Buy Hold Sell: 9 ETFs & LITs to build a winning multi-asset portfolio

Vishal Teckchandani: Welcome to Buy, Hold, Sell. My name is Vishal Teckchandani and today we're building a winning portfolio of listed investment products. Like an elite sports team, a strong portfolio needs the right players. You need some income, you need some defence, you need some steady hands to steer the ship. 

That's why I'm joined by Adam Dawes from Shaw and Partners, and Charlie Viola from Viola Private Wealth. These expert selectors are going to run the ruler over a couple of ETFs and LICs that I've picked, plus they're bringing their own. Together, we're going to find the Ricky Pontings and Emma McKeons of the ASX, picking the products that bring the best of offence, defence, and diversification for your portfolio.

iShares S&P 500 ETF (ASX: IVV)

Vishal Teckchandani: Okay, we're coming in hot, Charlie. Let's start with IVV, the iShares S&P 500 ETF—American exceptionalism in four basis points. Buy, hold, or sell?

Charlie Viola (BUY): When you actually first sent this to me and asked me about it six weeks ago, I had actually written down hold, but I'm changing my mind. I'm now a buy after the weakness that we've seen and markets selling off, and I think we're now technically in correction mode. It's a great stock to buy as a means of getting a really good broad-based exposure to the U.S. market, so I'm absolutely a buyer.

Vishal Teckchandani: Are you a buy as well, Adam? It’s the number one pick by Livewire readers for 2025.

Adam Dawes (BUY): The performance over the last two years or last couple of years has been absolutely fantastic. IVV—it's very, very good. The S&P 500, obviously, we've seen a lot of its growth come out of the Magnificent Seven, so 50% of the performance has been from those top seven stocks, which leaves 493 other stocks in the S&P 500 that haven't really performed or still need to perform. Definitely, I'm with Charlie. This is in correction territory now and it's definitely a buy for me.

One thing I would say to all of the people out there that are trading potentially IVV, is that you don't buy it at 10 AM Australian time. You buy it around 2 o'clock, 2:30 in the afternoon when the U.S. futures have opened and we get a clear direction on what's happening with the U.S. A lot of people get caught up in IVV buying it on the early stages and you're going to get whacked with the futures market. So wait until the afternoon before you pick up IVV.

VanEck MSCI International Quality ETF (ASX: QUAL)

Vishal Teckchandani: Next up, we have QUAL, the VanEck MSCI International Quality ETF—$7 billion in FUM and one of the largest smart beta funds. Buy, hold, or sell?

Adam Dawes (BUY): It's a buy. To use the words of a learned colleague of mine, it is the one ETF to rule them all. It is the best quality ETF. It is an actively traded ETF. I've got a lot of money in this one. It's a buy from me.

Vishal Teckchandani: Charlie, that’s a big call. This ETF focuses on companies with high return on equity, stable earnings, and low leverage. Isn't that the job of an active manager? Buy, hold, or sell?

Charlie Viola (BUY): Yeah, we're a buyer as well. Adam's colleague showing his age there with a Highlander reference, I think. But yeah, we really like this. I think we probably had this in 85% of our client portfolios. We like the underlying assets, we like the fact that it's searching out for good earnings. It's just fundamentally good businesses and then obviously it's still a good broad-based exposure and as we say, it's reasonably cheap. It's a great one to stick in the portfolio, stick it in the bottom drawer, and just hang on to it. So yeah, we're a buy.

Metrics Master Income Trust (ASX: MXT)

Charlie Viola (HOLD): Yeah, we're a hold on this one. We do have this in our portfolios. We do like the private debt, private credit space. Metrics have done a good job over a long period of time, but risks are certainly starting to increase in that private debt, private credit space. There is more and more demand for non-bank lending, and I'm not suggesting that MXT do it, but in the space generally what can only happen when you have more and more demand for non-bank lending is that some of the rules and some of the protocols may be just dropped down just a little bit. But we like the space. We still think it's a good way to generate revenue in portfolios. We're a hold.

Adam Dawes (HOLD): Look, it's a hold with me as well. I'm agreeing with Charlie that this one is looking a little bit stretched. There's lots of private credit out there. There is a bit of talk that the private credit market has to pay up and in fact pay overs to get deals because there's so much competition now starting to come in. MXT does offer really good liquidity. It also offers some fantastic income. It pays monthly income to clients, and so that does gravitate for us to go for a client that has a medium risk profile, not a low risk profile, a medium risk profile. We've got a lot of money in it as well. It's a hold for me also.

