Don’t Swisscanto funds have higher spreads and some sort of buy-in load too?
Maybe this has been adressed before: Most CSIF funds have buy-in loads (“Ausgabeaufschlag”) of 5%.
Example: CSIF (CH) III Equity World ex CH Blue - Pension Fund Plus ZB
Is this load of 5% waived for institutional clients like Finpension?
No, they don’t. Check the official factsheet: https://finpension.ch/app/uploads/factsheets/CH0337393745_fact-sheet_de.pdf?t=2023-11-02
In the factsheet you see that that it’s only 0.08% and that’s simply to approximately cover the trading costs/spread of the underlying assets (these extra 0.08% become part of the fund). There may be banks/brokers that charge additional fees for mutual funds but that doesn’t apply here.
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Another comparison, and I still don’t see anything better than finpension for 3a. Though in case of True Wealth, I am not satisfied only with funds that they offer.
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Hello,
I have created a Finpension account and searched the forums for World Index Portfolios. What a flood of information. I’m sure this question has already been answered somewhere. as I read, I keep realizing that I don’t know anything. Actually, I just want to get started, but I also want to do it right. Now I’m reading about looking at 3a and free assets in the overall portfolio. Or to take the USA portion out of the 3a.
I came across various approaches.
-
CSIF (CH) 3 III Equity World ex CH Quality - Pension Fund DB 99%
-
VT replica
CSIF (CH) III Equity World ex CH Blue - Pension Fund Plus ZB 84%
CSIF (CH) Equity Emerging Markets Blue DB 12%
CSIF (CH) Equity Switzerland Large Cap Blue ZB 2%
CSIF (CH) Equity Switzerland Small & Mid Cap ZB 1% -
and others ^^
But now finpension also offers UBS and Swisscanto funds. Perhaps I have overlooked the discussion on this. Is the 2nd approach still recommendable? Or would you replace the funds with UBS or Swisscanto? Or is there another better combination?
Merci and Gruess
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Well, it’s a two levels problem. First you have to decide which indices you want to replicate in your portfolio. Second, you decide which funds to take for this.
There are also other levels. Most importantly, consider all your stocks holdings, no matter which broker, as a part of one overall stocks portfolio. Then you can do things like this:
Together with fixed income holdings (cash, bonds, fixed term deposits), they constute a stocks+fixed income portfolio that you can control. Add your pension savings, real estate, crypto and that picture that you got from your grandma, minus all debts, and this is your net worth, or, as I and some other prefer, net wealth.
All these levels were extensively discussed in this forum and where not.
hello dr pi,
thank you very much for your feedback. i don’t have a picture of my grandma. i really appreciate the forum and the information. i keep coming across new things and realizing how much is being discussed here. it’s just really difficult to classify and understand everything. i don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all solution. for now, i just want to start with finpension. preferably the same as in my IB account with the VT Total World. optimize later. i’m sorry if i opened an unnecessary post ^^.
btw. do you use one of the strategies you linked? how does it perform?
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Hello and a late welcome.
That was not at all unnecessary. Very often showing the direction is everything that one needs.
Now you have already formulated the solution for the top level problem: you want your finpension strategy to replicate VT. There is information how people do it with respect to indices used. There is also info about advantages of different funds.
Why not just take one of the default strategies proposed by Finpension?
Lots of us on this forum are over-optimising and I’m not sure if the result is better in the end.
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I split the world!
Interactive Brokers: US stocks, MSCI Emerging Markets, MSCI EMU.
Finpension 3a: MSCI Europe ex EMU ex CH, Japan, Canada, MSCI Pacific ex Japan, MSCI EMU.
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what i keep hearing is, don’t try to beat the market. for me, finpension’s suggestions are a blend. VT somewhat tracks the overall market. so it is easier and better to take a world index than a blend with a different weighting.
basically nobody knows what will happen. maybe in 50 years there will only be crypto and our monetary system as we know it today will be gone ^^ in other words, you can optimize on past data, which does not speak for the future. so i keep it simple for now. because, when investing, you just have to start.
finpension Aktien 100 holds 39% of Swiss equities. That loses a lot of diversification compared to a VT-like portfolio. Unless you’re particularly convinced of this strategy, I would advise against that. I suspect they likely can’t offer less CHF exposure in default strategies for regulatory reasons. However, the restriction doesn’t apply to their custom strategies.
so can i assume that under the circumstances that i simply want to follow the VT Total World for now, you would recommend the following portfolio at finpension?
CSIF (CH) III Equity World ex CH Blue - Pension Fund Plus ZB 84%
CSIF (CH) Equity Emerging Markets Blue DB 12%
CSIF (CH) Equity Switzerland Large Cap Blue ZB 2%
CSIF (CH) Equity Switzerland Small & Mid Cap ZB 1%
From what I have read, the Emerging Markets of CISF can be exchanged with that of Swisscanto. But otherwise CSIF is still the best choice?
They could theoretically also offer it in their standard strategies. They only need to adhere to the BVV2 rules on foundation level. If they would offer it in their standard strategy, they would risk breaching the rules. However this risk is really small, because as far as I read, most people still keep their 3a savings in cash accounts and don’t invest it.
The finpension 3a foundation doesn’t offer cash accounts. While there may be many people keeping 3a in cash accounts at a bank, I would guess that the average finpension customer has significant equity exposure, which could be a problem on the foundation level if their default strategies had more (nominal) foreign currency exposure. That’s just my guess, though.
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Oh, I didn’t know that they don’t offer cash accounts at all.
also interested in this.
I have 3 years of 3a on Finnpension and I basically have their standard equities solutions (very minor changes) but now I would be looking to maybe mimic VT instead.
This is the way to go if you want to squeeze the last bit of returns. One should either way treat their asset allocation through all investment -or not- accounts. The rule is high yielding assets in 3a, low yielding in IB. Additionaly you get some preferential treatment on dividend wht from specific -pension- funds in DevExUs.
I personaly hold only EM (equity, bonds) and some DevExUs in finpension and US+rest of EM, DevExUs (+SCV) in finpension. I rebalance with an excel sheet through new (monthly) contributions.
As long as you automate the process, it works effortlesly. Sure though, one can argue its just overoptimisation…
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For everyone who wants to make something similar to All-World stocks fund from their finpension accounts: allocation according to recent geographic weights:
Option 1:
89% MSCI World ex CH
10% MSCI Emerging Markets
I would stop here, but if you insist on having Switzerland, then it is
Option 2:
87% MSCI World ex CH
10% MSCI Emerging Markets
2% Switzerland.
I don’t track small caps indices, so assuming that small caps are 14/85 of the standard indices:
Option 3:
77% MSCI World ex CH
13% MSCI World ex CH Small Caps
9% MSCI Emerging Markets
Option 4:
75% MSCI World ex CH
13% MSCI World ex CH Small Caps
9% MSCI Emerging Markets
2% Switzerland Total Market
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thank you 
what is the best way to get the data from the factsheets of the funds and indices? Do you simply compare the country percentages with the reference index or also the individual companies?
and, is there any content on the topic of market replication? which tools can be used. which reference indices are available. etc.?