Keep buying World Stock (VWRD/ACWI) or switch to ex USA ETF?

I follow a very simple two ETF Strategy of VWRD (90 %) + SLICHA (10 %).

But in light of the recent develpments, I am not so sure anymore that want to buy around 60 % US with my monthly investment rate.

→ Do you keep (partially) investing in USA?

→ What alternative strategies do you have, e.g. buy ex USA ETF or only EU ETF?

I try to be less than 50% US
But it has nothing to do with this year performance. For me 65% of one country is too much risk.

The SP500 underperforms for 6 months and people are already losing their mind.

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I see 3 scenarios:

  1. USA is “back to normal” in Summer 2025
  2. USA is “back to normal” after 4 years Trump + 1-2 years of new administration
  3. USA needs 10+ years to recover for current…“management” (which will have real world consequences for the economy) of the country

Since 60 % US is a country-specific risk I think question is justified.

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I can‘t recall a time (except the lost decade) where underweighting US stocks resulted in better returns, quite the contrary. People kept underweighting their US holding since the financial crisis and look on how much they missed out.

I agree. However, the past is no prediction for the future.

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The only thing we can learn from this is that nobody can predict which countries will perform good and which won‘t. So market cap weighting is probably the most sensible thing to do.

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Yes, thats how I see it aswell. What is your strategy so you end up with < 50% US?

That is a good point. However you could also go for a GDP weight portfolio, which would have less USA.

World ETF + home bias

Basically overweight of home reduces US exposure.

For me home = Europe + IN
But this might be different for different people

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Do you know if there I a thread about EU ETFs? Or maybe you have done some research already and can tell us what you found out?

I don’t know for sure
But I think following works well for Swiss residents.

MSCI Europe ex CH + Swiss ETF

  • Swiss ETFs could be SPI , SLI or SMI based
  • For MSCI Europe ex CH -: I could only find one fund from UBS

Alternatively there are few ETFs for MSCI Europe which can be used from ishares, HSBC, Xtrackers or UBS. They will be slightly less tax efficient (due to tax loss of Swiss dividends) but depending on overall weight in portfolio might not make much difference

I started exactly 2 years ago to overweight Europe by buying VEUR on Swissquote from time to time and buying less of VT on IBKR. I must say honestly I don’t keep exact percentages of how much VEUR compared to VT I have but it is roughly 1/3 VEUR and 2/3 VT.

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This video came out today
Might be interesting

Recommends following for equity allocation
33% domestic stocks + 67% international stocks for any given developed country.

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I hold world and CH ETFs. If the developments of the past weeks continue, my home bias will reach those 33% without me doing anything :joy:/:sob:

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Great video as always!

Just to add that anything between ~10%-50% domestic has the same result.

I am not sure though if this applies to small markets like Switzerland with the known “concentration issues”. In the respective RR video the author mentions that he run the simulations also without small countries and the results were the same. But this doesn’t say anything if you are actually leave in a small country.

Anyway, my take away is: 100% stocks. Mainly international.

Good luck with the behavioral aspect :slight_smile:

He also mentioned that home bias should be reduced if you work in the industry which makes up a bigger part of the index. So someone working in pharma/industrials or finance should probably keep the home bias lower.

One could argue that this applies in general. If you work in tech, you shouldn‘t have 50% of your stocks in tech.

Had he mentioned what to do when your pension fund has an equal allocation to domestic and foreign stocks? :thinking:

As per Ben Felix , it applies to all developed markets.

Since he is in Canada , he is using 33% allocation to Candian stocks. Canadian market is not very big. Almost same size as Swiss

I don‘t think it matters. It behaves like a very good bond. No risk and basically tax-free interest.

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