[isclever]

Not only do you get on average better returns, you can do better even when they perform poorly since those funds (in Canada) can charge you anywhere from 1.5% to 3% of your portfolio in fees (MER), while an index fund could charge as low as 0.1%.

https://www.wealthsimple.com/ (I'm a customer) has recently expanded into the US from Canada and are one of a group of what is being called Roboinvestors which take these index funds and let you easily invest in them.

Wealthsimple adds on 0.5% fee which is still lower then active funds, my portfolio has a weighted MER of 0.64%.

[marcandre]

0.64% MER is much higher than what you can get with Vanguard. Mutual funds are about 4x less expensive, some ETFs are 10x less expensive.

[isclever]

My personal view of using Wealthsimple is a stepping stone, I've realise that I've throw away money to the banks with higher then needed MERs and Wealthsimple provide a easy way of transferring my money in and saving money now. When my portfolio is larger and I'm seeing a higher cost with them VS doing it myself I'll look into buying ETFs myself.

The lowest bank mutual fund in Canada that I've seen in from Tangerine at ~1% MER, are there ones lower?

[eswat]

> The lowest bank mutual fund in Canada that I've seen in from Tangerine at ~1% MER, are there ones lower?

Without having to handle rebalancing yourself? AFAIK then Wealthsimple and Tangerine are already the lowest you'll find without working with ETFs or index funds directly.

[rrdharan]

FWIW Vanguard has a 0.3% AUM option here in the US now. I assume their Canadian counterpart offers something similar?

[loeg]

https://www.vanguardcanada.ca/