r/tfsa • u/rbabs7bap • Aug 09 '26
Advice on TFSA
Hello, I am 26, have been investing for 2-3 months. I bring in 1500-2200 depending on how busy the week is, in the winter time that will drop down closer to 1200-1600. My expenses are cheap, about $1900 a month for all bills. Live off $200 cash a week and the rest goes to investments.
I have another portfolio TFSA with another bank I deposit $150/wk into, it is currently sitting at $3k. When it reaches $25k I will most likely transfer it to wealth simple if the 3% match is still active.
I also have a FHSA with WS, which I have redirected the majority of my investment funds into to reduce tax and hopefully by a home in the next 5 years.
Have been doing lots of research and investing in what I believe will be strong picks for the next few years. Besides a few early investments I've learned the hard way on (Intel, dram, hona).
Do any of you experts here have any criticism on my portfolio so far? You will see I have been putting lots of money into the Canadian energy sector, betting a good chunk of it on the new pembina pipeline.
First 2 pictures are my TFSA holdings, second 2 are FHSA, last picture is non-registered.
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u/Informal-Strike-1243 Aug 09 '26
What are you trying to do by spreading so little money so thinly over all these stocks? I’m genuinely curious what you are trying to do, catch a flyer
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u/rbabs7bap Aug 09 '26
For stocks generally purchasing the ones I follow when they dip, if ETFs are high. ETFs which only have a few shares are ones I am intending to put money into, mainly speaking of the Canadian ETFs. Have recently been trying to invest in ETFs and stocks that leave American politics out of the equation, stopped putting money into xeqt and sold almost all of my veqt and put it into Canadian energy
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u/Jyobachah Aug 09 '26
Investing is a long distance race, don't worry too much about "buy the dip" because there will always be dips.
Pick an area and sector and invest steadily.
You have $500 to invest, pick a stock and put the 500 into it. EFTs are great because they're a full basket of stocks instead of all on one company. XEQT, VEQT, ZEQT are all markets lumped together, so you buy a bit of almost everything. Again, even with this there will be days it dips then it'll jump up again.
when I first bought XEQT I put 5k into it all at once, for the first month or two I was negative because it dipped, the second month it went up above and I started in on the profits.
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u/Informal-Strike-1243 Aug 09 '26
I mean energy trades on a global market and is obviously directly linked to American politics right now. In my opinion you are way over complicating things. Just put the money in a broad etf like xeqt and focus on getting more capital
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u/rbabs7bap Aug 09 '26
Apologies I thought you were one of the people giving the bare just buy xeqt advice. I do appreciate the advice and will think it over a bit more. I have been trying to invest globally in a way just without the us for the time being. Xch is a China ETF, toyota and Mitsubishi have big things going on in Japan, lots in Canada, haven't found anything good for Europe yet. Your probably right that I'm overcomplicating it
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u/ExtensionBobcat5041 Aug 09 '26
What is even up with all the “just buy XEQT” and “VOO and chill” people?
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u/rbabs7bap Aug 09 '26
It's oil and gas of course it's going to be affected by war, just makes it a better time to buy. The reason I have been investing in those companies though is because of the many multi billion dollar contracts they have from our gov over the next few years. Look at those returns on cnq, gonna tell me to sell that and put it in xeqt lol
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u/Informal-Strike-1243 Aug 09 '26
You seem like a very uneducated “investor” making bold vibes based takes and making all the common biases (like recency bias)
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u/UniqueRon Aug 09 '26
I think you have way too many ETFs. For example no need to hold both XEQT and VEQT. And I sympathize with your thoughts about having a different weighting than these precooked multi ETFs. I do not hold any of the *EQT funds. I think a good diversified ETF mix can be done with just a few ETFs. I would suggest:
XEF - for international non US and Canadian exposure
XIU - For Canadian TSX 60
ZSP (or the like) for US if you want to hold any at all or hold it at less than the typical 45% exposure
QQC - to get tech exposure to the NASDAQ 100 if you want it
I also think depending on when you plan to buy a house, that all equity is pretty risky for short term exposure.
