I've been investing in CC ETFs since July 2025. My decision process has always been the same: yield, NAV health, total return. Fees were never part of the equation explicitly. Recently I went back and read the actual ETF Facts documents for every fund I hold. Not the fund website. The disclosure documents. Here's what the all-in expenses actually are, MER plus TER combined: $USCL : 1.61% $BANK : 1.73% $QQCL : 1.82% $QDAY : ~1.85% $SDAY : 1.86% $HYLD : 1.97% $HHIS : 2.00% $HDIV : 2.67% $VFV : 0.09% All confirmed from issuer ETF Facts. Reporting dates range Dec 2024 to Dec 2025. Why MER alone misleads you MER is the management fee plus operating costs. It excludes portfolio transaction costs, which sit in a separate TER line. For leveraged funds, TER mostly captures the cost of borrowing for the ~25% leverage. It doesn't appear on your brokerage page, only in the ETF Facts under "How much does it cost?" MER + TER = the real number above. Four things worth knowing from this cost lens 1. HDIV is the most expensive at 2.67%, despite the "zero wrapper fee" positioning. Hamilton charges nothing at the HDIV wrapper level. True. But it holds 11 underlying ETFs each carrying their own expenses, plus leverage borrowing costs on top. Zero wrapper fee ≠ low cost fund. HDIV is still most expensive, but HHIS slots in just above HYLD, which is worth noting since HHIS's 0% wrapper fee makes people assume it's the cheapest. 2. QDAY and SDAY (~1.86%) are not outliers. Daily 0DTE rolling does add trading costs vs monthly CC funds. But at 1.86% they sit in the middle of this group, cheaper than HDIV, comparable to HYLD. 3. QQCL and USCL are getting cheaper as AUM grows. QQCL: 2.29% → 1.82% in one year. USCL: 2.22% → 1.61%. Fixed costs spread across more units as the fund scales. Year-old fee figures can be meaningfully stale. 4. BANK ETF, know what you actually hold. Ticker BANK on any self-directed brokerage like Wealthsimple = ETF series = 1.73% all-in. That's the relevant number for most people reading this. The Class A mutual fund version costs 2.88%, the difference is a 1% advisor trailing commission baked in. Same fund, very different cost depending on how you access it. Does any of this change how I invest? Honestly, no. My framework stays the same: broad index underlying, CC overlay, ~1.25x leverage, correction-tested, NAV growing. Underlying and Total return still drive the decision. These fees are the cost of owning a strategy that generates 10–15% annual income from a broad index and the after-fee returns have held up. 2024: USCL +38.43% vs VFV +35.24% 2025: USCL +10.09% vs VFV +12.23% The relationship flips by year. Fees matter less than market conditions and underlying selection in any given period. What this exercise gave me is clarity, not alarm. I now know exactly what I'm paying, where the cost comes from, and why HDIV costs more than it looks. That's worth knowing even if it doesn't change the trade. Did you ever look up the all-in cost of the CC ETFs you hold or do you go by yield and total return like I did? Not financial advice, just sharing personal due diligence exercise only.
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26 Comments
Perry's PIIverse@piiverse · 13d
Ultimately these are all internal costs and what you see as distribution results are net all these fees. Soo... if you are satisfied with the end result distributions and yield paid... then it means you are ok with WHATEVER FEES are inside that made these distributions what they are. I think too many people focus too much on fees and internal costs vs the net client visible results. For me... nice to know... but has pretty much zero influence in my buying decisions of an etf.
Ed @edsam · 13d
I looked. The return profile is net of fees. I have challenged many Blossom peeps to show a live portfolio with lower costs performing same or better. So far I have not seen one. Many look at the world through the lens of non-differentiated passive index fund. Of course, fee is a significant variable in the index world. With only a hammer in hand, everything looks like a nail.
ROVERGALARGA @hugimelo · 13d
Why people pay those high fees for those products??? The only one getting rich os the fund managers and the finfluencers promoting them.
M S D@msinghdor · 13d
And most of the funds don't even list this total fee on the web page but hide it in the documents which many of the investors don't even open and think that the fee shown on the web page is what they are paying. TBH, this should be illegal. The total MER or TER should be displayed on the fund web page clearly. Especially the funds that have been there for over an year.
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