The True Cost of Foreign Withholding Taxes
Back in the fall of 2012, I wrote a pair of blog posts about the impact of foreign withholding taxes in US and international equity funds. The first explained the general idea of this tax on foreign...
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iShares Advantaged ETFs: Where Are They Now?
Before being bought by BlackRock early in 2012, Claymore Investments pioneered many new services and unconventional products. One of these was its so-called Advantaged ETFs, which used a complicated...
View ArticleiShares Cuts Its Fees to the Core
That sound you just heard was the latest shot fired in Canada’s ETF price war. iShares has just slashed the management fees on several popular equity and bond ETFs—and just like that the country’s...
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A Tax Tip for Vanguard ETF Investors
As the tax filing deadline approaches, many investors are busy calculating the adjusted cost base for their ETF holdings. Last year at this time, Justin Bender and I collaborated on a paper called As...
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Tax Tips for BMO ETF Investors
Last week I offered some tips for investors who are tracking their adjusted cost base with Vanguard ETFs. In this post I’ll offer similar advice for those who use BMO exchange-traded funds. These tips...
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Adjusted Cost Base With US-listed ETFs
Many readers have used our white paper, As Easy as ACB, to learn how to calculate the adjusted cost base of their Canadian ETF holdings. I’ve received several comments and questions from readers who...
View ArticleHow Low Can ETF Fees Go?
Less than a month ago, BlackRock aggressively cut the management fees on several of its core ETFs. The boldest move was to slash the fee to just 0.05% on its broad-market Canadian equity fund, the...
View ArticleInside the RBC Quant Dividend Leaders ETFs
In January, RBC launched the Quant Dividend Leaders ETFs, a family of dividend-focused funds covering the Canadian, U.S. and international markets. I recently had a chance to speak with Bill Tilford,...
View ArticleVanguard Goes Global With New ETFs
[Note: This blog post was updated several hours after it was published, as new information became available.] The Vanguard Total International Stock ETF (VXUS) has long been part of my Complete Couch...
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Ask the Spud: Why Do ETF Yields Differ?
Q: The Vanguard S&P 500 (VFV) currently has a dividend yield of 1.44%, but the US-listed version of the same ETF has a yield of 2.01%. How can these two funds have such different yields when their...
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Calculating Adjusted Cost Base: A Case Study
If you’ve read our ironically titled white paper, As Easy as ACB, you understand how complex it can be to track the adjusted cost base of ETFs. You need to account for all purchases and sales of shares...
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Under the Hood: Vanguard FTSE All-World ex Canada (VXC)
This post is part of a series that takes a detailed look at specific Canadian ETFs or index funds. The fund: Vanguard FTSE All-World ex Canada Index ETF (VXC) The index: The fund tracks the FTSE...
View ArticleDrilling Down into the iShares Core ETFs
When iShares launched its Core ETF series back in March it made some waves in the industry. The company cut the fees on nine ETFs it considers building blocks of a long-term portfolio. Its boldest move...
View ArticleForeign Withholding Taxes in International Equity ETFs
It seems Canadian ETF providers are paying more attention to foreign withholding taxes these days. Not so long ago, you rarely heard anyone discussing this hidden drag on returns. But last month...
View ArticleAfter-Tax Returns on Canadian ETFs
When you invest in a non-registered account, you need to be concerned about more than just your funds’ performance: you also need to know how much of your return will be eaten up by taxes....
View ArticleVanguard Makes Its Move
You knew it was coming: Vanguard Canada has dramatically reduced the fees on 11 of its ETFs. The announcement came this week, and it affects some of the most popular funds in the Vanguard lineup: ETF...
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The Limits of Limit Orders
For some time now I’ve been suggesting that ETF investors use limit orders—never market orders—when placing trades in their accounts. A market order will be filled (usually immediately and in full) at...
View ArticleTracking Error on International Funds
I recently received an email from a reader, J.W., who wanted to know why the tracking error on some popular Vanguard international equity ETFs were so high in 2014. He noted, for example, that the...
View ArticleiShares Expands Its Core ETF Lineup
iShares shook up the ETF marketplace last March when it launched its Core family of low-cost ETFs in the major asset classes. This week iShares announced some new additions to its Core lineup,...
View ArticleWhich Bond ETF Is Most Tax-Efficient?
Back in September, my colleague Justin Bender and I published a white paper entitled After-Tax Returns: How to estimate the impact of taxes on ETF performance. Justin has now updated his Excel...
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