The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that for greater exposure to tech, and better diversification, investors might consider adding a simple Canadian-listed S&P 500 exchange-traded fund to their portfolio. The Globe's John Heinzl writes that there are several Canadian-listed S&P 500 ETFs to choose from. Three of the largest are the BMO S&P 500 Index ETF (ZSP), the iShares Core S&P 500 Index ETF (XUS), and the Vanguard S&P 500 Index ETF (VFV). For investors who are not comfortable with currency risk, each ETF also has a hedged version that uses forward contracts to offset fluctuations in the Canada-U.S. exchange rate.
Hedging would, in theory, minimize the damage if the Canadian dollar were to suddenly rise. If the Canadian dollar falls, on the other hand, a hedged ETF will typically underperform a non-hedged ETF. That is what happened over the past five years, when the loonie fell from about 81 U.S. cents down to its current level of about 72.7 U.S. cents.
The currency-hedged S&P 500 ETFs from BMO (ZUE), iShares (XSP) and Vanguard (VSP) posted annualized total returns averaging about 12.8 per cent -- roughly three percentage points below their non-hedged counterparts.
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