Wealthsimple Invest Portfolio Results After 3 Years (+ I'm Switching To Wealthsimple Trade!)

After investing my money in the same way for the past three years, I’m officially changing up my investment strategy 👀

I’d been using a robo-advisor, Wealthsimple Invest, to invest my money for me since January 2021, so three years almost to the day. A robo-advisor was a great starting point for me, because I could set up my profile, choose my risk level, decide on an amount of money to automatically send from my chequing account to my investment account every month, and then that’s it - I could literally never look at it again if I didn’t want to.

Now, I'm ready to take a 'do it yourself' approach, instead - so I'm switching from Wealthsimple Invest to Wealthsimple Trade.

In this video I'll walk you through why I'm switching, how the process went, and what my investment strategy will look like moving forward.

0:00 I'm changing my investment strategy
2:20 How my investment portfolio performed this year
6:16 I'm now taking a DIY approach
9:08 Switching from Wealthsimple Invest to Wealthsimple Trade
10:12 Setting up my new investment account

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Disclaimer - This content is for education and entertainment purposes only. Steph & Den do not provide tax or investment advice. The information is being presented without consideration of the investment objectives, risk tolerance, or financial circumstances of any specific investor and might not be suitable for all investors. Past performance is not indicative of future results. All investing involves risk, including the possible loss of principal.

[stephandden]

3 years down and I'm changing things up! What's your current investment strategy? Let us know! 👀

[plasmicfury]

8:05 The 9.88% return is annualized, it is actually much higher than what you were getting from Wealthsimple Invest. The cumulative return for XEQT is 51%. The Wealthsimple Invest portfolio massively underperformed that.

[bryanduhaney]

Wow! I have been watching you guys since your CNBC feature and amazed at how far you have come! Congrats on all your success!

[supernumex]

Great video!
Since the money from wealthsimple robo was already invested in equities and is quite highly correlated with XEQT, it would be better just to lump sum buy it right away. Which would be equivalent to a rebalancing to be more US heavy. Sure, you might get a better price with DCA, but you could also get a worse price.
It would be different if you came into some cash (that wasn't previously invested) and then deciding how to invest it. Psychologically, however, DCA feels safe and I totally get why you might want to do that.

[cabellxue]

Hi Steph, I've been following you since you two started this channel 😇 that was also around the time I started taking investing seriously. Your videos are always so informative, concise, and easy to understand! I love them. Interestingly, I am also recently planning to change up my portfolio and investing strategy a little after a few years in the market. I have been dividing my investment between big bank and Wealth Simple, but now after observing the returns for some time I am planning to switch more funds into Wealth Simple instead.

[themusic]

Good job ! You’ll find there’s really not many equity markets outside of the US that consistently make high returns and the majority of large cap US equities have global exposure anyways. Advisors wether robo or not just like to make you feel “balanced” with a smattering of funds but IMO all you really need is a S&P 500 index ETF (I’d recommend VFV or ZSP) which is the benchmark index for the entire global stock market and features the 500 largest US companies weighted by market capitalization. In the growth phase especially when you’ve got lots of years of compounding you don’t want to be missing out on returns by being over diversified with your investments.

[jared]

People over complicate investing. Some months you'll be up some months you'll be down. But if you hold on long term I can almost guarantee you wont regret riding the wave.

Have a few ETFs and a few individual stocks of companies you can get behind and you cant go wrong. It keeps things more interesting if you actually use or like the companies you select.

Youre 100% not gonna beat the market every year. But some years youll surprise yourself. Youre gonna miss some big plays but you'll got some as well.

Dont expect to be perfect and just remember your miles ahead of alot of the people around you just for even trying.

[HouseOfBurgz]

I absolutely love this approach and plan you have for the year. Looking forward to updates on your savings journey. All the best and good luck!

[Whopriest]

I have been using Wealthsimple Trade for 3 years now and it's great. The I am focusing strongly on the Canadian market for a dividend portfolio.

[debh]

Hey Steph! I've been following your investment journey for a bit and recently also made the switch from WS robo advisor to the DIY appraoch. Looking forward to seeing the updates.

[staacey]

Can you do a in depth video of how to actually switch from managed to Wealth simple trade? And how exactly to buy the XEFT etc?

[OraneenarO]

Really informative info. One topic I'd really appreciate you guys to consider is that of life insurance. I'd love some clarity on that.

[HWKGAMING]

Hey guys, can you consider making a video on the best strategy for someone looking to start investing in their late 50s or early 60s? I know it is a niche audience but would be very helpful!

[dominiquetheeasyminimalist]

👏👏 You can even schedule daily buys for the dollar cost averaging. Congratulations on your results!

[ja]

Really helpful videos, and have been following for the past year!

Was just curious, are there any risks involved, negative implications, or cons from clearing out your WS Invest account and transferring everything to WS Trade?

And I’m looking forward to your video/learning more about the transfer process.

Thank you!

[L.A.---]

Thank you for explaining dollar cost averaging properly!

[bnwo]

You finally made it to 100K followers.

[hazzard]

Awesome video. Super helpful. Would this be in an unregistered account? Because in a previous video you said that you’ve maxed out ur TFSA.

[hedgefundharry]

Personally, I'm mostly VFV in my TFSA and VTI in my RRSP. I'm not the biggest fan of the 0.09% MER that VFV has when its equal in the US, VOO, is only 0.03%. The S&P 500 is diverse enough for me in my TFSA. I don't care for the global exposure and can't palate the 0.20% MER XEQT has. I'm on the side of lump sum as well as my philosophy is that time in the market usually beats timing the market. I've had my fun stock picking and underperforming the S&P, even by a few percentage points. I've had my fun not focusing on MER. Small losses now but the opportunity cost when compounded up to retirement turns pennies and dollars (MER) and hundreds/thousands of dollars (individual stocks) into serious cash.

[kunjchoksi]

Amazing Video, Awesome! Just a qq. I know TFSA is tax free savings account, but is there any stock trading limit that I should maitain before my trading profit become taxable?