Vanguard Retirement Income ETF Portfolio (VRIF.TO)

The challenge with the typical balance portfolio is that when you take the yield from bonds and yield from equities like dividends, it is very low. You do not have the same protections as you used to have from bonds in terms of the bonds. Because yield is so low, interest rate risk is higher than it's ever been. He has no problem with the ETF but with the whole asset class.

It's a new ETF and he needs to study it. He can't endorse these one-stop portfolios. True, it's a good starting point, but their asset allocations are static and don't move according to market conditions. VRIF appears to have little emerging market exposure (he'll check though), but retirees need EM exposure. Instead, buy a collection of ETFs which cover various regions.