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VUN has had a 0.15% management fee / 0.17% MER since its inception in 2013. This is roughly twice the fee of VFV which has a 0.08% management fee / 0.09% MER. Both VUN and VFV simply hold their US-domiciled equivalent ETFs which have a 0.03% expense ratio, so Vanguard Canada is making a significantly higher premium on VUN. Many investors are choosing VFV (27.9 Bil AUM) over VUN (14.5 Bil AUM, most of which is from asset allocation ETFs) due to this fee difference.

Until recently VUN's only competitor total market ETF was XUU which holds 4 separate US-domiciled ETFs (IVV, IJH, IJR, ITOT), plus a handful of individual stocks. This complicated implementation has led to (positive) tracking erro

A fast response to Vanguard's fee reduction one month ago, matching them on an expected MER of 0.19%.

https://www.blackrock.com/ca/investors/en/products/309480/ishares-core-equity-etf-portfolio

Effective December 18, 2025, the management fee of the ETF was reduced from 0.18% to 0.17%.

It's great to see IBKR supporting more Canadian account types.

https://www.interactivebrokers.ca/en/accounts/rsp_tfsa_information.php?p=fhsa

I saw this when logging into TD WebBroker today:

Trading Fractional Shares

Soon you will be able to buy and sell certain stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) in fractional quantities, also referred to as partial shares, in your TD Direct Investing account(s). Fractional trading will only be available for certain classes of shares. Stocks and ETFs that are available for fractional trading may change periodically and without prior notice.

Like whole shares, fractional trading incurs a commission. When you buy or sell less than one full share, you will incur a commission of $1.99. Trades equal to or greater than one share will incur the regular, full commission.

Source: https

A few solid ETFs were recently added to Scotia iTRADE's commission-free list:

• VEQT: Vanguard All-Equity ETF Portfolio
• VRIF: Vanguard Retirement Income ETF Portfolio
• VEE: Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets All Cap Index ETF

Source: https://www.scotiaitrade.com/en/home/investment-types-products/commission-free-etf.html

Example:

• VFV invests in VOO, a US-listed ETF.
• ZSP invests directly in US stocks.

Both ETFs have the same underlying exposure, but VFV has an additional moving part.

It's impossible to know what's going to happen in the future, but is it possible this wrap structure could be the target of Canadian or US laws one day and no longer allowed, making ZSP a safer bet? Especially in a non-registered account where the forced realization of capital gains could be especially detrimental to long term returns. What are the chances of something like this happening?

Vanguard Canada offers:

• US Total Market (VUN) at 0.17% expense ratio
• S&P 500 (VFV) at 0.09% expense ratio

I know most here prefer the total market, but unlike in the US where both of these funds have the same expense ratio, in Canada the total market fund is roughly 100% more expensive.

Would you still pick the total market despite the higher expense ratio?

I'm currently comparing ZAG and XBB. Both track the FTSE Canada Universe Bond Index. Both have very high volume and almost always maintain a single cent bid-ask spread. However, the unit price of XBB is roughly twice of ZAG, which results in XBB being cheaper from an average bid-ask spread metric.

My question is why doesn't a popular ETF like ZAG increase their unit price via a reverse split to lower transaction costs for investors? Is there an incentive for BMO in this scenario to keep the unit price low so that they (or whoever the market maker is) profit more from the spread?

Hello fellow IBKR Canada users. Does anyone know if there's any restrictions on using recently converted currency within IBKR? Are there any waiting/settlement periods, or is the newly-converted currency immediately available for use in a trade?

I'm thinking about implementing a 4-fund ETF portfolio (2 US listed / 2 CAN listed) and I'm curious if I'd be able perform same-day rebalancing across currencies if needed. I'll be using an RRSP. Thanks!

The Department of Finance Canada released more information about the FHSA today: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-finance/news/2022/08/design-of-the-tax-free-first-home-savings-account.html

The biggest change seems to be:

An individual would be allowed to carry forward unused portions of their annual contribution limit up to a maximum of $8,000. This means that an individual contributing less than $8,000 in a given year could contribute the unused amount (i.e., $8,000 less their contribution in that year) in a subsequent year on top of their annual contribution limit of $8,000 (subject to their lifetime contribution limit). For example, an individual contributing $5,000 to an FHSA

Does anyone know when we may hear more information about the Tax-Free First Home Savings Account (FHSA) included in the governments 2022 budget?

How likely is it that the FHSA will be an available account type within our brokerages and usable on January 1, 2023?