Currecy strategy for Swiss abroad who might return

I live in Singapore, earn SGD and have most of my asset in a mix of SGD and USD etfs although laregely with US/Global exposure. Every time I come back to Switzerland, things keep getting more and more expensive. I would like to invest some of my funds in CHF denominated investments but options seem scarce and from reading this forum this strategy is discouraged. I’ve read a few post suggesting to simply accept the currency loss, but that’s easier when you’re earning in CHF.

Any ideas or suggestions?

EDIT: I don’t want to be trading currencies frequently.

If you have most of your assets in Etfs, it doesn’t matter, you’ll have the same return

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Currency doesn’t matter. I find these articles helpful: Slashing FX Costs! In Which Currency Should I Buy ETFs? (bankeronwheels.com)

Smart Investing - Which Currency Should You Pick For Your Diversified Portfolio Of Index Funds? | Swissquote

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Welcome, @Alex82!

TL;DR: What @REandSTOCK and @logitacher say.

Darker Red Pill: if your have too much time on your hands please read on.

Unless you have a non-negligible exposure to non-global ETFs (e.g. to small caps, which can be fairly non-global, or maybe to emerging markets, also often geographically local plus currencies that sometimes go all over the place) you’re covered by investing in off-the-shelf ETFs which are typically overweight global companies.

Maybe initially not intuitive, but once you think about it it’s IMO somewhat obvious: those global companies kind of by definition make the same returns regardless of what the “base” currency is as they don’t pay or charge for their products in CHF or USD outside of paradise or the US.*
Stating their financials in USD might look like they make higher returns than stating them in CHF. When you take into account FX effects it turns about to be roughly the same (at least for somewhat stable currencies like the USD or the CHF [I have no experience with the SGD, but from afar it looks like a fairly stable one]).

Some on the sell side (and some friends on this forum) might recommend hedged currency (ETF) strategies, but I would mostly disagree with that. It’s really just paying insurance that on a, say, monthly basis, that your return in your preferred currency (CHF) won’t look much worse than in the “underlying” currency of your investment vehicle, but IMNSHO you’re just paying insurance fees for a more flattened return curve in your preferred currency with no real edge. Over time, your hedging fees (insurance premiums) detract from your real return.

Of course, ETF and fund advisors will state the contrary as they are measured on their performance in the corresponding hedged currency on a monthly basis and thus profit from good looks in the hedged asset that you paid the insurance for, and they collect additional fees on those insurance premiums called FX Forwards (“hedges” in portfolio terms) and custodians and brokers will happily sell those FX Forwards as they make their living on the spreads of those instruments.


* Some global commodities (like oil or natural gas) are actually mostly traded in USD, but lots of other locally sourced products are not.
If anything, the currency effect probably still favors the USD as it is still the “global reserve currency”. YMMV.