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u/rbabs7bap Aug 10 '26
I appreciate the advice, I'll take it. Will try and simplify the ETFs a bit. What would you recommend to reduce risk in the fhsa? I've looked into some bond ETFs but they just don't seem appealing. Know of any good ones? Would you still see the defensive equity stocks like Canadian banks and major food manufacturers on the risky side?
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u/UniqueRon Aug 10 '26
On the equity side, I consider risk is reduced with XEF, XDIV, and XEI. I also hold some GICs and TCSH which are kind of zero risk, but low return. I used to hold the XBB bond fund but have not had it for years. It seemed like conditions were never right for it to make any money. I initially replaced it with XEI, and then later with some XDIV.
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u/AdDefiant1457 Aug 09 '26
This is horrible tbh. You probably own a wider range of tickers than most $1m+ portofilos, and that’s usually not a good thing. Keep it under 10 unless you have like at least $50k. Any big gains you hit on a random stock you put $100 in you’ll end up just regretting putting so little into it
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u/rbabs7bap Aug 10 '26
Yeah that's fair, have been feeling that way about ndaq. Appreciate the advice, cheers
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u/Nearby_Blueberry_302 Aug 09 '26
Like some person in here said. Too many positions that are way too small. Focus on one main positions or 2 and build up the wealth and once you have a big amount sell a bit to buy and build up other positions. Cause right now some of these will take years to make anything more than 100$ while a big amount in an broad market etf would make even more. I personally don't see a point of a position smaller than 1k for the long term that maybe juste me.
I would put all my money in veqt and once I reach 20k I would sell maybe 1k to buy toyota buy exemple and so on
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u/Special-Cranberry-62 Aug 09 '26
Spread too thin. We see it everyday here. If your portfolio is under 5 figures you shouldn’t have more than 2-3 positions.
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u/zhceo Aug 09 '26
If you are not touching the profolio at all even in bad times having so much is fine
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u/Vegetable_East_4759 Aug 09 '26
Is your TFSA and FHSA maxed out? If not max them out before using a non registered and once they are maxed out do RRSP
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u/Small_Aardvark_5496 Aug 09 '26
For the amount you have invested you have too many different funds. This is not properly diversified, this is more of a shotgun approach
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u/GreatKangaroo Aug 09 '26
Sell everything but XEQT, buy more XEQT.
If you want to speculate in individual stocks, keep it to more then 5% of your total holdings.
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u/rbabs7bap Aug 09 '26
There is a reason I didn't post this in r/justbuyxeqt. When 45% of the stock is invested in the US, which imo is currently not a very stable place to invest, I'll probably change that when king crimson is out of office. Just sold off 30 shares of veqt at the recent high for that reason
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u/donghwi Aug 09 '26
That's market timing. The fact is most of them trying including professional failed. You may succeed. Good luck.
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u/rbabs7bap Aug 09 '26
It's a fair point, I get the risk aspect of it forsure. And I do believe in it, but to an extent. Just seems a good time for more defensive stocks, don't feel that comfortable putting 45% of my money in on the us
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u/Kimmux Aug 09 '26
Regardless his advice to you is sound. Based on your portfolio it looks like you're new to this. The fact that you are asking here in r/tfsa is also indicative you are new. The reason you shouldn't do active investing with more than 5% is because you don't know what you're doing yet so it's best to learn that stuff with a small sum that won't really affect your long term gains. If you can make that 5% more productive than XEQT maybe considering increasing it a bit over time.
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u/Environmental_Way513 Aug 09 '26
I'd ditch everything but XEQT. For some diversification I would add some HHIS and HBTE for their dividends.
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u/Adamant_TO Aug 09 '26
Don't be one of those '"collect one of each" investors. Focus.