My Favourite Free Online Tools for Screening Canadian ETFs
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You don’t need to fork over money for an expensive subscription to a data provider to start making smart ETF decisions. Most of what you need to get a handle on an ETF is available for free if you know where to look.
The problem is that not all of these tools are well known, and some of the best ones aren’t advertised much at all. So today, I’m shining a spotlight on two ETF screeners built specifically for Canadian investors.
Trackinsight & Cboe ETF Market Canada Screener
This free tool is purpose-built for Canadian investors and lets you screen over 1,000 TSX-listed ETFs with surprisingly deep filtering capabilities.
You can start by defining your exposure across asset class (stocks, bonds, commodities), geography (Canada, U.S., North America), and even themes or sectors (e.g., AI & Big Data or Net Zero 2050).
Once you've filtered the universe, you’re shown a sortable list of matching ETFs with the basics like:
- Name and exposure
- Assets under management (AuM)
- 1-month performance
- 1-month flows
- Expense ratio (E/R)
On the left side of the screen, there’s a powerful filter panel where you can refine your screen by:
- ESG focus: limit to ESG or non-ESG ETFs
- Active vs passive strategies
- Leverage, inverse, or options-based strategies
- ETF provider: filter by issuer (e.g., BMO, CI, Purpose, Harvest, etc.)
- Dividend policy: distribution vs accumulation/capitalization
You can also sign up for weekly ETF updates by email directly on the platform. Overall, it’s a clean and user-friendly screener that rivals more expensive platforms and is one of the few designed specifically with Canadian tickers and tax nuances in mind.
TSX ETF Comparison
This free tool offers a clean side-by-side snapshot of up to three TSX-listed ETFs at a time. It’s one of the easiest ways to compare fund characteristics, exposures, and performance all on one screen.
The first section shows key metrics including:
- Price and daily volume
- Assets under management (AUM)
- Distribution yield
- Inception date
- Fund family
This helps you get a quick sense of how liquid and established each fund is, and what kind of income it might generate.
Next, you get performance over multiple timeframes, from 5-day to 5-year periods. Charts are fully interactive, and return percentages are clearly listed. It’s a simple way to spot trends or see how different strategies have played out over time.
You can view the top underlying holdings for each ETF. For fund-of-funds, this shows which ETFs they invest in. For direct equity ETFs, it shows the largest stocks and their weightings. This section helps you understand what you're actually buying when you invest.
The regional allocation chart gives a breakdown by geography: U.S., Canada, Europe, Asia, and more. This is useful for checking how globally diversified a fund really is.
Finally, you can see sector exposures like technology, financials, industrials, energy, and healthcare. This is helpful for comparing how different funds tilt toward various parts of the economy.
