguard offers VEQT. Your choice. And if you insist on having some bonds in your portfolio mix, both iShares and Vanguard offer ETFs with traditionally balanced constructions as well.

Mullen Group (MTL)

 

Just a quick note before I get going on today's stuff.

I like the Mullen Group. I don't have the money at the moment to invest but if I can round up some cash I am in. 

The stock has dipped below $13 but has not rebounded greatly since touching its low for the year. Check it out. A good company at a good price with a well covered dividend paying out more than five percent. The payout ratio is around 50%. Ideal, don't you think? It sure looks like a buy to me.

And a friend, who is a fine investor, agrees with me on this one as do a number of analysts. Do a Google search. You will find MTL has one booster who sees MTL hitting $22 and the average target price is better than $17. It is hard to see a downside to this buy.

Cheers!

TD Bank is now a HOLD!

TD was one of my core holdings. I was content to hold TD and happy to add to my holdings when the price dropped. Adding to my holdings was a mistake. The market was onto something that I was not: TD was in deep legal trouble in the United States. The second biggest Canadian bank has now put aside hundreds of millions of dollars in anticipation of some damn big fines related to money laundering accusations in the States.

TD is still a core holding of mine. I cannot afford to sell it and as I had no intention to sell, the pain is mitigated. I will hold onto my stock and pocket the 5. 43% dividend. My guess is that the dividend is still safe. TD has gotten enough bad press. It does not have to soil its reputation with its first dividend reduction in its long history.

If you hold TD, as I do, your losses may be around a long time, and keep holding. If you are a value investor, move with care. TD may be facing fines of $1.5 billion U.S. plus annual remediation costs in the hundreds of millions stretched over about four years. The painful scenario appears to be already priced into the price of the stock but have both shoes dropped? I am not so sure.

TD is officially off my buy list.

Expert stock pickers can be wrong and often!

To avoid being sued, I blacked out the analyst's name but the important information is still here. This stock picker has a win-loss ratio of 8:32. Going by his recent picks, he was right only 20% of the time. This fellow should stick to coin-flipping.

His average return was in the red at -6.0%. This is really dismal.

Years ago I gave a few thousand dollars to London Life to invest for my retirement. London Life lost something in the neighbourhood of 75% of my savings. When I retired, because there was a maximum loss clause, London Life game me back 75% of my original investment.

Losers! And they took me down with them.

Invest in dividend-paying, blue-chip companies, spread your money around, in other words diversify, try to not time the market but keep some powder dry to buy when the bear is loose and you should easily best analysts like the one shown or the folks in charge of my London Life investment.

Playing B2 Gold to win

I find B2 Gold (BTO) appealing. Why? Because it is opening a gold mine in Nunavut come early next year. Gold mines are all too often found in iffy parts of the globe. Nunavut is a welcome change of pace.

I paid about $3.64 for my original 2750 shares. I saw it as a bit of a gamble but it is fun to gamble as long as the risk is not too high. I was comfortable with the risk/reward offered by B2 Gold. Shortly after buying BTO I received a dividend of about $150 Canadian.

A few weeks later I sold all my position for $3.88 a share. I made a capital gain of about $640. I immediately put $200 toward my 2025 income tax and used the remaining cash to fund a bid for 2900 shares of BTO at $3.60. It was another gamble. It took some days but the order was eventually filled.

B2 Gold then tumbled daily until it found support at about $3.45. On the surface, that represents a loss but after the dividend and my capital gains are factored in, I am still in the black on my B2 Gold purchase. I have another sell order sitting on the books. This time I am hoping for $4.20. I'm patient. I can wait.

The target value for BTO as shown by WebBroker as been climbing recently. Some analysts see BTO hitting $6.00 and even $7.00 within the coming year but it might be a volatile journey. If it is, I plan on being there to profit.

By the way, I am playing this game using my non-registered account. The CRA does not look kindly on investors using their registered accounts for anything resembling day trading. Gambling, especially when done repeatedly with one stock, is not for one's registered accounts.

Stock Unlock: worth a look

Here is what Perplexity had to say about Stock Unlock.

Stock Unlock is an investment education and analysis platform that helps both novice and experienced investors research and evaluate stocks. Based on the search results, the key things Stock Unlock does are:

• Provides detailed fundamental analysis and data on stocks, including financial metrics, analyst data, insider trades, and ownership information. This allows users to thoroughly research and evaluate companies before investing.1234
• Offers investment education and guidance to help users, especially beginners, learn how to analyze stocks and make informed investment decisions. The platform has over 200 pages of custom educational content.3
• Allows users to easily compare the fundamentals of multiple stocks side-by-side, which helps identify good investment opportunities and avoid poor ones.23
• Offers portfolio tracking and monitoring tools to help users manage their investments, including features to visualize and analyze dividend income and returns over time.4

In summary, Stock Unlock aims to empower both novice and experienced investors by providing comprehensive stock research, analysis, and educational resources all in one platform, streamlining the investment decision-making process.1234

Create a portfolio and backtest your creation

Recently I joined the Facebook group Canadian Dividend Investing. Someone expressed interest in the Frugal Dividend Portfolio created by Norman Rothery. The question piqued my interest and I turned to the Ai search engine Perplexity. It returned the following:

There is a way to create and back-test a portfolio of Canadian stocks and ETFs. How? Use the Portfolio Visualizer tool. It lets you construct one or more portfolios based on selected mutual funds, ETFs, and stocks. You can then analyze and backtest the portfolio returns, risk characteristics, style exposures, and drawdowns over a specified time period. To create and back-test a portfolio of Canadian stocks and ETFs using the Portfolio Visualizer:

1. Go to the Portfolio Visualizer website at https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-portfolio
2. In the "Portfolio Allocation" section, you can add the Canadian stocks and ETFs you want to include in your portfolio. You can search for and select the specific funds you want to use.
3. Set the time period you want to backtest, such as the past 3 years.
4. The tool will then analyze the historical performance of your portfolio and provide detailed metrics like returns, risk, and diversification.

This allows you to see how your selected mix of Canadian investments would have performed over the past 3 years, which can help you evaluate and refine your portfolio before investing real money. The Portfolio Visualizer is a useful tool for building and testing investment portfolios.

There are three versions of the Portfolio Visualizer and one is free. As is to be expected, it does not deliver all the bells and whistles of the other two but it is amazingly good. It is certainly worth a look. I wonder how long the free version will remain available online.