Why I’m Never Selling This ETF in My Retirement Account

Is it possible to find a stock market-traded investment that is worth holding forever?

Many will tell you, “No, it’s not possible. Companies come and go; the strongest company in the world today could be headed straight for obsolescence tomorrow.”

Indeed, that is often the case with individual companies. While some stand the test of time, it’s harder to say that a company will stand the test of time with foresight, than to note that it happened in hindsight.

Nevertheless, there are certain stock market-traded investments that are worth holding forever. Most notably, exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

ETFs are pooled investment vehicles that trade on the stock market. Much like their cousins, mutual funds, ETFs hold diversified portfolios of stocks, meaning you can buy an entire portfolio through an ETF. Diversification is a good characteristic to have in a portfolio, and with ETFs, you can get considerable diversification with just one asset (or what ‘feels’ like just one asset, rather).

ETFs that are based on popular stock market indexes – index funds – are among the best ETFs to hold, because they do incur active management costs. Their entire strategy is to track an index published by a third party, such as S&P Global or MSCI. ETFs have to pay licensing fees to copy these companies’ indexes, but the fees are minimal compared to the cost of hiring an active portfolio manager. As a result, ETFs often boast some of the lowest fees and highest after-fee returns of any asset class. In the ensuing paragraphs I will explore one ETF that I hold in my retirement account and never plan on selling.

iShares S&P/TSX 60 Index Fund

The iShares S&P/TSX 60 Index Fund (TSX:XIU) is a Canadian index fund based on the TSX 60 Index – an index of the 60 largest companies in Canada. The fund holds all 60 of those stocks, meaning that it likely tracks its index very well (many index ETFs use a sampling method that introduces tracking risk). XIU is the most popular and widely traded Canadian ETF, serving as a proxy for the large cap part of the overall Canadian market. Its representation of a large part of the Canadian equity markets makes it suitable for ultra-diversified passive portfolios.

One thing that XIU has going for it right now is a portfolio that is well suited to today’s market conditions. The fund is heavily weighted in banks, non-bank financials, energy companies and utilities, a group of stocks that offer a decent counterweight to today’s high-flying tech stocks. The tech stocks got where they are for a reason – you shouldn’t avoid them entirely – but trading at 40 times earnings on average, they’re probably overdue for a near term correction. If you hold a lot of U.S. index funds already, adding some Canada exposure through ETFs could make a lot of sense, both for the increased geographic diversification and because Canada has different sector exposures than the U.S. does.

Basic fund characteristics

One of the things that makes XIU such a great fund is the fact that it has a lot of technical characteristics that lend themselves well to good performance:

• The fund is relatively cheap, with a 0.15% management fee and a 0.18% management expense ratio (MER).
• It has a very narrow 0.03% bid-ask spread. A wide spread is a kind of hidden fee; market makers capture this fee when they trade your orders for you.
• It benefits from backing by Blackrock, one of the world’s biggest and most reputable asset managers.

All of these characteristics combine to make XIU a best-in-class Canadian index fund. Personally, I may just hold it for life.

The post Why I’m Never Selling This ETF in My Retirement Account appeared first on The Motley Fool Canada.

Should you invest $1,000 in iShares S&P/TSX 60 Index ETF right now?

Before you buy stock in iShares S&P/TSX 60 Index ETF, consider this:

The Motley Fool Canada team has identified what they believe are the top 10 TSX stocks for 2026… and iShares S&P/TSX 60 Index ETF wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could potentially produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider MercadoLibre, which we first recommended on January 8, 2014 … if you invested $1,000 in the “eBay of Latin America” at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $21,827.88!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor Canada’s total average return is 102%* – a market-crushing outperformance compared to 81%* for the S&P/TSX Composite Index. Don’t miss out on our top 10 stocks, available when you join our mailing list!

Get the 10 stocks instantly #start_btn6 { background: #0e6d04 none repeat scroll 0 0; color: #fff; font-size: 1.2em; font-family: 'Montserrat', sans-serif; font-weight: 600; height: auto; line-height: 1.2em; margin: 30px 0; max-width: 350px; text-align: center; width: auto; box-shadow: 0 1px 0 rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.5), 0 1px 0 #fff inset, 0 0 2px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.2); border-radius: 5px; } #start_btn6 a { color: #fff; display: block; padding: 20px; padding-right:1em; padding-left:1em; } #start_btn6 a:hover { background: #FFE300 none repeat scroll 0 0; color: #000; } @media (max-width: 480px) { div#start_btn6 { font-size:1.1em; max-width: 320px;} } margin_bottom_5 { margin-bottom:5px; } margin_top_10 { margin-top:10px; }

* Returns as of January 15th, 2026

More reading

• 3 Top Canadian ETFs to Buy for Instant Diversification
• Here’s How Much a 40-Year-Old Canadian Needs Now to Retire at 65
• TFSA 2026: The $109,000 Opportunity and How Canadians Should Invest It
• New Year, New Portfolio: How Canadian Investors Can Get Ready Now to Prosper All Year
• Here’s the Average TFSA Balance at Age 35 in Canada

Fool contributor Andrew Button has positions in the iShares S&P/TSX 60 Index ETF. The Motley Fool recommends MSCI. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.