RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:Trying to Become another Brookfield is not the Right AnswerI do take your point, although I am not sure it would be quite as easy to pick REIT winners all the way back to the 1990s (and even with the banks, we have the benefit of hindsight - there are plenty examples of companies that were best of breed that eventually lost their way).
DeanEdmonton wrote: For the same reason I don't buy a Bank ETF. You end up with the best and worst performers. RBC and TD, over the last 25 years, have dramatically outperformed the other banks. I want to own those two, and have. Ido not want to own CIBC, BNS etc.
If you had bought $10,000 worth of RBC in 1995, it would be worth $640,000 today if you had reinvested the dividends. You would also be collecting $26,000 in dividend income a year, which is 260% of your original investment. If it had been in Bank of Nova Scotia it would only be $181,000 whereas TD would be $580,000. If you had done the same thing with Manulife it would be worth 60,000 today.
Same thing holds true in any industry, I do not want the whole basket, I just want the one or two best and with the Banks, it was very easy to see who the two best run banks were, even 30 years ago.