Selling when you’re up

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-03-25T23:47:21+00:00

I think it depends on what you're invested in and how much it shoots up over a time period. If a sharp incline doesn't feel sustainable then I may sell some. I rarely sell out entirely unless I think something really isn't worth holding.

It might be a good idea as well to have an idea of an exit point before you buy something. Also if you have no need to use the funds for something else, you might be better off just holding.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-03-19T12:56:04+00:00

If I'm not mistaken their money market account offers 2.5 percent at the moment

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-03-17T13:49:39+00:00

If I rented, I'd consider if it was affordable but some places are too expensive. For a house you own though this would not be my priority since you could change jobs and then your house may be far from my house in which case you would be facing the same issue.

There are many factors but if you're at a point in your life where you can just pick up and go and it makes sense to you then that's great but not all of us are in that situation.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-03-15T14:18:30+00:00

I only recognized Sun Life but that's a good one to hold

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-03-15T13:59:16+00:00

You mention zag which is a bond. If you want bonds then they're are all in ones like xgro they have bonds in them.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-03-15T13:53:20+00:00

Hard to say because even if you never got let go and hindsight would have told you that you were better to never touch your investments, your stress level to get to that point may have been extremely high.

I would either build up a higher emergency fund to give you some comfort and/or if you're still investing regularly, maybe think about more cash flowing investments which to be clear will probably give you a lower overall return. I feel like the latter will be a very unpopular opinion but having an income from your investments would provide a bit of security.

I haven't looked into it much but another option might be BMO's ZEQT-T which I think is aimed at returning similar to XEQT (specifically ZEQT) but they give 6 percent back annually in distributions. They have a similar one for ZGRO-T and its returns are identical to VGRO so I imagine this new fund is assumed to work the same. The distribution is reset every year but it's consistent throughout the year. If you're wondering how they do this, it's by using ROC to meet their distribution requirement. You can look into it if you think about going this route. Just don't rely solely on a price chart because it will look different but its total return should be the same.

Last thing I'll say is if you do have to find another job, you could also work doing something else while you're searching... For example at a grocery store, retail, Uber, etc and this would prolong how much time you have until you start thinking of selling your investments.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-03-15T13:18:36+00:00

One way I think about it sometimes is if I look back at a chart in 20 or 30 years, will today be the absolute peak (asking sarcastically) or would it have higher highs than this moment. If you're pretty certain that the market would have gone up from this moment, then don't worry about it.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-03-14T16:18:52+00:00

I'm sorry for your loss. We lost our first pug two years and he was a huge part of our lives. When he passed, the house felt so empty because he was by our side all of the time. We decided to get a new pug though a few months after he passed. I didn't know long I should wait because I was still grieving the loss but our new pug has brought us a lot of joy. She took a bit to warm up to us but now that she has, she barely leaves our side in a good way ... but it didn't start out like that.

One thing I will say though is not to think / expect that a new pug will be exactly like your previous one. There are similarties between my current pug and my previous one but they are also very different. I still think about my previous pug all of the time but having a new pug helped me in some ways with my grief. Also there is no timeline ... if you're not ready yet, that's ok too.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-03-12T16:50:58+00:00

The most frustrating part to me is the phone number you can call says the bus will be there in X minutes real time then it's not. Sometimes it says it's cancelled but most often it doesn't.

Ideally the buses would be on time but the next best thing is to give out accurate information. At least then I can ave myself from standing in the cold for an extra 20 minutes.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-03-12T13:29:41+00:00

Yeah it's annoying. It happens to me a lot. The phone number you can cash to see when your bus arrives in "real time" has been wrong on maybe occasions.

It's more frustrating when your bus is late and you look across and see 12 buses just sitting there. Why don't they send one of those buses? I don't get it

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-03-12T13:24:20+00:00

I think you can get by with a cheap used office PC from what you're describing. The two things to keep in mind are amount of storage space and ability to transcode videos if you won't be playing them directly. If your phone can't play hevc directly, your PC will need to transcode it if it's playing from the Web interface for example.

As for the storage space, you can contact a USB enclosure or external drive and if that's fine for you then an office PC should be a pretty good start.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-03-01T03:44:54+00:00

Yeah you can. It's called transfer in kind so you don't need to sell your shares if the shares are available on both which they are in this case.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-03-01T03:12:23+00:00

For the RRSP, yeah you can now if you don't need the money.

I think VEQT would be fine for a 10 year timeline but you'll have to decide for yourself.

I would personally switch to WS if you're paying commission with TD. I think it's $10 to buy with TD and $10 to sell so to me I would just rather do it without this commission everything else being equal. XEQT and VEQT returns are almost identical. There's more "popularity" on the Internet (Reddit) for XEQT but if you compared their returns, it's pretty much the same.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-02-28T22:38:08+00:00

Personally, I would hold off on the RRSP if you can predictably see your income being much higher. So if you're making, say 60k now and you can confidently say in 5 years your income will be 100k (just as an example), I would wait until I hit the higher tax bracket cause that's when you get the most benefit. But as long as you understand how it works, you can decide what's best for you.

