What's best to do with euros sitting around

Here is my 2 cents on that. I have a position in Euro as well and it’s invested in the Euro VWRL which pays dividends to a Euro bank account that I use when traveling. Since I (and you probably too) will have a need for Euros when traveling, that’s where the cash comes from.

As far as I know, VWRL always distributes dividends in USD (the internal fund currency), independent of the trading currency you used to buy the ETF. Your broker might automatically convert the distributed USD to EUR but I don’t see an inherent advantage of this approach, unless this automatic conversion by the broker has lower fees than if you were to spend/withdraw EUR from a CHF card/account or convert manually.

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Sorry everyone, but either I missed the point or everybody else did. You were saying that these money are invested in a fund at Postfinance. What kind of fund?

Currency of the fund matters ~0% - whether it’s denominated in EUR/CHF/USD.

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You‘re right :face_in_clouds: they convert it directly.

At least it’s feeding itself, but maybe you all are right and it’s not as smart as I thought.

Not sure this is important given that the main point is that PF self-service funds are expensive to buy, expensive to have (custody fees) and, in my case, were not beating the market benchmark. My experience was like this, starting in Dec 2019:

  • A EUR bond based fund (DE0008475047) sold 18 months later at -15% (and thank you because it got down to -20%). I’m not even counting custody fees.
  • 2 equity funds (aiming growth and ESG based) with a positive though poor return after almost 4 years (way below what growth means). Again, expensive fund, expensive custody fees, etc…

Add to the above a 6% depreciation EUR-CHF and you find a fantastic example on why I think is not a good idea to hold massive assets in EUR when you live in Switzerland. In my defence I shall say that I have (had?) no financial education and I thought this was a okish passive strategy while I tried to survive adapting to CH.

The comparison now to a setup with IBKR and ETFs (CHSPI + VT or VOO) + money market funds is embarrassing… I guess it’s never too late when it comes to discover Mustachian Post :slight_smile:

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Can confirm, i get USD on Swissquote from VWRL in CHF

That’s not what you have put in the title.

Here you had an exposure to Eur and you were hit by EUR depreciation and rising rates!

This should have produced a market return according to what they hold. Minus fees, of course. But the CHF return of these funds should not be affected by Euro depreciation. Unless they are hedged in EUR? :thinking::scream:

Well, apologies for the title if it was not accurate but I don’t think it’s far… I was just trying to get some advice on how to not “lose” with savings in EUR. In other words, what Mustachians advise in such a case, thus my words about giving up and exchanging them for CHF.

Exactly. For the rising rates and bonds I did not ask anything. Again, the point of the post is about asking people what would they do with savings in EUR after such bad experience.

Well, yes, that’s the thing. Everything was in EUR (bonds and equity funds) because I never exchanged them, so I lost not only due to the performance of the funds (not the point here), but also, and this is the thing, because EUR-CHF keeps depreciating since years.

Apologies if it was misleading but I was just trying to look for some advice on what would people do with savings in EUR when living in CH. Given some useful answers I got on this post about exactly that, I don’t think I was very far from a proper explanation. Sorry for the confusion.

Well, anyway, it’s clear that you know what you should do. So, gather your courage, bite the bullet and do it. Your wealth will thank you.

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For all of you EUR hoarders, on Monday EURCHF has hit a new all time low at 0.92112, and CHFEUR a new ATH at 1.0841.

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It turned out differently. What have you finally done?

In November, EURCHF went down to 0.92054, the new lowest value outside of Frankenschock dip.

A shame Switzerland lower the tax free shopping in neighbouring countries to 150 chf / person !
It sounds like it is always on sales while visiting friends or family.

Still cheaper than buying stuff in CH.

Especially if you can recover EU VAT (usually higher than Swiss VAT)

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It’s almost becoming impossible in Geneva to recover French VAT when travelling from france by train.
Not sure if it is better by plane.

Recovering comes at a cost if you do it through a third party (Global Blue, Planet, …). So you have to calculate well (how much VAT do I get back vs. how much do I have to pay to Swiss authorities).

I guess my Crystal ball is broken :wink: I bought maybe 3-4k EUR back in 2022, and spent those during EU vacations. I don’t hold foreign currency for investment purposes, only short-mid term when I have spending planned in said currency.

I am considering importing a car from either EU (Germany) or the US, given the current EURCHF rate, this might actually be quite attractive.

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Despite my salary is in CHF, I invest in the EURO replica(sort of) of VT: IWDA . Perhaps I should consider converting everything in USD but I am not sure it is a good idea if you plan to live in Europe.
You can find other european ETFs at justetf.com.

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