it’s hard to assess that, also with questionable value of that assessment over the relatively short horizon my portoflio had now being like it is. It also has high inflows from me savings, which makes analyzing of actual money weighted return even harder.
Over the last year though it has beaten the S&P with lower vol.
This would be an as close as possible backtest with the closest US tickers for the ucits mutual funds I use, only short history available though:
I think the Global Core Equity Fund ETF deserves serious attention. This fund was created in 2008 and now manages €8.3 billion. It is composed of 7,600 companies. One of the founders of Dimensional Fund Advisors (founded in 1981) is Eugene Fama, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2013.
Dimensional’s investment philosophy is based on factors and scientific analysis conducted over several decades. So this is not blind or arbitrary portfolio management. During the last decade, this fund (which takes value and profitability factors into account and small cap tilt) underperformed compared to market indexes because of the exceptional profitability of growth stocks.
We are now probably at a turning point, where risks are higher in the event of a market reversal. It is likely that Dimensional’s ETF would be somewhat less impacted than traditional MSCI World and S&P 500 ETFs.
I regularly listen to PWL podcasts (from PWL in Canada), and I would especially highlight episode 86, titled “Diversification, the Value Premium and the Importance of the Profitability Factor.” The podcast is called “Capital Topics,” and you can find it here: Capital Topics – Episode 86
They discuss the importance of the profitability factor and the fact that Dimensional Fund Advisors now places greater emphasis on it.
This podcast also exists in French under the name “Sujet Capital.”
I also found this German video about the same fund: YouTube video about the fund
But there is one point that bothers me: it is an accumulating ETF and it is not listed in ICTax. So how do you handle it for your tax declaration?
Dimensional ETFs are relatively recent. Do you think they will be added to ICTax in the near future? How do you handle the tax declaration if it is not available?
You can always send them an e-mail and ask them to add it. They normally do that.
Well, it only launched in Nov 2025 and already reached almost 700M in AUM in 6 months, so I guess we can expect it to be there for the 2026 Tax season.
@Jarvis , what would be your plan in terms of allocation % to this core?
The thing that is not ideal imo is that it is mostly covering developed markets with a light, discretional allocation to EM.
I would love to see a UCITS version of DFAW (all world, factor tilted fund of funds: World Equity ETF | Dimensional)
In terms of allocation, I think DEGC can replace an MSCI World-type index, even though I agree that it does not cover Emerging Markets. Nothing prevents adding an Emerging Markets ETF alongside it if one wants to be fully internationally diversified.
I am also tempted to add their small-cap ETF (DEGT), but only in small proportions (maximum 10%).
Given the volatility and the risks weighing on the markets, I think it is useful to add a significant allocation to bonds (possibly through ETFs). In the event of a financial crisis, these bonds would also decline, but less sharply than stock market indices, making it possible to rebalance the portfolio (from bonds into equity indices).
I believe it is important to write down one’s investment plan, review it regularly, and make sure to follow it strictly (I am still working on that plan).
May I ask where you saw that the AUM is 700M?
I checked on justETF and couldn’t find anything there, while extraETF indicates 1.1B. Thanks
What kind of bonds are you thinking of/suggesting? And denominated in CHF, USD, …?
If you anticipate your bonds to decline during a crash, it would be a lot better to just hold cash and rebalance with that. No decline.
Safe government bonds usually go up during a major crisis, that isn’t inflationary.
So as crash protection and for rebalancing some medium term swiss government bonds are probably not a bad idea. They exhibit a flight to safety effect normally. They are also tax efficient for us due to low yield.
Aggregate bonds have quite a bit of credit risk, so aren’t sure to go up during a crisis and if they do, not as much as safe government bonds. Also they are more tax inefficient at the current yield environment. (You pay tax on the ~4% yield, but due to expected CHF apreciating, your exepcted net return is basically 0, while you are still taxed)
My bad, sorry, i misread the number from total market cap of the funds holdings (700bn) .. the current AUM seems to be 1.5bn as of eo april: Global Core Equity UCITS ETF (Acc.) | Dimensional
Hi Ilpiccone, no problem. 
To Tony: I’m not particularly expecting a market crash, which is why I think it’s preferable to put money to work by investing it in bonds (at least part of it). Otherwise, if you just keep cash on the side and there’s no crash, your wealth loses value because of inflation. And you wait… And wait… And wait…
It seems better to have an allocation to bonds, and if there is a crash, the decline in bonds is generally more moderate than with stocks. That makes it possible to do a rebalancing and then benefit again from future stock market recoveries.
As for bonds, I still think it makes sense to seek some level of performance (high yield). But the details and the currency exposure is really a matter of risk appetite. One can use ETFs for this.
The thing is, you don’t really get much yield in CHF. Even a pure coporate bond etf CHCORP has only 1.2% yield currently. And that one will have a lot of market risk.
If you are looking for convex asset classes (along equities) that might allow to look into managed future products (like DBMF). They implement trend following across a wide array of asset classes. They can produce positive returns in prolonged bear and bull markets. Thought, They tend to struggle in choppy and sideway markets.
In a longer bear market you can sell mf and rebalance into „cheaper“ equities.
No silver bullet but an interesting alternative/addition to almost zero yield cash/bond allocations.
Not sure if it makes sense to add such complex product to a beginner’s portfolio.
But I think we’re moving away from the original topic. For a bond discussion, there is the Short guide to CHF fixed income options
I used to calculate the taxable income myself (on others, not this fund though).
How did you do that?
I’s be scared to make an error.
Been a couple of years, so I couldn’t explain it in detail off the top of my head. To provide some pointers though, I briefly consulted ESTV Kreisschreiben 25 and 24 (the latter of which seems to have been removed from their website now though?) and obtained the numbers from the fund’s annual report.
For the large issuers, e.g. Xtrackers, iShares, the reports can be hundreds of pages, for many dozens of subfunds and share classes within the “umbrella” structure, though you need just a couple of pages.
Basically, you’re just looking for the income figure from the annual report and work out a per-share figure. No rocket science, if you work diligently, there were no corporate actions complicating things and you got a hang of how these annual reports are structured.
Sometimes (often?), certain subfunds/share classes from the same entity are included in ICTAX. You can do the calculation for those and verify if your results match.
Disclaimer: these were relatively small positions for me (four or five digit range, no synthetic replication). That said, the tax authority always accepted them without raising any questions.
Or you ask ictax to add it and they will do.
As has been said above (but I didn’t know back then), yes.
I still might be up to do it myself though, if I don‘t want to wait.
