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Mutual funds recommendations
May 28, 2017
10:29 am
SavingIsGood
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This could be a long stretch, but I would not mind to see a topic regarding Mutual funds recommendations. A short while ago, one of the members mentioned one mutual fund (I believe name had 4 words all typed in capitals) which after checking its performance really surprised me as it performed better than one I swear by and hold.
Of course, now I cannot find when and where it was mentioned... to do further analysis.
Similar as we discuss about FI high interest offers, this will be by no means recommendation as 'buy this' but just a guide to what is available.

May 28, 2017
11:09 am
Norman1
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There was mention of the Mawer Balanced Fund (Series A) earlier here and here.

I mentioned some that I own here.

May 28, 2017
11:35 am
AltaRed
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The Mawer family of funds have had especially good returns (comparitive analysis must be looked at on a 3, 5 , 10, 20 year basis). Short term results are meaningless as are comparing apples with oranges (e.g. comparing Cdn equity with US equity with a balanced fund, etc.).

MAW104 Global Balanced is an 'all in one' solution that I could recommend to virtually everyone. Part of its performance is due to its low MER (costs matter) and the MER is low because it does not pay a trailer fee to mutual fund sales folk. Note: One must have either a discount brokerage* account, or a minimum of $25k (I think) to buy directly from Mawer.

* And not all discount brokerage accounts will sell Mawer funds. Check first. Example: RBC DI does not probably due to Mawer competing with its own PH&N offerings.

May 28, 2017
8:18 pm
Joe
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I've owned Maw 104 for about 7 yrs...it's the only mutual fund I own, due to its low MER, and am extremely pleased with it. I add a few thousand to it every quarter.
AltaRed...
Maw104 is called Mawer Balanced Fund...not Global Balanced Fund (although it does have international exposure)
Maw 130 is called Global Balanced.

http://www.mawer.com/our-funds.....-profiles/

Tangerine....Canada's best bank. LBC.............Canada's 2nd best bank.
Hubert.....worst bank in Canada.

May 29, 2017
9:24 am
AltaRed
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Sorry, my mistake. I called it global simply because I knew it had global exposure.

FWIW, I'd recommended to some folk I know that MAW104 is really all that one needs to own for a 'complete' investment portolio in, for example, their TFSA or RRSP....... if one can wrap their minds around having only one asset.

I would do that in my own RRSP except it contains my only fixed income (GICs, corp bonds, debentures) and I don't feel comfortable reducing my fixed income assets to single digits (<10%).

May 30, 2017
7:26 am
SavingIsGood
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MAW104 is the only mutual fund I have in my portfolio.

Somebody mentioned one another performing (way) better than MAW104. I remember it had 4 words...

May 30, 2017
4:48 pm
Peter
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(I've moved this thread to the "General financial discussion" forum, but I could create a new forum for "Mutual funds and other investments" if there is enough demand.)

May 31, 2017
10:55 pm
Norman1
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SavingIsGood said

Somebody mentioned one another performing (way) better than MAW104. I remember it had 4 words...  

I think we are going to need more clues. sf-laugh Maybe the first of the four words?

June 1, 2017
6:33 am
Nehpets
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Joe said
I've owned Maw 104 for about 7 yrs...it's the only mutual fund I own  

Joe,
Do you deal with Mawer directly or through a third party?
Can an account be set up from a distance (not being in Toronto or Calgary) from elsewhere in Canada on the phone, online or is a personal face to face visit required, if dealing direct?
Do they charge "Additional Investment Advisor or discount brokerage fees may apply" as stated on their website?

Stephen

June 1, 2017
7:20 am
Top It Up
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Mawer has an excellent website, answering many of the "how do I get started with and invest with" them questions.

http://www.mawer.com/individua.....to-invest/

June 1, 2017
7:36 am
AltaRed
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Peter said
(I've moved this thread to the "General financial discussion" forum, but I could create a new forum for "Mutual funds and other investments" if there is enough demand.)  

Depends mostly on where you may want to take this site. There are other forums that discuss a wide range of investments that IMO are better suited for those discussions while this site is a great go-to place for banking, GICs and similar 'banking' investements.

June 1, 2017
9:31 am
SavingIsGood
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I would prefer just a list of mutual funds people like and have. Not discussions as everybody has it own opinion and we know that opinions are like...
Then it is up to member to do its own research so nobody can blame anybody 'you told me to buy this', etc.

June 1, 2017
12:03 pm
AltaRed
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There are likely as many opinions as there are funds.

But generally speaking in my 25+ years of following financial forums, there are 3-5 families of funds that make the most sense, with low MER being a key driver towards overall performance. They include: Mawer, Beutal Goodman, Tangerine, Steadyhand, and TD e-series index. This latter TD group can only be bought via TD online account or at TD Direct Investing... and are often the precursor for novice investors to ultimately move to index ETFs at brokerages.

I suppose if a sub-forum was targeted to quality low MER offerings and avoiding the UCS sharks from high cost offerings from the likes of CI, IG, Fidelity, etc, etc. there might be something to talk about.

June 1, 2017
2:41 pm
Twotons
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Nothing wrong with posting recommendations and suggestions...just do your own research. I've been 100% in the SP500 US index for over a decade, CDN$ portion hedged to avoid fx exposure, with min MER and greater than 20 year time horizon. I like to keep it simple, invest monthly and forget about it (DJIA is another option but less diversified.)

I have not seen any research where a US fund beat the SP500 index in the long term when you factor in the cost of management fees.

If you enjoy the monitoring, researching, rebalancing, etc on a regular basis then ignore the above. I had a 60 year time horizon when I started investing so all this work seemed pointless to me.

June 1, 2017
8:52 pm
Joe
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Nehpets said

Joe,
Do you deal with Mawer directly or through a third party?
Can an account be set up from a distance (not being in Toronto or Calgary) from elsewhere in Canada on the phone, online or is a personal face to face visit required, if dealing direct?
Do they charge "Additional Investment Advisor or discount brokerage fees may apply" as stated on their website?

Stephen  

I use TD webbroker (not a good discount broker IMO).....initial purchase is $5000, then you can buy in increments of $1000 (maybe less, not sure). There are no fees for buying , although I think TD gets one from Mawer. Also initial buy of $5000, is for each and every account, so if you buy in both rrsp and tfsa it will be 2x 5000. Using an online brokerage allows you to buy from anywhere in the world when you sign into your account.

Tangerine....Canada's best bank. LBC.............Canada's 2nd best bank.
Hubert.....worst bank in Canada.

June 1, 2017
8:55 pm
Joe
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AltaRed said

Depends mostly on where you may want to take this site. There are other forums that discuss a wide range of investments that IMO are better suited for those discussions while this site is a great go-to place for banking, GICs and similar 'banking' investements.  

Hey AR...if allowed can you give a few links to these sites...I probably know a few of them but always like to widen my horizons.

Tangerine....Canada's best bank. LBC.............Canada's 2nd best bank.
Hubert.....worst bank in Canada.

June 1, 2017
8:58 pm
Joe
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AltaRed said
There are likely as many opinions as there are funds.

But generally speaking in my 25+ years of following financial forums, there are 3-5 families of funds that make the most sense, with low MER being a key driver towards overall performance. They include: Mawer, Beutal Goodman, Tangerine, Steadyhand, and TD e-series index. This latter TD group can only be bought via TD online account or at TD Direct Investing... and are often the precursor for novice investors to ultimately move to index ETFs at brokerages.

I suppose if a sub-forum was targeted to quality low MER offerings and avoiding the UCS sharks from high cost offerings from the likes of CI, IG, Fidelity, etc, etc. there might be something to talk about.  

AR...what do you like at Beutal and Steady....any favs?

Tangerine....Canada's best bank. LBC.............Canada's 2nd best bank.
Hubert.....worst bank in Canada.

June 2, 2017
2:07 am
Nehpets
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Joe said

I think TD gets one from Mawer.

Which one, Joe?

June 2, 2017
7:50 am
AltaRed
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Joe said

Hey AR...if allowed can you give a few links to these sites...I probably know a few of them but always like to widen my horizons.  

http://www.financialwisdomforu...../index.php

http://canadianmoneyforum.com/index.php

The first one is where I have participated since its beginning in early 2005, and its predecessor before that. Lots of well known 'name recognition' financial participants.

June 2, 2017
7:57 am
AltaRed
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Joe said

AR...what do you like at Beutal and Steady....any favs?  

I don't have any specifics since I am not* a mutual fund buyer. But these 'families' of funds have been well respected and well known for a long time. You will see that by checking performance of individual funds with G&M fund reviews and perhaps more importantly, Morningstar fund reviews.

Personally, I am a believer in low cost (MER) index passive funds since costs matter in terms of fund performance, but offerings from the likes of Mawer et al have good managers and low MER (relatively speaking) for actively managed funds. Companies like Mawer do not pay trailer fees to mutual fund salespersons and thus can offer lower costs. You will never get a commissioned mutal fund salesperson to recommend such funds since they don't get paid by Mawer to sell them.

* My portfolio contains even less costly ETF broad market index products with MERs of as low as 0.05% rather than highway robbery of, for example, 2.5% from the likes of Fidelity. A person can have a complete investment portfolio with as few as 3 broad based index ETFs. As discussed by Canadian Couch Potato, or the Finiki wiki at http://www.finiki.org.

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