Vanguard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI)

Billy Kawasaki’s Insights - Billy’s most-liked answers from 5i Research. The fund is large at $165B and fees are low at 0.03%. The fund represents all of the US market and all levels of market capitalization. It represents the market. Unlock Premium - Try 5i Free

For those starting with ETFs, he recommends a fully diversified portfolio. SPX is based in New York and VTI is for the total global market.

It's everything. Small, mid, large cap. Market weighted. Broadly diversified. At this stage in the economic cycle, he prefers the large cap indices such as SPY or QAL. But VTI will do fine.

He’s looking for small caps, stuff he normally doesn’t have. Likes that it’s all caps. The US tax cuts will continue as long as Trump’s in office and will impact the small caps as well. Contains 18% FANGs, which he still likes.

ZWH-T & ZPW-T are a defensive strategy but what is the favourite go to strategy for the S&P 500. VTI-N is the ETF that echoes this strategy.

A total market ETF, so you are getting every equity, small, big cap stocks. This will give you an over weighted position in the large caps. It is really, really diversified and he is not sure you need that much diversification.

(A Top Pick July 18/14. Up 7.21%.) Relative to what he normally buys, it underperformed by far. That is the broadest he has ever gone and he doesn’t think he is going to do it again.

(A Top Pick July 18/14. Up 9.15%.) He still has this, but hasn’t been buying any more.

Has about 3400-3500 holdings. It is basically the whole market including large caps, small caps, mid-cap and micro-cap. If the recovery is real, this will be picking up the smaller players as well. It will be more volatile if the market turns down.

The whole US stock market, small to large cap. You are not early in the trend and there is some risk. It is a good way to play the markets.

If you think the US$ is going to be strengthening to the Cdn$, this one would serve you very well because you’re not only getting the performance of US stock market, but you also get the strength of the greenback. Has done quite well in the past year. You should probably have a US$ account to do it. If you have a Cdn$ account you are going to have to make a conversion and you might get hit on the conversion.

A broad market index so if you want to look at a single ETF to give you a core holding in your portfolio, this is as good as any. You are really looking at a broad basket of world stocks. He would prefer something that is a little more narrowly focused. You can buy the S&P 500 and get really good exposure to the US. You could buy EAFEs (XIN-T). These 2 along with TSX 60 (XIU-T) and an emerging market ETF and rebalancing once a year and you would probably be better off. If you don’t have a lot of money to do that, maybe you are better off just to buy this one.

If you want to be in the US and you don’t want to worry about the Russell 2000, the mid-caps, etc. buy this. It has had a terrific run and will probably continue to do well. It basically owns everything.