Sunday, April 20, 2008

ING STREET WISE FUND

It has been more than three months since ING Direct Canada introduced its new and first Index fund series (it is actually a fund of index funds), ING StreetWise Fund. I have been thinking if I should put some money into it every month as my investment outside RRSP.
After I did some more in-depth study of the fund, I think it is NOT a good idea to hold it as an investment outside RRSP. One simple reason is that the StreetWise Fund will be balanced every quarter to maintain its original assets allocation. In order to be rebalanced, this wrapped fund will have to sell one or more index funds within it. That will force the investor to realize some unnecessary capital gains. Hence, there will be more tax payable at the end of the year.
If you know how to buy ETFs and rebalance them once a year, it will be better to go with the ETFs route. It is cheaper and more tax efficient.
Just my 2cents.

0 Comments: