The Only Wrong Move Is Not Picking One

If you’ve spent any real time looking at all-in-one ETFs, you know the feeling. You open a factsheet, then another, then a spreadsheet comparing them, worried that six months from now you’ll pick the “wrong” ticker and regret it. So you keep researching, and the money sits in cash earning nothing.

This isn’t a fringe problem: r/JustBuyVEQT, r/JustBuyVGRO, and r/JustBuyXEQT all exist because the decision genuinely is hard and a lot of people want permission to stop researching and just hold.

TL;DR

Your risk bucket (100% equity vs 80/20 vs 60/40) changes your expected return and your ride, the specific ticker inside that bucket does not. If you’re buying inside a TFSA or RRSP, picking “wrong” is nearly free to fix. The only reliably bad move is not picking at all.

Two decisions, not one

Decision one: your risk bucket. VEQT is 100% stocks, VBAL is 60% stocks and 40% bonds, and they are not the same product. VBAL has a meaningfully lower expected return and a smoother ride because bonds drag on growth. Picking 60/40 when you wanted growth (or the reverse) is a real mistake, and it’s worth ten honest minutes about your time horizon and how much volatility you can stomach. What are all-in-one index funds walks through the buckets in detail.

Decision two: which ticker within the bucket. This is where people freeze, and it’s the part that barely matters. VEQT vs XEQT, VGRO vs XGRO vs ZGRO, VBAL vs XBAL vs ZBAL, same idea, different providers, near-identical product.

The median Canadian individual income in 2023 was roughly $43,000, which at 18% generates about $7,740 in new RRSP room per year. The median RRSP contribution that year was just $3,420, less than half of what the median earner was generating. The unused portion rolls forward and compounds, so by 2023 the average unused RRSP room among eligible filers had grown to nearly $48,000, and the average TFSA holder had roughly $49,596 in unused contribution room.

That matters because buys and sells inside a TFSA or RRSP have no tax consequence, no capital gains. The only cost of picking “wrong” is that you were exposed to that mix for the time you held it, and sitting in cash while you decide means you were exposed to nothing. Time in market beats timing the market, and course-correcting is allowed but usually not even necessary.

The actual differences (small, within a bucket)

VEQT vs XEQT is the example everyone fixates on, but the same story repeats across the whole category. VGRO, XGRO, and ZGRO are all ~80/20, VBAL, XBAL, and ZBAL are all ~60/40, and the bank mutual-fund “index” clones mirror the same idea at a higher MER.

Here’s what separates VEQT from XEQT:

• MER: 0.24% vs 0.20%. A 0.04 percentage point gap.
• Geographic mix: VEQT is ~30% Canada, XEQT ~25%. VEQT leans slightly more domestic. Some Canadians like that, some don’t care. Otherwise the US/international/emerging split is within a few points.
• Holdings: ~13,500 vs ~9,200. Both diversified enough that the number is trivia.
• Provider: Vanguard vs BlackRock. Both enormous.
• Inception: January 2019 vs August 2019.

(One footnote: in a taxable account, VEQT and XEQT are tax-loss-harvesting swap partners. I cover that in Reduce fees on index funds.)

The cost of timing the market

$500/month for 30 years at 7% return, VEQT’s extra 0.04% MER costs you about $4,600 over three decades. Both portfolios still end up around $550,000+, the gap is under 1% of your final balance.

Now compare that to waiting 6 months because you can’t decide. Same $500/month, same 30-year horizon, delaying your first contribution by half a year costs about $22,000, roughly 5x the entire MER difference.

The lesson isn’t “MER doesn’t matter.” Delaying your choice is a choice, it’s market timing, and as Bumper Sticker Theory explains, the identity gap that keeps you from starting can reduce your retirement savings by 30-40%.

Choice paralysis is a real thing

Sheena Iyengar and Mark Lepper’s famous jam study found shoppers faced with 24 jam options bought less than shoppers faced with 6. Barry Schwartz made the same case in The Paradox of Choice: more options usually means more anxiety and less action. When the options are roughly equivalent, the cost of deliberation exceeds the benefit of optimizing.

You’re not choosing between an index fund and a crypto scam, you’re choosing between excellent, low-cost, globally diversified portfolios from the largest asset managers on earth.

What I actually do

I don’t buy VEQT or XEQT directly, I hold the underlying Vanguard index ETFs (VUN, VCN, VIU, VEE) with a value tilt, loosely following PWL Capital’s five-factor model portfolio, popularized by Ben Felix.

The good news is that this kind of portfolio just got simpler, CIBC partnered with Avantis to launch Canadian-listed factor-tilted ETFs, including CAGE (Avantis CIBC All-Equity Asset Allocation ETF). CAGE is essentially a value-tilted version of VEQT/XEQT in a single TSX-listed ticker at a 0.28% management fee. As Ben Felix put it, it’s “a one stop shop for a low cost, broadly diversified portfolio that takes full advantage of the last 30 years of financial economics research, all in a single ticker.”

I over-optimize, you probably shouldn’t. The best fund is the one you actually buy and hold for 20 years, not the one you research for 20 weeks and never pull the trigger on.

Next Steps

• VEQT vs XEQT comparison tool: side-by-side charts, MER projection, decision helper
• Cost of Waiting calculator: see what delay actually costs you
• Self-directed investing in 5 steps: how to actually open an account and buy the thing
• What are all-in-one index funds: the bucket breakdown, if you skipped it above

Pick one. Buy it. Close the tab. Go play with your kids.