When most people think of a “quality” company, they’re really talking about something subjective, like a brand they trust, a product they use often, or a business they’d feel comfortable recommending to friends. And that instinct isn’t wrong. If a company is consistently earning your money as a customer, odds are, it’s doing something right.
But when it comes to publicly traded companies, quality is a bit more involved. You need to zoom out and look at the business through a financial lens. Metrics like return on equity, debt levels, profit margins, and consistency of earnings all help paint the picture.
The idea is to filter out the hype and identify firms with durable competitive advantages and strong balance sheets. You could try to screen for all this on your own, but there’s a far simpler option. That’s where an exchange-traded fund (ETF) comes in.
Here’s why BMO MSCI All Country World High Quality Index ETF (TSX: ZGQ) could be a smart all-in-one pick for putting $14,000 to work in your Tax-Free Savings Account (TFSA), while keeping the focus squarely on high-quality companies.
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How does ZGQ work?
ZGQ is built to find and hold companies that score highly on what professional investors call “quality” metrics. But don’t worry, these are just fancy ways of describing some common-sense traits of a strong business.
First, the fund looks for companies with a high return on equity (ROE). That’s a measure of how efficiently a business turns shareholder money into profits. Think of it like evaluating how well someone uses the tools they already have to build something valuable.
Next, it screens for stable earnings growth, meaning profits that go up consistently year after year, not wild swings. Think about durable, non-cyclical business models that print cash year after year.
Finally, it avoids companies with high debt by favouring those with low financial leverage. In other words, ZGQ wants businesses that grow using their own cash, not by racking up IOUs.
Once all the screening is done, the ETF doesn’t just pick the best names and split your money equally between them. Instead, it assigns each company a score based on those quality traits and adjusts their weight in the portfolio by combining that score with their size in the broader market.
Bigger, higher-quality companies carry more weight, but no single stock can make up more than 5% of the fund. This keeps the portfolio diversified and balanced.
The fund is rebalanced twice a year, in May and November. That means the ETF automatically updates to account for new financial data and shifts in market value, so no manual tinkering required on your end.
Other things to know
Like any fund, ZGQ charges a fee to manage and maintain the portfolio. That fee is called the management expense ratio (MER). It includes not just the manager’s fee but also the cost of things like recordkeeping, accounting, and regulatory filings.
ZGQ’s MER is currently 0.50%, which on a $14,000 investment works out to about $70 per year. These fees are deducted from the fund’s performance on the back end, so you don’t pay them out of pocket, but they do slightly reduce your long-term returns.
This ETF is growth-oriented, which means most of your return will come from the rising share price, not from dividends. The current yield is just 0.88%, so don’t expect monthly income from this one.
But the trade-off is that you’re getting exposure to some of the strongest businesses around, and the historical performance reflects that. Over the past 10 years, ZGQ has delivered an impressive annualized return of 12.88%.
For a long-term TFSA investor who wants to own world-class companies without the stress of managing a stock portfolio, ZGQ makes a strong case.
