Finpension (2nd/3rd pillar investing)

Thanks, you have different situation with double move. You technically did transfer from old employer (B) to new employer (A)

You are referring to Descartes Vorsorge, which covers 3a and vested benefits. Unfortunately, the page is only in German and French. But the info you get is quite detailed. You do not have to look for PDFs to get an idea regarding portfolio details or performance. It is all interactively and digitally laid out:

As you can have more than one 3a account, Descartes could be an interesting alternative to the other digital providers, which mostly invest passively through ETFs. You could use them to diversify your asset manager risk as their investment approach is quite unique: ESG and low volatility.

But Viac (and Finpension) invest roughly 73% in the Swiss and US stock markets (for 100% equity exposure). Too me, a globally diversified portfolio looks different. In other words, you simply bet on two regions and Tech.

Viac forces to overweight Switzerland. With Finpension, you can replicate MSCI ACWI.

How does it look?

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I love how the descartes solution managed to lose 8% in 2020. Did they sell their stocks in march?
+1 for passive investing!

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Maybe in their preset strategies. Otherwise they don’t.

VIAC enforces a minimum 40% share in Swiss Francs - though that can achieved by choosing non-Swiss equity funds with currency hedging.

Finpension does not. You can have literally 99% non-Swiss equity. If you want, you can also omit the U.S altogether.

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A globally diversified portfolio does not look like the Viac portfolio with 40% Swiss equity. And the MSCI ACWI might be global, but surely is not diversified. 57% US stocks and 22% in tech? No thanks. Bulk risks everywhere.

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A diversified portfolio should hold 57% in US equities.

Taking on bets against certain sectors is a good way to take on additional idiosyncratic risk.

Why fo you think it is a good idea to underweight Alphabet and overweight Volkswagen in a portfolio?

Market cap weighting is the most commonly used investment strategy (for a reason). Deviating from it would require some pretty strong argument.

I think we all have more assets invested outside of 3a. So 40% CH within 3a will give you way less overall. I see no problem there.

There are a couple of papers on home bias from Vanguard. They looked at UK, Japan, Switzerland, Canada and a couple of other countries. Having a 20% home bias didn’t harm.

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Really? Research has shown again and again that - historically - even an equally-weighted portfolio has outperformed cap-weighted indexes. That answers your question regarding Volkswagen and Google.

And why would I want to invest in the SMI or SPI. Huge bulk risks with NESN, ROGN, NOVN! Not very smart.

And what about DAX 30 with Wirecard?

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…only for market-cap based diversification.

The concentration risk in doing so is substantial, no matter how you downplay it by saying such investment has worked well in the past.

It is if you think market-cap based investing is the only one not posing such risk.

Concentration risk.

In the case of the U.S.A, it’s a country that came dangerously close to a coup d’état and having its vice president killed by a violent mob while during fulfilling his constitutional duties in the parliament building …just weeks ago.

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Countries are just human constructs. Does it really matter where Nestle is located for example? Their revenue isn’t based on where their headquarter is.

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An equal weighted portfolio will likely have exposure to other risk factors such as size and value.

An equal weighted portfolio is not really practical because it is a high turnover strategy and will cost more to implement.

Changing the allocation from cap weight because of some arbitrary criteria that has no expectation to increase the expected return will just increase the cost of the strategy and introduce unnecessary judgment calls.

Judgment calls introduce additional behavioural risks that could cost you much more than you anticipate.

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Agreed, 20% home bias might be ok. But 40% (double!)? Not really.

And let’s not forget that the Swiss SPI is not very diversified and does not provide a representative picture of the Swiss economy. Accordingly, it is prone to swings of large caps as witnessed by the 20% correction of CSGN.

Might be true, but cap-weighted indexing has risks as well. Failed Wirecard in the DAX 30 and troubled CS in the SMI. Do you want to have those kind of risks in your pension money? I happily pass the buck.

But if you had underweighted USA, you would have had more in CS or Wirecard than a market cap fund.

Every company can fail.

A VT holds probably less than 1% of each of those companies. So basically Wirecard was a loss of max 1% last year and CS will not fail totally so quickly.

That is the beauty of index investing, 7000+ companies for less than a buck. You can’t do much better. Best return per unit of time I would say.

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So, you basically confirm my initial argument that the global portfolios by VIAC and Finpension with 40% Swiss equity are inefficient.

Ya but your 3a makes up how much of your portfolio ? 10% ? 5% ?

With a decent savings rate, your 3a (or at least the 40% swiss tilt) should become nearly negligible in no time…