I am a bit lost here. Looking to invest in ETFs, from what I read and what I want it makes sense to invest in world-oriented ETFs. However, I am unsure how to proceed exactly.
Currently thinking about opening an IBKR account, I am reading all the blogs since a few months from MP, Mr. RIP, thepoorswiss, as well as MP forum and Swisspersonalfinance on Reddit. I see that people have a lot of knowledge that I do not, and I am scared of what exactly I should do. Having read that topic about Vanguard creating/opening new European ETFs, I felt the need to ask my question here (even though it is slightly off-topic ultimately…):
If I want to invest in a world-oriented manner, should I “ETF-pick” a couple of ETFs from the markets I am interested in (EU, US, emerging countries, Switzerland) or should I stick to the MSCI ETF (which is ~70% S&P500, unless I am mistaken)?
Can this be done on any trading platform (IBKR seems to be the recommended option by the vast majority of Swiss investors)?
Is there any differences when it comes to declaring such assets for a Swiss B-permit holder, French citizen?
Many thanks in advance for your help. I welcome any sort of help and recommendations. If my message should not be here, please let me know and I will remove it / move it elsewhere.
Indead, your message isn’t quite fitting this topic. I’m therefore opening a new topic since your questions touch on different aspects.
The classic ETF for a world-oriented manner is VT. Depending on your preference you might want to add a Swiss ETF (such as CHSMIM or CHSPI). Also depending on your wishes of world-oriented, there might be better options than VT.
Basically, yes. Feel free to chose IB, Saxo, Swissquote, … There are differences in fees and location of the trading platform. Note: you can’t trade VT on Degiro.
Some trading platforms provide you with a document that you can enter directly in your tax declaration (eSteuerauszug) instead of declaring each position individually. However, as a permit B holder, you are taxed at source and only need to file a tax declaration under certain conditions.
Hello @gaijin, and thanks for creating a new topic that I did not dare doing.
Ok so VT + a Swiss ETF could do the job for me since it stays rather simple. Eventually, I could add an EU-centered ETF on top (unless the coverage of the VT world ETF is sufficient for EU + US).
Since I have a 3a opened since a couple of years, even though I am taxed at source I am doing my tax declaration, so I will have to go through the burden of declaring such investments.
One added question to this: while I am interested in making my money “grow” as much as I can by investing, I tend to be willing to go for the less complicated way to do things if it does not impact too much my investment rather than putting profit first. What I mean by this is, if I want to follow the strategy aforementioned, should I pick select ETFs that are located in EU (or is there even such world ETFs located in Switzerland?) or this is really non-sense. This type of thing is exactly where I am under-qualified and under-experienced to understand the discussions on that topic online…
If you want to go simple, do a world ETF and add home bias. In my case, being a Swiss living in Switzerland, home bias is clearly a Swiss ETF. I have 20% home bias. In your case, it might be a bit more complex, since you might only live temporary in Switzerland. As an example: my father who lives in Denmark did his home bias in the form of a European ETF.
For world ETFs I would go for US ETFs. They are generally cheaper, have a higher volume, and you can claim back US withholding tax as a Swiss resident. Myself, I have VT as my world ETF.
My suggestion, since you have already IBKR, is to buy right this week a tiny bit of VT. You decide how much. Because of IBKR’s fees, you could even buy 1 and don’t pay that much.
Why? Because you will get the feeling of having done the first step. You might see your single VT going down (or up!) and feeling a bit less lost.
Thank you both for your suggestion. Yes, I am currently in the process of opening an IBKR account and as you recommended ma0, I will give it a go, getting started will allow me to ask relevant questions…!
I read that this is a bit of an evolving situation right now, do you have a link towards a post/article detailing the difference between buying a US-based VT versus an EU one when it comes to TER and taxes?
The TER section appears to be outdated. There is now a (UBS) MSCI World UCITS ETF with a TER of 0.06% p.a., matching the TER of VT (without Emerging Markets and Small Caps, though, so may increase portfolio complexity). And there is also the Amundi Prime All Country World UCITS ETF with a TER of 0.07% p.a. The other points should still apply but it means that the performance difference between US and UCITS ETFs is getting smaller.
This ETF has Solactive GBS Global Markets Large & Mid Cap Index as benchmark. Maybe I’m just showing my ignorance, but I have never heard about this index.
The Amundi ETF (launched in 2024) seems to be the only ETF tracking that index. It should be very similar to MSCI ACWI but Amundi does apply a few exclusions.
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