Episode 383: AMA #10 - Dollar cost averaging & mutual funds vs. ETFs
Episode
66 min
Read time
2 min
Topics
Productivity, Remote Work, Investing
AI-Generated Summary
Key Takeaways
- ✓Lump Sum Investing: Research across six stock markets shows lump sum investing beats dollar cost averaging 65% of the time with an approximate annualized cost of 38 basis points over ten years for dollar cost averaging. Even in the worst 10% of lump sum outcomes, dollar cost averaging still trails more than 50% of the time.
- ✓Canadian Tax Efficiency: In Canada, mutual funds may be more tax efficient than ETFs due to the Capital Gains Refund Mechanism. Dimensional's Global Equity portfolio has never distributed capital gains since inception, while Vanguard's all equity ETF distributed 30, 80, 10, and 20 basis points in consecutive recent years.
- ✓Discount Bond Advantage: A 2008 Canadian Tax Journal study of Government of Canada bonds from 1986 to 2006 found discount bonds consistently provide higher after tax yields than premium bonds for individual investors, with no evidence this tax advantage gets priced into pretax yields.
- ✓Buffer Fund Performance: AQR research titled Rebuffed shows buffer funds overwhelmingly underperform simple stock and cash portfolios during worst drawdowns. The majority produce inferior risk adjusted returns compared to their reference assets, with realized returns often worse than their payoff diagrams suggest due to expensive options and high fees.
- ✓Portfolio Simplicity: The original Rational Reminder model portfolios using Avantis ETFs remain perfectly viable despite new Dimensional vector ETFs launching. Switching between quality factor tilted products creates unnecessary complexity when both approaches provide proper multifactor exposure with different implementation methodologies and universe definitions.
What It Covers
The team addresses seven listener questions covering dollar cost averaging versus lump sum investing, mutual funds versus ETFs in Canada, bond taxation, buffer funds, and portfolio construction decisions with updated research and data.
Key Questions Answered
- •Lump Sum Investing: Research across six stock markets shows lump sum investing beats dollar cost averaging 65% of the time with an approximate annualized cost of 38 basis points over ten years for dollar cost averaging. Even in the worst 10% of lump sum outcomes, dollar cost averaging still trails more than 50% of the time.
- •Canadian Tax Efficiency: In Canada, mutual funds may be more tax efficient than ETFs due to the Capital Gains Refund Mechanism. Dimensional's Global Equity portfolio has never distributed capital gains since inception, while Vanguard's all equity ETF distributed 30, 80, 10, and 20 basis points in consecutive recent years.
- •Discount Bond Advantage: A 2008 Canadian Tax Journal study of Government of Canada bonds from 1986 to 2006 found discount bonds consistently provide higher after tax yields than premium bonds for individual investors, with no evidence this tax advantage gets priced into pretax yields.
- •Buffer Fund Performance: AQR research titled Rebuffed shows buffer funds overwhelmingly underperform simple stock and cash portfolios during worst drawdowns. The majority produce inferior risk adjusted returns compared to their reference assets, with realized returns often worse than their payoff diagrams suggest due to expensive options and high fees.
- •Portfolio Simplicity: The original Rational Reminder model portfolios using Avantis ETFs remain perfectly viable despite new Dimensional vector ETFs launching. Switching between quality factor tilted products creates unnecessary complexity when both approaches provide proper multifactor exposure with different implementation methodologies and universe definitions.
Notable Moment
One team member revealed their biggest investing mistake was buying a Toronto house in 2014 that quadrupled in value by 2017, prompting jokes about it being the worst mistake ever heard and highlighting how hindsight bias affects regret perception.
Episode Transcript
This is the Rational Reminder podcast, a weekly reality check on sensible investing and financial decision making from three Canadians. We are hosted by me, Benjamin Felix, chief investment officer, Cameron Passmore, chief executive officer, and Ben Wilson, head of m and a at PWL Capital. Welcome to episode three eighty three. Good to be here. I think this is my first episode with Cameron joining as well, so excited to have the new dynamic. This is my first episode not doing the introduction. So well done, Ben. Nice. It's a good crew here. We have an AMA episode today. We've got seven pretty solid AMA questions, I think, and then we'll have our after show and that's gonna be it. So it's been almost eleven months, guys, since we joined One Digital and the whole mission of bringing what we all believe in to more Canadians is coming true. The whole notion of markets work and financial planning matters sounds so basic and as Ben, you and I learned when we were out west at the meetups, it's amazing how something so simple has such a profound impact on so many people. So that's been our goal is to expand this philosophy to more Canadians. We've long talked about Canada being home of some of the lowest adoption rates of index funds and some of the highest expense ratios in the world. So we think there's great opportunity, and this week has been an amazing week as we keep chipping away at our dream of getting more presence in more parts of the country. So this week, we had Trevor Daig and Brett Watt join us in Halifax. Two amazing planners, amazing guys join our team. So super proud and super excited for what we're all gonna do together in that part of the country. It is super exciting. Exciting. They're a great fit. They're super pumped to join. And I mentioned a LinkedIn post this week. One thing that stood out, Trevor mentioned along our journey talking to them that he's always felt like a black sheep in the industry and felt like he didn't fit in anywhere and finally found a place where he feels at home. And I think that's a pretty powerful message. He lines on philosophy, planning first approach, and he was kind of always a bit different because he wasn't the active guy slinging product. We will bring Trevor and Brett on the podcast for a conversation just like we did with Taylor and Connor when they joined. What a great part of the country too. I had the chance to spend time with them this past summer in Halifax. Just a phenomenal city, phenomenal area. So it's great to finally have a maritime presence. Very exciting and it's exactly what our vision was when we partnered with One Digital to do exactly what we have done so far. And I know it's been eleven months which on one hand, that's kind of …
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Books, tools, and gear mentioned in this episode
SignalCast may earn commission on purchases via these links. As an Amazon Associate, SignalCast earns from qualifying purchases.
Books
by AQR
“AQR research titled Rebuffed shows buffer funds overwhelmingly underperform simple stock and cash portfolios during worst drawdowns.”
Products
by Dimensional
“Dimensional's Global Equity portfolio has never distributed capital gains since inception, while Vanguard's all equity ETF distributed 30, 80, 10, and 20 basis points in consecutive recent years.”
- Avantis ETFsRecommended
by Avantis
“The original Rational Reminder model portfolios using Avantis ETFs remain perfectly viable despite new Dimensional vector ETFs launching.”
by Dimensional
“The original Rational Reminder model portfolios using Avantis ETFs remain perfectly viable despite new Dimensional vector ETFs launching.”
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