Exchange Traded Funds & Sectors

General information

ETFs trade over stock exchanges and many track major stock market indices. A key feature is that ETFs have relatively low annual management fees (ranging from 0.09% to 0.85%) versus a mutual fund (1% to 3%). Investing in ETFs is an efficient way to diversify equity portfolios, not only geographically but sector-wise as well.

For comparison, the sector breakdown of a sample of exchange-traded funds can be seen below:

You can see from the above table that Canada’s index has a heavy weighting in Resource and Financial stocks and reflects our primary industries. Technology is given heavier weight in the United States and Japanese indices. Health contributes more to the United States and Europe’s indices. If you hold any of these ETFs, we include their individual sector breakdowns in our overall sector analysis of your portfolio

Newer ‘global’ funds are now part of our international ETF investment options and include the following: