iShares Diversified Monthly Income ETF (XTR.TO)

This is a former income trust and is now a compendium of income focused equities. He doesn’t particularly like it. On the surface it has a very good yield, but you should never trust yield. He would suggest looking at ZWB-T or ZWA-T rather than this one.

You get a partial return of capital as part of your 6%. It is tax efficient for now.

Stock vs. Stock: XTR or CBO. Diversified basket of dividend paying stocks. Diversification always wins over for him. Yield is 300 basis points more than CBO. Cost is 25 basis points higher than CBO. XTR is one of the holdings in CBO.

RESP. ETF for a 1-2 year period? This would eliminate any equity because that is a pretty short time period. iShares Diversified Monthly (XTR-T) is about a 5.9% yield. This is a basket of iShares ETFs.

Bunch of iShares ETFs, fixed income. Nearly 6% yield. Some long bonds, some preferreds. A great ETF. At some point the yield will be lower over the next few years.

How will rising interest rates and quantitative easing impact this ETF? This is a yielding instrument that is dominated by Canadian banks. There is nothing particularly wrong with this ETF. The problem is, we are not expecting much to come out of banks this year. Could see them go sideways for a while until they raise their dividends. As rates rise, it is just not a positive environment for dividend yielding instruments in general.

Has a lot of the higher yielding stocks, fixed income, preferreds. Good for his sleep at night portfolio. A lot of things that are interest sensitive could have a problem in 2014 as the Fed deals with QE tapering. It is well diversified but you have to know what will make it move.

It just bounces around, not moving much over time. It’s fine and he uses it a bit. There is not really a single income product he likes but this is the least ugly.

This is a basket of ETFs. If you want something simple, this is a pretty good way of doing it.

Is it time to sell? What is a good alternative? Looking at the 5.9% yield that it has, and then looking at everything they own in the portfolio he doesn’t think they can maintain the dividend.

Everything interest sensitive is starting to react. How long will it last – a tough question to ask. Governments can`t raise interest rates this year. We are going through an adjustment process, but he doesn`t know how deep it gets.

A fund of different ETFs. He doesn`t mind it. Diversified. Good idea.

Basically a diversified monthly income strategy from iShares and is a basket of corporate bonds, high-yield bonds, hybrid corporate bonds. About 60% fixed income and about 40% equity. Very broadly diversified portfolio. His problem is that it is mainly Canadian and Canadian equities. Canadian equities have not been doing so well, compared to the US, over the last 18 months or so.

Basically a fund ETF of ETFs. Management fees are a little bit higher but nothing wrong with this one at all. Gives you diversification in one shot.

Caller would like to sell 35% of their holdings in their RRSP and just buy this one. Not really in favour of putting 35% into one ETF. This one is basically the remnants of what used to be the income trust ETF. Has a mixed bag of generating assets in it and nothing wrong with it, it’s just the 35% that bothers him.