Thanks richmoose for your post, I really appreciate it. I am not really a huge fan of active management even though it is an offering from a reputable firm as I really don't have much of a clue on what they do. I feel much comfortable investing in a passive index so prefer that over it, lower fees is just an added bonus. I really want to increase by US exposure but not sure how to manage the currency exchange rate so for that reason I am looking for an ETF that is denominated in CAD.
I like VBAL and VGRO but unfortunately they do not have much of a history to go by or look at. Is there anything equivalent to those with a bit more history ? My only concern about going international or US is the currency aspect of it. Not sure if I am worrying unnecessarily. I am strongly considering purchasing VXC but VBAL looks very good besides the history part of it.
I'm not sure what you mean by a portfolio denominated in CAD. Do you mean that it trades on the Toronto exchange? Or that the underlying international positions are currency-hedged to the Canadian dollar? Or that you only want to invest in Canadian stocks and bonds?
Unless you pick currency-hedged products only, you will always get exposure to foreign currency movements even though it is hidden inside the ETF or mutual fund you are buying. For example, a C$10,000 investment in VUN.TO will perform essentially the same as you converting C$10,000 into US currency, buying VTI on the US exchange, and then converting the return on VTI back to C$ at some point in the future. I say essentially the same because the true result depends on currency exchange costs, transaction fees, whether or not withholding taxes apply based on the account you use, and management fees of the fund.
VGRO.TO and VBAL.TO are newer products. However, it will perform nearly identical to the corresponding Canadian Couch Potato portfolios. Here's a simulated look-back done by Justin Bender which might help.
https://cdn.canadianportfoliomanagerblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Vanguard-Asset-Allocation-ETFs.pdf