I am amazed why anyone would buy a "dumb" index fund or worse yet those silly riskier ETF's unless you are a very frequent trader and want to sell intraday.
Instead of “dumb” index funds with no stock selection based on individual company outlooks, or similar ETF’s (only make sense for traders, not investors), I suggest managers with long-term track records of outperformance compared to the category they invest in and compared to the risk taken (Alpha vs. Beta in investment terms) – not just raw returns. .
If a stock becomes overvalued, it actually starts to carry more weight in the index. Unfortunately, this is just when astute investors would want to be lowering their portfolios' exposure to that stock.
The silliness of index investing also creates artificially higher values (P/Es) for stocks that index funds are forced to buy just because they are big enough for the index. This is especially true for cap weighted indexes.
Individual stock should be based on an in-depth analysis of financial's, regulatory filings, review of business plan, analysts reports (usually bias on the positive side) and interviews with top executives. Few individual investors have the time or skills to do this vs a good manager with an extensive analyst staff.
A good advisor is monitoring the difference funds and making recommendations based on the client's objectives, risk tolerance and financial assets. I would avoid any advisor that is selling his own company funds or any gimmicks like funds of funds or ETFs.
While more volatile, smaller companies may have favorable opportunities, with less foreign market revenue reliance, potentially not affected negatively as much by currency changes and often more hidden opportunities than the widely followed large companies.
Portfolios should be dynamic and actively managed. Currently, I would reduce allocation to Europe and Japan which have very poor economi outlooks compared to the U.S. (I don't follow Canada to compare).
I would also recommend using a Certified Financial Planner. In the U.S. would also recommend a Registered Investment Advisor which has fiduciary legal lresponsibility to look after the best interest of the client. I don't think you have that in Canada.