No one knows. Sometimes tough times lead to good times. Time will tell.
When speaking of swiss stocks, international opportunism and trying very hard to not pick sides but do business wherever and whenever it is profitable may outpace being a partisan side in a conflict for economic supremacy by bigger powers (granted, that doesn’t apply to EU stocks as a whole).
That the US have been on the winning side of the economic wars so far doesn’t mean they’ll keep doing so.
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When it comes to optimizing my ETF investments at IBKR I am thinking about reducing the number of ETFs. I have AVUV, AVDV, etc, sveral recommended here. Aventis has combined some of their ETFs to single funds such as AVGV Avantis All Equity Markets Value ETF. This is a fund of funds. Does it effect us as Swiss residendts tax wise? Is it more complicated than a single world fund such as VT when it comes to the tax declaration and withholding taxes?
AVGV -: seems to be new. But I don’t think it is any different than any other US ETF in terms of tax declaration. Based on the fact sheet it seems it’s benchmarked against MSCI IMI Value Index.
I would recommend to ask ICTAX team to add this to their database. This would ensure you don’t have any problems.
I think fund of fund is just a fund structure. In the end ETF is a unit of the final entity.
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This is the correct assessment. No difference for us in Switzerland if it’s a single fund or a fund of funds.
Also generally a good idea in my eyes. AVGV makes a good pairing to VT.
AVGV is a fund of fund structure which has benefit for foreign tax credits from non US equity components of AVGV for US residents. So if you are Swiss resident, and no US connection there is no additional benefit or disadvantage over VT at a fund level.
The TER that AVGV fact sheet states includes/ assumes the TER of underlying funds. So it is not a 2 layer expense.
Thanks for your answers. Aventis and Dimensional have some good funds of funds ETFs. I think for Americans there is an advantage for tax purposes, for me it’s enough if there is no disadvantage for us in Switzerland with this structure. There is so much hype about Aventis in the US, very strange.
Swissquote/PF have the wall of text to accept acknowledging that Avantis funds are “only distributed to qualified investors in Switzerland”. I don’t know why this is the case, would have bought into them otherwise,
Does the same text appear for all other US domiciled ETFs?
Haven’t check many, but does apply to many like VT for example. Says something along the lines of acknowledging not being domiciled or having a head office in Switzerland.
It’s because the US ETFs are sold in Switzerland under “execution only” mode and they might not have all the information needed for Retail investors. Such information exists for UCITS ETFs.
This basically would mean that person buying the ETF should know what they are buying. Brokers wouldn’t be responsible
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Yes, that’s what I thought going down the wall of text, but again I struggle with acknowledging myself not being domiciled in Switzerland, as this would be lying.
I never heard something about not being domiciled in CH. When you fill the form, you already mention you are domiciled in CH.
This is the text I get: SWISSQUOTE
This is the line I am referring to: “YOU CONFIRM THAT YOU KNOW THAT THE FUNDS SHOWN ON THE PAGES ON NACH FUNDS ARE NOT AUTHORISED FOR DISTRIBUTION IN SWITZERLAND.
The information published on the pages on NACH funds is exclusively intended for qualified investors as defined by KAG. By accepting the present Terms and conditions, you certify that you are not domiciled nor do you have your head office in Switzerland, nor in a jurisdiction in which NACH funds are not authorised. For your information, it is specifically stated that the pages on NACH funds are not intended for “U.S. persons”. If you are a “U.S. person”, you are not authorised to consult the NACH funds pages.”.
I don’t know what this means, it says that the funds are not authorized for distribution in Switzerland, does this have to do with the fact that the exchange listed for buying them is NYSE then? I buy BRK.B on NYSE and never had this message. My problem is the part about “certifying that I am not domiciled in Switzerland”, because I am and the bank knows that!
I’ve also seen this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/eupersonalfinance/comments/1b5qaaf/switzerland_nach_funds/
And this one here: NACH funds disclaimer meaning?
Neither offer a real explanation, in particular to what exactly I’d be acknowledging/claiming/agreeing to.
This thread says it is about allowing Swissquote to pass on my data to the fund providers, but I am not reading it this way at all: NACH Fonds Schweiz Vertrieb? - moneyland.ch
Looking at this line “These funds can only be distributed in Switzerland to qualified investors in accordance with the Swiss federal law on collective capital investments (hereinafter “KAG”). Under no circumstances does the information on funds not authorised in Switzerland shown on Swissquote’s website constitute an offer to non-qualified investors as defined by KAG whose domicile or head office is in Switzerland.
Qualified investors are […]” - not me!
I get that the bit about showing these funds on the PF/SQ app does not constitute an offer. Duh. It’s some sort of ass covering.
In short, this message has stopped me from buying a few things I’d like to because I take the most restrictive way to interpret what it appears to say I’d be agreeing to.
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I see.
I think it’s best to check with SQ help. I was told explicitly that SQ allows Swiss residents to buy US domicile funds.
This sounds like some sort of disclaimer but it should not say “you are not domiciled in CH” …… a bit strange
Do you have to agree to that disclaimer when/before ordering?
I guess so, didn’t click it so far because I was afraid a black hole would materialize in the centre of Aargau and swallow us all. The “Trade” button which needs to be hit when buying something new leads to that disclaimer. I may send a message to support, not very fussed to be honest.
And just like that, even values higher than 4% work for every portfolio, no matter the size.
Question about compounding and TER: let’s say I want to invest CHF 1000 into a world ETF for 10 years. If I had to pay CHF 10 transaction costs, buying that ETF didn’t cost me CHF 10, but what I would have had if I invested those CHF 10 also. With rule of thumb of a doubling each 10 years, that would mean CHF 20.
Now, what about TER? Let’s say TER was 1%. I could simply calculate CHF 1000 × 1% × 10 years = CHF 100, or I could use the same compounding like in the example with transaction costs.
The way I see it, the latter would be correct, right? Money that is not eaten away by TER stays invested and compounds, or am I looking at this the wrong way?