Global X Physical Gold

Vishal Teckchandani: Okay, we're going to switch gears into something defensive—the wicketkeeper for your portfolio. Gold. The Global X Physical Gold ETF stores bullion in the London Underground with a 0.4% management fee. Buy, hold, or sell?

Adam Dawes (BUY): Gold is a fantastic ETF and has been very successful for Global X. I think 5% of any portfolio should be in gold as a defensive asset. A year ago, Bitcoin was taking attention away from gold, but now, with market uncertainty and fear, gold is back in favor. Buy."

Vishal Teckchandani: Charlie, same question to you. Five-year annual return of over 12%... that is solid—but as the question goes, is all that glitters gold? Buy, hold, or sell?

Charlie Viola (SELL): We're a sell now. It may have a little more to run, but as interest rates start coming down, global growth looks solid. We’d rather reallocate into growth assets than hold gold at this stage.

Hyperion Global Growth Companies ETF (ASX: HYGG)

Vishal Teckchandani: Alright, this is a good segue into the next ETF. We’re bringing some spice into the portfolio - high conviction stocks. HYG – the Hyperion Global Growth Companies ETF. This was named the top active ETF by choice in our 2025 Outlook Series survey. Buy, hold, or sell?

Charlie Viola (BUY): Yeah, we're a buy. We like Hyperion. They've done a really good job over a long period of time. Proven manager, good underlying assets, and still broad-based exposure. The recent sell-off has probably created some value for investors. So yeah, get in and buy it.

Vishal Teckchandani: Adam, this fund has comfortably exceeded the benchmark return of 20.09% per annum over the past five years. That’s a solid number. Buy, hold, or sell?

Adam Dawes (HOLD): I'm glad Charlie and I don’t agree on everything! I've been a buyer for many years, and it's done very well. However, 12% of the portfolio is in Tesla, and that concerns me. I've spoken with the investment manager, and while they’re comfortable with Tesla, I'm cautious. For now, it’s a hold.

Expert Picks

PIMCO Global Bond Fund (CBOE: PGBF) & Dimensional Global Small Company Active ETF (ASX: DGSM)

Vishal Teckchandani: Now, I asked both of you to bring an ETF pick. Adam, what do you have?

Adam Dawes: Yeah, so I brought two different ones. One an income one, which is a PIMCO Global Bond Fund (PGBF). That's a fantastic one. PIMCO's got $100 billion under management. It's a fantastic bond fund and it provides that income

.

Then I've gone for the other side, I've gone for some growth. It's a Dimensional Global Small Company Active ETF (DGSM). It's got 4,500 stocks. It's a global small cap fund, and something like that is going to do very, very well for your portfolio. So there's two choices for me today.

Qualitas Real Estate Income Fund (ASX: QRI) & Aoris International (Hedged) Active ETF (ASX: DAOR)

Vishal Teckchandani: Great mix - fixed income and small caps. Charlie, what about you?

Charlie Viola: I've also brought you two. So in terms of the income stuff and the slightly more defensive, we like Qualitas Real Estate Income Fund (QRI). We like the manager Qualitas, we like the manner in which they put the pools of loans together. Small loans for small periods of time, low LVR paying about 4–5% above cash. Completely liquid. It has tended to remain at the entire time. It had a little dip during COVID, but really that just provided people an opportunity to get in at a discount to its NAV.

But yeah, we like it for the purposes of income and we've probably got it in most client portfolios.

And then on the equities side, we like Aoris International Fund (ASX: BAOR/DAOR). BAOR is the unhedged version. DAOR is the hedged version. We're buying the hedged one at the moment, given where the dollar is. We really like Steven Arnold and his team at Aoris. It is a good complementary exposure to our broad-based exposures and the really kind of mega-cap tech-heavy exposures of the market. It is a very concentrated portfolio of really value stocks, I suppose. 

They just go out and find really good businesses that have got really good underlying earnings. So we like it, and we’ve tended to put it in most portfolios, and it's done exceptionally well over the last sort of five years or so.

Final Thoughts

Vishal Teckchandani: That’s a wrap! If this were a cricket team, we’ve got something for every part of the order. I hope you took away some top investment ideas to lift your own batting average.

If you enjoyed this episode, like, subscribe, and stay tuned for more. Good luck with your investing!