Personalized Portfolios
We recognize every investor is unique. That's why we create a personalized portfolio tailored to your specific goals and objectives.Our Investment Approach
David Swensen, the head of the Yale Endowment Fund, is one of the most recognized professionals in the investment industry. We build and manage your portfolio based on his three rules. In his book, Unconventional Success, he suggests the following:
Asset Class Diversification
Investors should maintain exposure to six core asset classes for diversification. These asset classes include domestic equities, emerging market equities, international equities, government bonds, real-return bonds, and real estate.
Regular Rebalancing
Investors should rebalance the portfolio on a regular basis. This involves moving money between investments to ensure your portfolio composition remains aligned with your goals and risk tolerance.
Invest into low-cost Index Solutions
The investor should, in the absence of a confident market-beating strategy, invest in low-cost index funds and ETFs.
Using innovative technology and industry-tested investment rules, Nest Wealth creates a low-cost diversified portfolios built specifically for your life goals. Once you’re invested, we take care of monitoring and rebalancing your portfolio so you can get on with enjoying your life. We build your investment portfolio from seven different ETFs that represent seven different asset classes. You’ll own a different proportion of each of these ETFs based on your risk score, which takes into account what you’re saving for, when you’ll need the money, and how reactive you are to market ups and downs.
Exchange-Traded Funds (ETFs)
ETFs are a low cost and effective way to build a diversified investment portfolio. They allow you to gain exposure to a variety of asset classes like bonds, equities and real estate. Many ETFs track well-established indices like the S&P 500 or TSX and can provide diversification across many markets at a low cost.
ETF Selection Process
We select what we believe are the best ETFs available in each asset class, making sure they work well together. We look for ETFs that are low cost, liquid, and have a low tracking error to their underlying index.
Low management expense ratios (MERs) mean you pay less in fees so you keep more of your returns (more wealth for you!). High liquidity means your portfolio is easier to rebalance and your money is readily accessible when you need it. Finally, a lower tracking error just means the ETF is more efficient at its job of mimicking an index.
ETF Lineup
Name & Symbol |
Product Summary
|
Asset Class
|
MER
|
| Vanguard Canadian Short-Term Bond Index ETF (VSB) | Tracks Canadian government short term bonds. Bonds with shorter durations are less volatile and less sensitive to changes in interest rates, and therefore have a lower return. Their primary purpose is capital preservation. | Short Term Bonds | 0.11% |
| BMO Aggregate Bond Index ETF (ZAG) | Tracks Canadian government medium term bonds. Medium term bonds are more volatile than short term bonds and therefore tend to pay a higher interest rate. | Medium Term Bonds | 0.09% |
| iShares Canadian Real Return Bond Index ETF (XRB) | Tracks Canadian government real return bonds. They provide a hedge against inflation as their rate of return is adjusted for inflation. | Real Return Bonds | 0.39% |
| iShares Core S&P/TSX Capped Composite Index ETF (XIC) | Provides broad exposure to the Canadian equity market by covering large, mid, and small companies across all sectors. Equities are more volatile than bonds and can provide a higher rate of return. Their primary purpose is capital growth and income from dividends. | Canadian Equities | 0.05% |
| iShares Core S&P 500 Index ETF (CAD-Hedged) (XSP) | Tracks the 500 largest publicly listed companies in the United States. Diversifying outside of Canada can provide higher returns and reduce the portfolio’s overall risk. | U.S. Equities | 0.10% |
| iShares MSCI EAFE ETF (IEFA) | Provides broad exposure to developed equity markets in Europe, Australia, and the Far East by covering large, mid, and small companies across all sectors. International equities provide an opportunity for growth and greater diversification. | Global Equities | 0.08% |
| Vanguard REIT ETF (VNQ) | Real estate investment trusts (REITs) own a selection of office buildings, hotels, and apartment buildings. They are typically more volatile than bonds but less volatile than equities. They provide an opportunity for high income and moderate growth. | Real Estate | 0.12% |
Asset Classes
Asset classes act as the foundational building blocks of a diversified portfolio. Your asset class allocation is determined by your risk tolerance, investment objectives and other personal circumstances. In general, a longer time horizon (or objective of capital growth) will yield more exposure to risk assets (such as equities and real estate) relative to shorter investment time horizons (or objectives of capital preservation).
Benefits of Diversification
Maintaining portfolio diversification can help reduce risk and improve returns. At Nest Wealth, we create portfolios that are globally diversified across different sectors and economies using Nobel-prize winning principles to help you maximize risk-adjusted returns.*
Automated Rebalancing
Creating your customized portfolio is only the starting point of a successful investment strategy. Every step of the way Nest Wealth will help make sure you are working towards your financial goals. This is done in three steps:
Step 1
Nest Wealth develops your customized ideal asset allocation based on your personal risk tolerance, your objectives and your current financial situation.
Step 2
As the market moves up and down, your portfolio’s asset allocation can drift away from your target asset mix. Our technology helps us monitor these developments.
Step 3
If an asset class rises too much, Nest Wealth will sell some. The proceeds will be used to buy other assets and restore your ideal asset allocation.
Enjoy the peace of mind that professional wealth management brings.
The Low-cost Advantage
Why Passive?
Overwhelming research shows that passive investing is an effective way of growing your money over the long term by helping you keep investment costs low and stay diversified. Using this as our foundation, we build your portfolio to “be the market” rather than try to “beat the market”.
Invest like a Pro
To increase their odds of success, well-known investors such as Burt Malkiel, Jack Bogle and David Swensen focus on proper diversification, systematic rebalancing, appropriate risk and reducing fees. By keeping portfolios diversified and low cost, you can minimize investment risks while maximizing rewards over the long term.
“Being the Market”
Passively managed investments are referred to as “index funds” because they’re tied to an index that represents a particular market. For example – an S&P 500 ETF would provide exposure to the S&P 500 index which measures the stock performance of some of the largest American companies in the world. That’s why passively managed index funds exist. They track and mimic the movement in the index by investing in all or some of the securities held in that index. With passive investing, your money is used to buy shares in a category of companies and that category is called an index. If that category of companies collectively performs well, so will the index and you will see the direct benefits of that in your account.
*Our portfolios are constructed using Modern Portfolio Theory which was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1990 based on a a thesis developed by Harry Markowitz. Modern Portfolio Theory uses variables such as expected return, expected volatility, and correlation of asset classes to develop an optimally weighted portfolio.