Opened a Questrade RRSP and transferred everything out of Investor's Group RRSP to Questrade. I now need to decide which ETFs to invest in. I've read Foreign Withholding Tax Explained, Justin Bender's blog post on withholding tax, and Foreign Withholding Tax: Which Fund Goes Where?. I've also reviewed the Couch Potato Vanguard ETFs Model Portfolio but I'd like to diversify my investments a bit more than that.
I already have TFSAs and RRSPs in TD E-series funds but this is my first foray into ETFs. After much research, here's what I've narrowed it down to:
Allocation
Symbol
ETF Name
MER
Category
5%
XBB
iShares Canadian Universe Bond
0.33%
Canadian Fixed Income
30%
XIC
iShares Core S&P/TSX Capped Composite
0.10%
Canadian Equity
30%
VTI
Vanguard Total Stock Market
0.05%
Large Blend (US)
5%
VBR
Vanguard Small-Cap Value
0.09%
Small Value (US)
5%
VB
Vanguard Small-Cap
0.09%
Small Blend (US)
10%
VWO
Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets
0.15%
Diversified Emerging Markets
10%
VEA
Vanguard FTSE Developed Markets
0.09%
Foreign Large Blend
That all adds up to 95% because I'm leaving about 5% for some individual stocks. This is a long term investment (~30 years), so I want to keep the fixed income portion down to 5%. I'm also considering VAB or VSB instead of XBB for the fixed income portion as they both have lower MERs than XBB.
Thoughts?