All-in-One ETF

An all-in-one ETF is a single fund that gives you a fully diversified portfolio in one purchase. Instead of buying separate ETFs for Canadian stocks, U.S. stocks, international stocks, and bonds, you buy one ticker and get all of it. The fund handles the mix and rebalances automatically.

How it works

In Canada, the most popular all-in-one ETFs come from Vanguard (VBAL, VGRO, VEQT) and iShares (XBAL, XGRO, XEQT). The main difference between them is how much they allocate to stocks versus bonds. A fund like XEQT is 100% stocks across the globe, while VBAL is roughly 60% stocks and 40% bonds.

You pick the one that matches your risk tolerance and time horizon, invest regularly, and let the fund do the rest. No spreadsheets, no rebalancing decisions, no second-guessing your allocation.

Why they’ve become so popular

All-in-one ETFs have become the default recommendation in Canadian investing circles, and for good reason. They’re cheap (MERs around 0.20% to 0.25%), globally diversified, and dead simple. For most people, especially those just getting started, they genuinely solve the problem of “what should I buy?”

The tradeoff

The simplicity is the point, but it’s also the limitation. You give up control over your exact allocation. You can’t overweight a specific sector or country. And you can’t hold individual stocks alongside them without creating overlap. For many investors, that’s a perfectly fine tradeoff. For others who want more flexibility, building a portfolio from individual ETFs makes more sense.

A concrete example

Say you invest $500 per month into XEQT at $28 per unit. After one year, you’ve contributed $6,000 and own roughly 214 units. That single holding gives you exposure to over 9,000 stocks across Canada, the U.S., Europe, and emerging markets. The MER is about 0.20%, which means you’re paying roughly $12 per year on a $6,000 portfolio. Compare that to a typical mutual fund charging 2.0%, where you’d pay $120 on the same balance.