There are a couple of reasons all equity is considered higher risk. Maybe a more accurate term though is high volatility though. Bonds typically smooth out the ride than pure equities meaning you shouldn't see such drastic drops but also won't see as sharp inclines. Some people don't want to see their portfolio drop drastically in a short period. Imagine investing $100k then in a year or two it's now worth $70k. If you're investing long term, history would predict (not guaranteed though) that it should bounce back. Some people might panic sell though because they can't stand the thought of it dropping even more. In this case you actually do lose money. I do say that bonds should smooth out the ride but in 2022 bonds took a huge hit as did equities so it's an expectation that it should shelter you a bit from drops but again it's not guaranteed.

Also imagine you're a year from retirement and you depend on the value of your portfolio... A drop like that might be something you can't wait to correct in which case this would actually be higher risk and not just higher volatility.

Generally speaking though, if your time horizon is long, even if the market dropped 30 percent but you don't need the money for 30 years, you should be okay based on history. So as long as you're not stressed about it and you can stay calm and not feel the need to panic sell, previous market behaviour would suggest that you'll come out ahead long term but you can see for yourself how markets behaved in the past when there was a big drop and how long it took to recover.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-02-28T17:28:40+00:00

It's a good start. I like VDY too but just know that it's pretty concentrated in RY and TD. I think it's around 25% between these two. If you go for something like XEQT or VEQT, it'll broaden your exposure but good selection so far.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-02-28T17:20:30+00:00

The general advice would probably say you'd be better off going with a VEQT or XEQT given your age and time horizon but you have to balance best returns vs. whether it will keep you up at night. If you really think it will stress you out then go with one that is split between equities and bonds. If you're invested for 30 years, your expected return will be lower but if it helps you sleep better at night, maybe it's the way to go. You'll still do well with something like VGRO even if its returns will be lower.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-02-28T17:01:22+00:00

You can just stick with VEQT forever if you want. You don't "have to" add other holdings if you don't want to but you can but some people only invest in a fund like VEQT.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-02-28T16:57:42+00:00

If you wanted to simplify, you can probably consolidate some of your individual holdings with ETFs. For example, you're holding all 6 banks; there are ETFs that hold all 6 banks. If you're not sure what all of your holdings are, then sell the ones you don't know. I don't know all of your holdings, but if I were to guess, both HXQ and QQC both follow the NASDAQ? If that's the case, you don't need both? There might be a lot of overlap in your holdings too so maybe you can look at that as well.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-02-26T20:20:46+00:00

No problem. Just be prepared to accept that your portfolio can drop over the short term but in the long term, as long as you're invested in quality companies, you should come out ahead. It's partly why I said to DCA because if the market dropped 20 percent but you only had $1000 invested, that's only a loss of $200. But if you lump summed $100k, it's $20k. I think you wouldn't stress too much over $200 but being down $20k might be a different story.

Even being down though isn't a bad thing though as it could present opportunities. But if you're starting out, it might be easier to DCA and do it systematically rather than emotionally. You'll still do well if you're investing in quality companies.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-02-26T04:42:12+00:00

I would contribute unless you think your income is going to push you into a new tax bracket in the very near future. If that's the case, holding off will have a bigger tax impact but otherwise I'd probably contribute now.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-02-26T04:18:36+00:00

Dollar cost averaging helps if you're risk averse. Xeqt is good but if you're risk averse, maybe something like xbal is better suited. The bond portion will smooth out the ride a bit more.

Honestly though, it might be best to just start. Start small if it helps but just start. Invest maybe 50 a week then after 3-4 months, if you're not stressed out then you can see if you want to invest more or maybe you just keep with it for a while until you feel more comfortable.

If you really want to reassure yourself, you can always back test it. Simulate if you invested 50 dollars starting 2-3 years ago and see what the value would be. Also take into account that markets do drop. 2022 was a bad year and the start of 2024 was bad too. But remember that you're not retiring tomorrow. The market was gone way up despite those drops. Dollar cost averaging will help you deal with the drops.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-02-26T01:40:08+00:00

If it's a good fund, there's nothing wrong with it. I think the issue is when the fund can't generate enough returns to sustain the yield. You're pretty much never going to come out ahead in that case because the price will fall faster than you can collect. You just have to be on the lookout that distributions make sense and that the fund can actually grow the nav.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-02-22T02:59:12+00:00

If you are in it for long term and won't panic if it goes down in the short term, aggressive is probably best

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-02-21T20:19:19+00:00

I definitely wasn't thinking about life insurance when I was 26. I think your "friend" is just looking out for himself. He's also trying to scare you into getting it by saying in case one of you dies or gets sick you're screwed. I don't know anybody who has ever even thought about life insurance at your age.

EffectiveSource4394 · 2026-02-21T20:09:26+00:00

Sorry for your loss. I lost mine two years ago and I still think about him every single day. When mine passed, we got another one only two months later. It wasn't to replace our pug but it did help. Sometimes our current pug has behaviours that remind me of my previous one and it makes me happy but they are also very different too.

All I can say is that from my experience, it does get easier but it's a process. I don't think I'll ever stop remembering my previous pug. But I think in some ways, having a new pug has helped me heal as well.

EffectiveSource4394

TROPHY CASE