The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that BMO Balanced ETF (ZBAL) is Canada's top diversified, or "easy-mode," exchange-traded fund. Globe columnist Norman Rothery writes that the portfolio puts about 30 per cent of its money in U.S. stocks, 27 per cent in discount Canadian bonds (to improve tax efficiency), 15 per cent in Canadian stocks, 12 per cent in hedged U.S. bonds, 10 per cent in international stocks and 6 per cent in emerging market stocks. Low fees power the magic behind the indexing phenomena and exchange-traded funds in particular. ZBAL recently reduced its annual fee (management expense ratio, or MER) to an estimated 0.17 per cent. On the other hand, traditional balanced mutual funds often charge annual fees in excess of 1.7 per cent, which is more than 10 times as expensive as the ETF. In a world where a good balanced portfolio might be expected to have long-term annual returns between 5 per cent and 10 per cent before fees, a 1.7-per-cent annual fee would eat up between 17 per cent and 34 per cent of its gains. whereas the ETF's lower fee might nibble between 1.7 per cent and 3.4 per cent of its gains. The low-fee advantage compounds over the years. ZBAL is a good place to start investing.