well, it’s not about the security bits.
I just don’t want to play with currency exchanges and other potential dangers (dual taxation(?), pushing papers across borders (hello covid), etc.).
My best alternative is that I’ll do this over IB manually (and not perfectly split) and that seems much less potential trouble at first sight.
Franky, I look it just the other way round.
I’d be much more „relaxed“ at a German broker, especially with limited knowledge.
Double taxation? There is none. Unless, maybe, you’re German and moved to Switzerland only to save taxes or possibly keep real estate there (but these are the personal circumstances that are largely true for the U.S. as well). Compare that to all the discussions (and FUD?) we‘ve had about U.S. inheritance tax at IBKR.
Currency conversion: It simply isn’t that straightforward or intuitive at IBKR. I‘ve struggled in their interface and had to read up on currency pairs in the beginning, and even got it wrong once. Sure, they‘ve only lately simplified things a bit with their customer portal.
Paperwork: IBKR makes you sign a whole lot more disclaimers and waivers - or dismiss warning popups in trading. Only few days ago has somebody asked about it on the forum.
Potential dangers: Margin accounts and their display of positive and negative currency „positions“ on IBKR. We‘ve also read about the pitfalls about it on the forum. Ticker symbols are another thing, whereas ISIN or WKN are rather straightforward.
Now don‘t get me wrong, I do like IBKR for what it is. It‘s great if you can work with or around the complexities of their interface and options or have mastered them. It’s a professional platform with a huge range of tradable securities, at very affordable commissions/costs (mostly). That’s why I‘m a customer with them: cheap yet reasonably trustworthy, large selection on offer, professional and targeted at professional. That comes with a price though. In my opinion it’s one of the least beginner-friendly options - and one of the least „relaxing“ ones.
PS: I regularly change a 4-or 5-figure amounts in CHF to EUR anyway. At IBKR. From there, everything else is „automated“ on a monthly basis. I have set up a standing order to transfer a certain amount to a EUR each month - and from that account the ETF savings plans are directly debited. So it’s actually very easy for me.
Same here, I also believe in further diversification but with the traditional ETFs such as Vanguard it is somewhat not an easy game. For instance if you have a lot of VT like me there is not much advantage in going for VWO. That’s why for my strategy 2021 I am planning to get a one time 15k of FEET and see how it goes from there.
Interesting to keep in mind. I wouldn’t go for it now due to its small size but the TER is reasonable.
This one reminds me a lot of VCR which similarly has an excellent performance this year on consumer discretionary but CEMG has the added benefit of including EM where VCR is only US if I remember correctly. Still CEMG feels a bit expensive with a TER of 0.6%.
Another quick noob question. I’m setting up my portfolio in Degiro. In made the simulation in justetf, based on the info/portfolio in the forum (VWRL/SMMCHA/CSBGC7).
My question is about the iShares Swiss Domestic Government Bond 3-7. I can’t find it in Degiro, only the CSBGC0 (iShares Swiss Domestic Government Bond 7-15).
Any reason why it doesn’t exist?
In any case why would you hold that? Avg YTM is negative (and 0.1% ter). Are you betting on rates going even more negative?
I like the challenge! Just kidding, you’re totally right. I’m just wondering why one show in Degiro and the other not. Just to understand how it works.
Quick update:
I never had that much peace of mind with money in my whole life. Just turning 41, it’s better late than never…
Thanks again everyone for all the support, knowledge sharing, and great discussions!
(stay tune for the next episode, when I would have lost all my money in a bad investment in TSLA because of @Bojack… 
just kidding!)
Congrats on the sound start!
Only question is:
Why bonds?
I’d rather hold cash TBH…
Also quite some home bias - what is your argument for that?
Which strategy did you go for? or do you have a customer strategy?
Congrats! Myself I am still not quite finished or even decided about my 2021 strategy…
Easy one for 2021 and I’ll try to stick to it:
Peculiar choice…would you mind sharing more details on what it is and why you’d like to invest in it?
I agree on this…it seems that CSBGC0 has an average yield to maturity of -0.50%
…add 0.15% TER plus the income taxes on dividends and it will probably end up costing more than 1%/year…
in comparison cash looks a much better investment to me
I don’t think that’s actually the return since the fund is selling the bond when it has 7 years of maturity left. I’d be very interested in knowing if the “average yield for the duration where the bond is held” is a metric that’s available (and does it have a name?)
(I guess this could be computed from the BNS yield curves? looking at Switzerland Government Bonds - Yields Curve assuming the curve is linear between 7 and 15 years that would give roughly -0.45% which is a tiny bit better than -0.50?)
In the long term, I’d like the structured products to be around 5% of my portfolio. A more “tactical” portion.
Investments would be limited to:
For a Swiss tax investor, the option premium is tax free.
Using a Swiss broker, the subscription is not subject to the Swiss stamp tax, neither the redemption.
Cons:
Honestly I didn’t think too much about. The idea was to take the basis strategy and balanced explained in the different lectures (here, boggleheads forums & books) and at least start. I’ll adjust if needed in the future as my skills expand. I hesitated a lot to just go full VWRL on this one, maybe I’ll adapt…
Just personal preference. Totally subjective. Let’s start with what I understand and now, feel comfortable about it, and then expand. It may be a weird thinking but I feel like the impact of my money is more “closer” that way… It will probably evolved as I expand my knowledge and confidence as well.
you’re point about cash bring my another question that I struggle to deal with and read a lot in here. What’s the point of holding cash instead of investing it somewhere or in something? Is it a security, or consider to lower the risk profil of your portfolio? Even if the inflation by definition devalue this cash in any case?
Reduce volatility and opportunity to rebalance. If you’re comfortable with larger swings and don’t need the money in the next 10y+ something more aggressive might work for you.
The point is that the risk adjusted returns of CHF bonds is definitely negative (before inflation), so there’s little advantage compared to cash (though ok confederation bonds are potentially safer for large amount of money, which is why some people do actually buy those since they don’t have other choice).
Thank you, it make sense. In other terms, to be sure I understood correctly : holding cash is not an investment by itself, but give flexibility to buy/sell (it’s what rebalance is, correct?) when needed. So it’s still “active” money, never a huge amount, therefor inflation is not really an issue here. Compare to a bond with negative return…
Is it correct?
Short answer is: yes, correct.
Given that in these crazy times almost all Swiss bonds give negative returns it makes more sense to “invest” the bond portion of your assets in cash rather than bonds. You can see cash as a bond with 0 returns, which is probably the best bond you can get right now.
Concerning rebalancing, it’s just the process of periodically readjusting your portfolio so that the asset allocation fits your plan.
Let’s say that you plan (based on your risk profile) to have 85%stock and 15%bonds.
It can happen for example that after a stock market crash you’ll find yourself with 70% stocks (because they lost value) and 30% bonds (because maybe they didn’t). At that point you’d “rebalance” your portfolio by selling some bonds and buying more stocks so that you go back to the planned 85-15 proportion. I hope it makes sense…
But I wouldn’t get too hung up on these details, this is wisdom:
Perfect sense. Exactly how I understood it, but explained way better 
Thanks a lot
