# Mawer Canadian Balanced Retirement Fund



## Belguy (May 24, 2010)

I would be interested in anyone's opinion on the Mawer Canadian Balanced Retirement Savings Fund:

http://www.mawer.com/default.asp?FolderID=2690

If a retired investor just wanted to simplify their finances and put everything into one account, might this fund be a consideration?

The main downside that I can find it that you are paying an overall MER of 0.98% including for the 40 per cent of the fund that is invested in fixed income.

I'm not really thinking of switching but am just curious as to how you feel about this fund.


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## dubmac (Jan 9, 2011)

Belguy - I hold Mawer balanced RSP in two retirement accounts. It is, in my opinion, a very good fund. Low MER, consistently 4-5 star rating, good mgmt (with low turnover), and I seem to recall a 60/40 equity/bond weighting - which suits me. I also like the fact that I can drip the distribution monthly, and buy more units. It is as close to an good ETF as a MF can get. I only wished that I switched out of my other MF's into it sooner. A portion of my savings are passively managed (unlike the trading that I do in my non-reg account) - I find I don't worry much about this one - it seems to weather the ups and downs well


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Claymore has a balanced ETF (CBD) with lower fees, and more tax efficient.


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## PharmD (Dec 21, 2011)

I have owned this fund as well and have similar thoughts to dubmac. I think that it is a rock-solid MF and the only reason that I have sold it is that as a balanced fund it's asset allocation is basically fixed and I at this time prefer a different asset allocation. It's MER is actually very low for a balanced fund and has consistently outperformed similar low MER balanced funds such as PH&N's which may have a slightly lower MER.

As a retiree I would question whether you still want a 60% equity fund especially with all the dark clouds on the horizons. That's something that only you know. All the best.


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## Belguy (May 24, 2010)

I have just lowered my equity allocation from 60 per cent to 50 per cent and perhaps even that is too aggressive given, as you say, all of the dark clouds that currently seem to be on the horizon.

I may lower it again all the way to 30 per cent to protect more of my principal in these dangerous times. I don't think that equities are going to do all that well going forward anyway. I remember hearing the advice that, if there is another uptick in the markets, which we have experienced over the past few weeks, take it as an opportunity to get out before all hell breaks loose.

Time will tell.


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

andrewf is correct, CBD performs not worse than MAW104, has lower MER and higher dividends


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## dubmac (Jan 9, 2011)

When I compared the two funds, MAW014 came out in front of CBD - by a small amount. Click on the link below and type in maw104 beside the "compare" & see what I mean

http://www.google.ca/finance?q=TSE:CBD&hl=en#


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## gibor365 (Apr 1, 2011)

dubmac said:


> When I compared the two funds, MAW014 came out in front of CBD - by a small amount. Click on the link below and type in maw104 beside the "compare" & see what I mean
> 
> http://www.google.ca/finance?q=TSE:CBD&hl=en#


before I posted , i did similar comparisson on TDW, and in some periods CBD a little better ,in others MAW104 (this is why I wrote "not worse"), but CBD has better dividends and ETF has better flexibility (no minimal amount, redeem when you want etc)


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

Google finance does not include distributions in their charts--in other words, they are useless for comparing relative performance. Go to the fund websites and look at total year return or something.

If we look at the last three calendar years, CBD returned 13.36%, while MAW 014 returned 9.6%. To be fair, I think most of that discrepancy might be due to slightly different asset allocation and risk levels. Neither portfolio publish more details risk statistics.

To be clear, I don't like either fund. You're paying too much MER for a substantial portfolio of the fund to be in fixed income.


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## newfoundlander61 (Feb 6, 2011)

Good MF to hold for long term core holding.


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## Belguy (May 24, 2010)

Except, as stated earlier, I wouldn't enjoy paying the 0.98% MER for the 40 per cent allocation that the fund has to fixed income.


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## Financial Cents (Jul 22, 2010)

Why not put the 40% fixed income in XSB and split the equities into some ETFs?

MER of XSB is 0.26% I recall...much lower.


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## PharmD (Dec 21, 2011)

In regards to fees I think it's important to compare apples to apples and say that this fund has one of the lowest MER's out of any actively managed balanced fund. It is actually a fund of funds and is surprisingly cheaper than its underlying parts if you owned them separately. I'm not saying that anyone should buy it, but in terms of actively managed balanced mutual funds it is a consistently above average product at a good price.


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