I have a different but related question:
If you were an employee and have the maximum amount of CHF 6,883 saved in January.
Would you invest monthly CHF 570 into Finpension/Viac or the entire CHF 6,883 in January?
People will tell you that, statistically, lump-sum investments have proven superior to dollar-cost averaging over the next few months. âTime in the market beats timing the marketâ.
That said, Iâm not sure if I would invest all at once in the current market downturn (catching the falling knife) and talk of Russia invading Ukraine.
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I donât understand this question at all. If you are able to invest 7k right now, donât you have too much cash anyway?
Putting in 7k every January is also DCA, just bigger chunks than going in with monthly 570 CHF, or daily 19 CHF 
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I guess the question revolves around maxing the 3a contributions now and investing in taxable later or set monthly contributions to the 3a and invest in taxable with the remaining money.
From that point of view, 3a solutions are usually slightly more expensive (in Switzerland) than taxable ones and the tax benefits arenât affected by when you invest in the year. Furthermore, assets in a 3a solution are locked whereas you could sell assets in taxable in case your situation changes and you have an urgent and imperative need for them.
In that regards, Iâd say thereâs probably a slight advantage to investing in taxable first and delay investing in 3a until the end of the year (next best being monthly transfers to 3a). The advantages are very slight and thereâs also value in the peace of mind coming from having done our 3a transfers for the year so Iâd just go with what makes me most comfortable.
If the question was âprovided Iâm investing mostly through 3a and that the money I transfer there would be immediately invested, should I transfer it as a lump-sum or dollar-cost-average (DCA) into it through monthly payments given current conditions?â Iâll refer you to a search for similar topics on the forum. My own take is that lump-sum is usually the best approach but that a declining market is the specific situation where DCA wins, so Iâd use DCA, knowing full well and acknowledging that the markets could rebounce on Monday and then go straight up for the rest of the year, making DCA the poorer choice by a potentially significant margin (so youâd have to accept the.potential loss coming with it).
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Wouldnât make a difference for me. When I get my bonus in February, I could lumpsum the remaining 3a for the rest of the year and reduce my investment in IBKR or just keep my standing orders for Viac going and lumpsum in IBKR. Wonât make a difference longterm.
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But you donât pay taxes on dividends received by funds that you bought in 3a earlier in the year. In taxable, earlier you bought, more taxes you pay. An advantage compensating higher TER.
And thatâs what I prefer. So for me it is 3a first, then the rest.
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Apologies for the late reply. The core ones (AVUS, AVDE, AVES) invest across the market.
Agree, the risk with the portfolio is on the higher side compared to investing solely in bluechips.
I will perhaps reduce the tilt on small caps for now and reevaluate end of year.
But, with the investing timespan and factor etfs, the hope is it should get mitigated to a large extent.
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Hi all! Thank you very much for your replies. Indeed, I ask in regard of dollar cost averaging.
user137, thanks for giving me this viewpoiont. Indeed, while still having some years retire I could see yearly investing as DCA as well.
much appreciated!
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I think it was mentioned somewhere already, but I repeat it here: finpension now have an option to disable rebalancing of a portfolio. I am very glad, I think itâs a wonderful feature.
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Does that mean that if you started at 99% equities, and they go up, you could arrive at more than 99% if you donât rebalance?
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That how it should work.
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Yes, this is my understanding as well. But I donât know what will happen once you deposit additional funds.
Credit Suisse is the custodian bank for all those funds by finpension. Their qualified status is getting reviewed again. Does anyone know whether it only concerns their business in the US itself or are we also indirectly affected in case of a hypothetical negative result?
Overall it merely means some risk of losing some dividends due to taxes from my understanding.Seeing how postfinance is changing their passive ~1% TER 3a fund to an active 1.3% TER fund, there isnât much alternative and Iâll be transfering my 3rd pillar depot from PF anyway, which I only opened years ago for reaching the asset limit to avoid monthy fees.
As far as I understand the article, only US Pension Funds would be affected by this, so thereâs nothing to worry about for Swiss investors.
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Alright. I realized that I mixed up different things like the qualified intermediary status for pension funds to not have witholding taxes.
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Finpension, VIAC and Frankly have different products with different structures, with comparably low fees. VIAC also uses CS as their custody bank for securities but Frankly seems to be using ZKB. I donât see a need to resort to PF solutions as is.
Just a quick question of understanding.
If I open a second âstrategyâ with Finpension (for the PF stuff I am about to transfer over), do those 2 strategies constitute two separate 3a accounts (for instance for property purchase), and as such, can be used or not used separately?
If thatâs not the case, Iâd rather go to VIAC with the second pot.
Yes, a second portfolio at finpension is considered a separate 3a account and can be withdrawn independently.
This is mainly relevant for staggered withdrawal (tax optimization) when retiring, though. For real estate purchase, partial withdrawal of a single 3a account is possible.
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Iâm struggling to fill up my second portfolio at FinPension
Goal is to transfer the PF 3a account funds for âstormy timesâ, may or may these not come eventually in the next 1-2 years. Iâm happy with limited growth as long as this portfolio will not tumble down like a rock if the stock market does eventually crash.
The pot will transfer in its entirety in the next weeks, so itâs hard to DCA it in unless I tweak the strategy month-by-month.
My first FP portfolio is:
- 80% Quality exCH
- 10% Swiss Large Cap
- 9% Swiss Small & Mid Cap
- 1% Cash
How would you position the second portfolio on a âcautiosâ plane?
- I donât want another âEquity99 with Qualityâ option as Iâm already having one
- I donât want a âworse than qualityâ equity exposure like a total world, because why?
- Bond markets are probably not going to perform well in a downturm
- Iâm already significantly exposed to real estate (and as 3a is for buying property, Iâd like it to be not correlated)
- cash sounds stupid in an inflationary setup, but at least it wouldnât lose value if kept in CHF
- commodities? gold? crypto?
Or am I overthinking it and letâs just drop it all into the existing Portfolio 1, and let my âbondsâ exposure be my 2nd pillar and RE exposure separate?
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