Your wealth is anything but simple.
Build a comprehensive ETF portfolio.
Our success as active portfolio managers has earned us a reputation for excellence across the investment community. High net worth clients can now expect the same leading-edge investment approach through our new ETF Advisory services.
Discover the true cost of “simple.”
ETF Advisor: Passive Investing With An Active Management Twist
Boutique. Unaffiliated.
As an independent, boutique firm, Frontwater is unaffiliated with any one ETF provider — free to choose from the entire global ETF universe on merit, never steered toward a single fund company’s products.
Strategic ETF selection
We curate ETF portfolios that align with your long-term objectives, tax efficiency, and liquidity needs — selected from the full global universe.
Robust risk management
A disciplined risk-assessment process keeps portfolios resilient across market cycles and tuned to each family's risk tolerance.
Fair pricing
Transparent, conflict-free fees with no hidden layers and no double-fee arrangements — one advisory fee, plainly stated.
Options-overlay portfolios
Tailored portfolios built with option strategies — covered calls and cash-secured puts — at a far lower fee structure than packaged option-income ETFs.
Customized asset allocation
Proprietary models adapt to your family's goals — preserving capital, generating income, or funding philanthropy.
A portfolio manager, not a queue
You work directly with a portfolio manager who knows your file — not a chat window, a ticket number, or a call-centre script.
Homemade option overlays, built for your portfolio.
Rather than handing you a packaged covered-call ETF and its hidden fees, we run a disciplined income-and-growth loop directly on your underlying ETFs — getting paid to wait for entries, averaging down through drawdowns, and harvesting premium on the way back up.
Get paid to wait
Cash-secured puts on ETFs you'd be glad to own anyway — premium income while you wait for your target entry price.
Average down with discipline
When markets fall, the strategy systematically rotates cash into ETFs at progressively better prices — sidestepping the paralysis that derails most investors.
Selective covered calls
Written only when implied volatility makes the trade worth it — never on autopilot, never against high-conviction holdings.
No hidden fees, no double-dip
You hold the underlying ETF directly. The overlay is part of our advisory mandate — not a separate product with its own MER.
A robo-advisor hands you a model and an algorithm. It will not write a single option on your portfolio, and it cannot. The option overlay is the edge a robo structurally can’t give you — and the reason a passive foundation alone leaves money on the table.
Sell cash-secured puts
Earn premium on ETFs you would happily own at the strike price.
Accumulate via Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA)
If puts are assigned, build the position at a discount through dollar-cost averaging.
Sell covered calls
On positions that have run, write calls only when premium beats expected upside.
Collect premium income
Both legs generate option income that compounds alongside ETF distributions.
Rotate & rebalance
Move cash back into equities during drawdowns; trim and re-write into strength.
Repeat the loop
A repeatable, disciplined buy-low / sell-high process — not a one-shot trade.
The risk questionnaire is where the process breaks.
Two things break it. First, no one at the bank has any incentive to challenge your answer — a conservative score is cheaper to serve, and the signed form becomes a get-out-of-jail-free card when the returns disappoint. Second, real risk tolerance has four dimensions, and a questionnaire — taken on a single afternoon, in a single mood — measures only one of them, and that single answer gets treated as hard fact.
Capacity
Can you afford to take risk? Your income, wealth, and liabilities set the ceiling — and a questionnaire never measures it.
Willingness
Can you live with the swings? The one dimension a questionnaire reaches for — but a single afternoon's mood is a poor stand-in for a considered view.
Need
How much risk do your goals actually require? Aim too low and you take the most dangerous risk of all — quietly falling short.
Time horizon
How long does the money have to grow? A 65-year-old retiree often has twenty years or more ahead. A questionnaire treats horizon as a footnote to how you feel about the swings, when it deserves equal weight.
A questionnaire never pushes back. A Frontwater portfolio manager does — weighing capacity, willingness, need, and time horizon together, challenging a number that sits too low, and coaching you toward the risk tolerance you should have. More often than not, that means more growth with minimal incremental risk. It’s the most valuable thing a questionnaire will never tell you.
Simple isn’t cheap.
It’s just cheap to sell.
Simplicity’s real cost never appears as a fee — which is exactly why the pitch works so well. You pay it later, in five things that never show up on a statement.
The fit you never get
A risk questionnaire cannot see your corporation, your concentrated stock position, your estate plan, or your philanthropy. Simple hands everyone the same answer.
The call you can't make
When markets fall, an app cannot talk you off the ledge. The gap between what investments return and what investors actually earn is the price of having no one to call.
The income you never collect
A set-and-forget portfolio leaves option premium on the table. No robo-advisor will write a cash-secured put or a covered call on your behalf.
The packaged covered-call ETFs
Off-the-shelf products like BMO's Covered Call Canadian Banks ETF (ticker: ZWB) and its utilities-and-infrastructure cousin (ticker: ZWU) are a poor substitute for an actively managed option overlay. They write calls mechanically — regardless of volatility or market conditions — carry MERs around 65 basis points, and tend to underperform their non-option counterparts.
The packaged Canadian sector ETFs
For narrow Canadian universes, direct ownership beats the wrapper. BMO's Equal Weight Banks Index ETF (ticker: ZEB) charges 0.28% to equal-weight six bank stocks you could rebalance yourself. Even worse is BMO's Equal Weight Utilities Index ETF (ticker: ZUT), which charges 0.61% to own a few utilities. And the worst culprit is ZWU, which charges 0.71% to write covered calls that cap your upside. OWN THE NAMES DIRECTLY and sidestep all three trade-offs.
The lowest fee can quietly buy you the most expensive portfolio.
The same goal — a very different deal.
A robo-advisor is cheaper. Here is everything it — and the bank’s mutual funds — leave out.
| Frontwater ETF Advisor | Bank Mutual Funds | Robo-Advisor | |
|---|---|---|---|
| All-in annual cost | ~0.84% — fee + ETF MER | ~2.0% or more | ~0.5% |
| Option overlay strategy | Yes — bespoke, per portfolio | No | No |
| Year-round tax-loss harvesting | Yes — active, name-by-name | No | Limited / model-level |
| Who manages it | A named portfolio manager | A pooled fund manager | A rules-based algorithm |
| What you hold | ETFs in your own name | Pooled fund units | Pooled model units |
| Access to your manager | Direct — phone and email | None | Chat / call-centre queue |
| Built around your tax structure | Yes — account-aware placement | No | Limited |
Fee figures are representative estimates and vary by provider, portfolio size, and product tier.
Accounts We Manage
Personal & Corporate
Taxable Accounts
RRSP/RRIF/IPP
Retirement & Pension
TFSA
Tax-Free Savings
FHSA
First-Home Savings
RDSP
Disability Savings
LIRA
Locked-In Plans
RESP
Education Savings
Trusts & Endowments
Estate & Charitable
Build an ETF portfolio that actually works for you.
Book a 60-minute introductory call. We’ll review your existing holdings, flag the structural drags, and outline what an ETF Advisor mandate would look like for your situation.