Canadian investors, a question just to be sure.

[daverobev]

Plus I can see a few years of 'meh' for the banks, what with such expensive real estate for no good reason (big country, tons of room for more houses!).

This honestly baffles me too. Our property value has gone up by about 30% in 3 years. I'm not counting chickens there, since the market can crash in an instant, but I find it baffling that housing keeps climbing like this.

Isn't that true for all big countries? You get expensive real estate concentrated in a few cities.
Whats the value of a house 5days drive from Vancouver, or Sydney or Hong Kong = zero
In Europe whats the value of a house a 1hour train trip from London, or Frankfurt, or Paris = same as a house in London, or Frankfurt or Paris

5 Days drive from Vancouver is Toronto ;)

But yeah, I hear you. My thinking is with Calgary having a tough time right now, and our economy so narrowly focused, what will happen to the other large markets? One argument would be that they will go up since there is more demand for them, another would be tha tthe national policies and national banks will cannibalize the rest of the nation.

Well, if there's anything to the notion of foreign investors boosting Vancouver, we will see more of it as China's stock market has crashed and there will be the usual capital flight to 'safe havens' like the USD and Canada (less so).  That said Vancouver's market has become absurd and is ripe for a correction - though I've been saying that since the mid 80s so what do I know?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market_data/stockmarket/143552/twelve_month.stm

China is only down vs the last 4 months of sheer madness... It is +20% vs Christmas.

[nobodyspecial]

Everybody says that the biggest investment risk is investors themselves (selling low and buying high).

True
 

So, just buy according to your AA,

In general true, but AA is just a set of arbitrary numbers you essentially made up;   60% USA, 20% international, 20% bonds or whatever.
It doesn't mean that if oil halves in value or your house quadruples, or your currency devalues you shouldn't reconsider the grand plan.

[Kaspian]

Everyone I meet lately wants to hold an "aggressive" position--100% equity.  Aggressive means high growth, excitement, assertive, confident, rock climbing, zip lining, bungee jumping, wha-hoo!!  I'm gonna make more cash than anyone else--I'm dangerous and front of tha pack, baby!  "Conservative"?!  That means boring, old school, unhip, tea parties, cucumber sandwiches, rosewater.  Boo!  "Balanced"?!  Just as boring, maybe moreso because it's wishy-washy.

I'm beginning to think the problem might be in the phrasing of it all?  The psychologic triggers.  When the shit hits the fan, the self-proclaimed aggressive gets a little sheepish after all and pulls out of the boxing ring after Round 2.

Honestly, holding a decent chunk of bonds in a portfolio isn't for sissies.  It's for high-logic Spock individuals.  Sure, Kirk got all the exciting action, but Spock was cooler, better at math, and never got a VD from an alien.

I'm just saying--if you held a chunk of bonds in your portfolio, and a decent portion of an international index, its value would be up for the year and you wouldn't even really notice the waves around you caused by the CDN allocation.  :)

[nobodyspecial]

There is a question if bonds really do balance an all stock portfolio in the current circumstances.
Bonds rise when interest rates fall, if rates are at 0.25% there is a limit to how far they can fall. So to use bonds to provide a rising investment to sell and allow you to buy stocks when the equity market drops 50% - you are going to need to hold a lot of bonds!

[fullpampers]

Thank's to all that commented,

I have been out of the loop for a couple of weeks because of vacation time (Family time and a crap-load of fixing up/renovations on the duplex) and I just got up to speed on all that has been discussed here.

I will straighten out my portfolio with buying more VXUS/VTI and bonds

I'll look into the other ETF's that have been mentioned here. I'll read up on XEF, XEC, XIC, VDY and see what they are. Right now I don't have a very big portfolio, I'll try and fit these in eventually.

Thanks again

[Kaspian]

I will straighten out my portfolio with buying more VXUS/VTI and bonds

Great to hear!  As Garth Turner (worth a read every day for Canadians) said yesterday:  "You have diversification, which is the difference between investing and gambling."