@hedgehog Could you please say more about this scheme? I would also appreciate if you would deliberate a bit more on your investing philosophy. Thanks.
I’m planning to start with a broad, simple and hopefully robust portfolio consisting of:
47% VT
53% VWO, taking into account that VT already has about 10 % emerging markets, this would make a total of 25-30% EM
Maybe 10% some factor ETF, maybe small caps or value for the cost of reducing VT.
This comes in addition to the VIAC Global 100 3d pillar 100% stock strategy.
In total this creates the following geographical distribution:
28% Europe
34% North America
8% Pacific
30% Emerging markets
This portfolio is inspired by Gerd Kommer’s world portfolio “World portfolio” by Gerd Kommer
Any suggestions or criticism?
VWO is only EM. Are you sure about that ? The total invest in EM will be 53% + (10% * 47%)=57.7
in any cases, take an Emerging market fund based in IE instead of US. This will avoid the U.S withholding tax.
I would recommend:
Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets UCITS ETF
iShares Core MSCI Emerging Markets IMI UCITS ETF
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Don’t you get that “back” when filing the swiss tax declaration?
Since I’ll have 3d pillar with 10% EM and VT with 10%, adding some pure EM will dilute it to 30% over the whole portfolio.
Both ETFs that you suggested have a 0.25% TER vs. 0.14% of VWO. Do you think that saving on tax will compensate this? As I understand you need to pay TER on the whole sum every year, but you pay the tax just on dividends, which should be much smaller, right?
Yes, it seems to be better.
However I still don’t really get it completely. If I understand it correctly, then if means that with Vanguard IE ETF you won’t have the extra 15% withholding tax from the US. But you’ll have to pay about 15% of the Swiss income tax for these dividends in both cases. It comes to 15+15% for VWO, but only 15% for the Vanguard IE ETF, right?
Only because these ETFs don’t have any US holdings
Thanks for your input about the taxes. I optimized for that and now my optimal portfolio would look like this:
Average TER: 0.14%. Total number of companies: 3969.
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congrats! looks like a rock solid diversified, low-cost long term investment portfolio! unless you decide for 100% stocks, consider also diversification in non-stock-assets.
I am 100% stocks myself 
and i thought alot about it, means I am quite convinced^^
Sorry, I misunderstood your post
haha no problem 
.
I am so new to all this investing business, that I’ll first invest a very small amount and keep the rest in cash and 3d pillar. I have to get used to these ups and downs first. If at some point Swiss bonds will start to bring some interest I’ll maybe buy such a bond ETF. I listened to several talks of experienced people on long termed investments and they say that stocks make more sense:
Hello everyone. Very interesting thread so far. I also like @Knoch portfolio. My husband and I have just set up a De Giro account and want to start realizing a similar portfolio. Your feedback is appreciated!
| Code | Name | Reach | % of portfolio |
|---|---|---|---|
| VEVE | Vanguard FTSE Developed World | World | 45% |
| VEUR | Vanguard FTSE Developed Europe UCITS ETF | Europe | 30% |
| VFEM | Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF | EM | 15% |
| VTI | Vanguard total stock market ETF | World | 10% |
This might be a silly question, but we plan to buy these stocks on the Swiss Stock Exchange. This is because we live in CH and hope to be here for a long time. The “backup” plan would be to settle in Europe so maybe it is also worth diversifying the currency in which we hold these funds?
We will also hold some cash and are considering our 2nd and 3rd pillars as counting towards lower risk investing.
Well, your funds are overlapping and not even close to replicating world stock market: US weight in the world is over 55%, not 10-20%.
I don’t see at all how that implies that you have to buy on SIX. Also VTI you can’t buy there, only on american exchanges.
Currency of the fund doesn’t really matter (as long as it’s not some kind of currency hedged shit), it’s what inside of it that counts, more precisely the currency in which the companies are making money in.
VEVE includes VEUR and VTI. The “Reach” of VTI is USA, not World. Also, last time I checked, VEVE had a very small AUM (only 150 million CHF). If you do want a hassle free solution, then just buy VWRL and forget these funny splits. I don’t get it, everybody here thinks they will come up with some magic formula that will beat the market capped mix. And then they have to bother about rebalancing. I guess it’s due to the feeling that a single ETF is just too easy to be effective.
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I will make huge adjustment to my portfolio and move the majority to ETF’s on IB. I think about just put it all into VT to keep things simple.
Does anything else makes more sense or is this a good first move into the ETF world? Maybe having VTI and then the rest of the world with something else? Thanks for your feedbacks.
i’d advise you to
- if you have already ETFs at another broker, check the costs for transferring the shares vs. selling, cash out, wire cash to ib and buy back what you want
- first make a definite decision on how your portfolio should look like before altering it. fix it with an IPS to you have something to stick to.
- if you anticipate that you might change your opinion in the future about your portfolio, make reasonable assumtions on what costs are involved. however, with IB and US based ETFs, it won’t be much.
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