What index products are available for Canadian investors?
The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSE) has recently restructured its major indices. The S&P/TSE 60 debuted in December 1998; it is the large capitalization index that replaced the older TSE 35 and TSE 100. The historical benchmark, the TSE 300, has just been replaced by the TSX Composite Index. The new index includes some minimum trading volumes and trading prices ($1) that the old TSE 300 didn’t have. Changes to the indices are pre-announced on the TSE web-site. You have two major options as a Canadian index investor. Most mutual fund companies have index funds available. According to John Bogle (founder of Vanguard), an index investor should focus exclusively on low management-expense ratios (MER). The lowest rate currently available is from TD Bank’s Canadian Index e-fund, with an annual MER of just 0.30% (this one has to be purchased over the internet: http://tdefunds.com/eng/index_static.html). If you’re not into investing online, TD’s conventional index fund has a 0.85% MER. Royal Bank
