# Journal of Enlightenment: From TD to "Portfolio by Me"



## mike_302 (Mar 5, 2015)

Hello world,

Excuse the punny headline, but I am excited to be moving away from TD Waterhouse brokerage and their extraordinarily high MER's (we all make mistakes... I have now seen the light). I have been playing around with a small sum of cash in stocks, on Questrade, for the past few years, and have come to develop a significant understanding of my personal finances through that experience. I'm young enough that the volatility in playing with individual stocks has not been a concern. In fact, it's forced me to learn more about my finances than, I think, a traditional education gives most paying students...

Going forward, I am not interested in more stock investments, as I move away from TD's mutual funds; rather, I am trying to understand the mutual fund portfolio, it's risk level, it's sector weighting and geographic diversification, and all the similar properties, in order to match with equivalent e-Series or ETF's. A friend, who is an avid reader of this site, has been extraordinarily helpful.

Currently, I'm holding (essentially equally): 
TDB091 (or TDB638 as it now seems to be called?) --- Emerging Markets
CTI35 (or TDB627) --- Dividend Income
CTI16 (TDB622) --- Monthly Income
TDB972 --- Dividend Growth

We've identified TDB627, 622, and 972 to be fairly closely aligned, with TDB627 holding more bonds and fixed income, so it's the least volatile. But this seems to be an awfully undiversified portfolio. First and foremost, it's nearly all Canadian! I would like to pick 4 - 6 ETF's then, to diversify geographically. I don't think I have to focus too much on sector weighting, since ETF's should be farely well diversified in that sense.

In some research here, I've identified Vanguard ETF's to be a rather suitable alternative, with VCN looking like an excellent solution on the Canadian dividend yield front. I will actively be seeking solutions to the other regions that my portfolio should cover, and perhaps an appropriate solution for Bonds/Fixed Income (although that does not need to be a significant portion). I am seeing headlines and discussions (although I haven't read them yet) on the topic of "market timing", and I am still trying to determine if there is absolutely any value in trying to identify a good buy at the moment (not to avoid something because of speculation it may fall, near term, but rather to buy something because it has fallen recently).

Finally, I will be looking through the forum to identify the best solutions to tracking my performance. I have seen a number of discussions on here, but have not delved too deep yet. I sincerely need something that tracks these finances much better than (I think) Google or Yahoo Finance portfolios are doing... Perhaps if I move my majority holdings to Questrade, and deal in ETF's only, then my financial statements will be more representative of my holdings?

In closing, I look forward to being an active member in the forum, and both taking from other users' experiences, and contributing my own for other / future readers.

Cheers


----------



## Spudd (Oct 11, 2011)

Check out canadiancouchpotato.com for model portfolios.


----------



## mike_302 (Mar 5, 2015)

My ETF portfolio will be CouchPotato inspired, for sure.

Moving forward (finally), and I've reinitiated my Questrade Margin account. Will move funds over the next few days. I am actively seeking a better way to track my portfolio though, and that's proving to be a challenge. I've used Google Finance for a long time, but I get a feeling I could be doing better... If anyone has any Excel Spreadsheets that are generic enough, and applicable for this purpose, it would be wonderful if you could link it. If there's something better out there, that would be great too.


----------



## none (Jan 15, 2013)

mike_302 said:


> My ETF portfolio will be CouchPotato inspired, for sure.
> 
> Moving forward (finally), and I've reinitiated my Questrade Margin account. Will move funds over the next few days. I am actively seeking a better way to track my portfolio though, and that's proving to be a challenge. I've used Google Finance for a long time, but I get a feeling I could be doing better... If anyone has any Excel Spreadsheets that are generic enough, and applicable for this purpose, it would be wonderful if you could link it. If there's something better out there, that would be great too.


I'm an advocate of explicitly trying to NOT track ones performance (although I still do it haphazardly). If someone asks you how your potato is doing the correct response is: "about 1-2% better on average than actively managed mutual funds". The market is the market and it does what it does. Your potato went up 10%? Who cares? Everyone else went up 8% (on average). Yours dropped 10% Great, everyone else's (on average) dropped 12%. Portfolio performance only really matters in relative terms and you already know the differential. See what I mean? 

Timing the market doesn't work (but is also VERY tempting to try) so it's best to just ignore it. Tracking your progress can encourage bad behaviour.

Basically save whenever you can and when you put money in your account rebalance as well as you can with the money you put in. That's the optimal strategy (I think at least).


----------



## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

Tracking your progress can encourage bad behaviour - totally agree. If you're going to be a lazy investor, be very lazy 

Like none, I like to save and invest when I have money and I rebalance by making buys/more purchases. 

Welcome to the forum Mike_302!


----------



## mike_302 (Mar 5, 2015)

My Own Advisor said:


> Tracking your progress can encourage bad behaviour - totally agree. If you're going to be a lazy investor, be very lazy
> 
> Like none, I like to save and invest when I have money and I rebalance by making buys/more purchases.
> 
> Welcome to the forum Mike_302!


Well, the catch is I will be keeping a small (but sizeable) chunk in individual stocks, and that's more or less where the interest is, in using a tracker.

I have (since my last post) tried Portfolio Slicer. Unfortunately, that won't work because Excel 2013 got rid of PowerPivot from the Home and Student version... So that failed.


----------

