BMO Equal Weight Utilities Index ETF (ZUT.TO)

On utilities, he prefers the BMO Covered Call Utilities (ZWU-T), because of the covered call. It will not only get you a better yield, but will also take out a little bit of the volatility.

ZWU-T vs. ZUT-T. ZUT-T is equal weight utilities in Canada. ZWU-T is 80% Canada and utilities also include pipelines and telcos and it has a covered call overlay. He prefers this because it is more diversified and has the covered call overlay.

It is equal weight so you get a little more torque. It boosts the income portion of your portfolio. The relative performance has been pretty good. About 5% yield. We have support here.

Stock vs. stock. ZUT-T vs. ZEB-T. Both give you around a 4% yield. Banks have outperformed the past year. He would prefer ZWU-T for playing utilities. He would get Utilities AND Banks.

Canadian utility ETF? There are 2 of them. One is the BMO Equal Way Utilities Index CAD (ZUT-T) and the other is with iShares. He prefers this one because they are writing covered calls and can generate a little bit more income.

Allow Puts to be bought for protection? This could be an interesting idea, but the problem is that this ETF doesn’t have options. What you could do to protect gains is to just put in a Stop order.

Unfortunately, when interest rates are rising, utilities tend not to do well because they will not raise their dividends as fast as a bank would. Wouldn’t expect this one to do much of anything.

Down about 4% on the year, hurt by interest rate environment. Utilities are a relatively small part of the Canadian stock market. It will be hurt with the rate hike.

It is getting down to the point where it is just getting interesting. At some point they and REITs get interesting.

(A Top Pick April 5/13. Down 2.96%.) There is kind of a tendency for this to move between $15 and $16 and has a big dividend of about 5%. Doesn’t think this indicates a disaster in the making, so he has not sold his holdings.

(Top Pick Apr 5/13, Up 3.08%) Defensive. Somewhere to hide out. He will hold it.

Utilities have done really well up until this point. People have been rushing in to try to get yield. Not a bad spot to be hiding in right now. The real strength of utilities comes up later on in July but the chart shows good support at around $15.

Got battered by Atlantic power. Prefers ZWU-T, which had covered calls on the individual utilities.

Everyone wants the safety of, and higher dividend of, this sector. It is not a growth sector because of regulation. He thinks it is very expensive in this sector right now and will stay that way because of the preference for dividends. Likes the idea but it could be weaker in the short term, in which case accumulate.

13 positions. Two have been real headliners. Both were decimated. The rest of the companies are high quality holdings. In the summer utilities tend to do ok as well.