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The best ETF Portfolio for Switzerland in 2024

Baptiste Wicht | Updated: |

(Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links)

Before investing in the stock market, you must choose a portfolio. In Switzerland, you will likely invest in index funds via Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). For this, you must decide on a good ETF Portfolio for a Swiss investor.

Choosing a good portfolio is an important decision. You must invest in a portfolio with low fees, high diversification, and good returns. And you should be careful about keeping it simple!

While there are many examples of ETF Portfolios for the United States, there are few examples for Switzerland. So, it is not trivial to choose one.

In this article, we review the details of choosing an ETF Portfolio for Switzerland. And at the end of the article, I give you an example of what I think is the best ETF Portfolio for Switzerland.

Choosing an ETF Portfolio for Switzerland

Choosing an ETF portfolio is an essential step when investing in the stock market. You should keep the same portfolio for a very long time. So, you need to choose carefully.

If you live in the United States, you will have seen tons of examples of ETF portfolios. But if you live in Switzerland, you probably have not seen that many of them.

And if you live in Switzerland or Europe, you cannot blindly follow a portfolio from another country. We cannot compare Switzerland with the United States. Our stock market is 20 times smaller. And in some other countries, it is even smaller than that. So we cannot invest in the same way.

For me, the best ETF Portfolio for Switzerland has two essential parts:

  1. An ETF representing the entire world stock market. Or it holds two ETFs, one for the Developed World and one for the Emerging Markets, but not more than two.
  2. An ETF representing the domestic Swiss stock market. This part of your portfolio is called your home bias.

With these two parts, you can have a very diversified yet simple portfolio. This portfolio is what I am investing in and what I recommend people to invest in.

We will see a few things in detail before I review the ETFs that form the best ETF portfolios for Switzerland.

Home Bias

A good ETF Portfolio for Switzerland should have some domestic stocks. This allocation will be your home bias.

The main reason for this is related to currency. Since the Swiss Franc is a stable currency, other currencies tend to depreciate against the Swiss Franc. If your entire portfolio is in USD, you may lose much value. So having an ETF in your local currency will help you.

Of course, you could hold only Swiss stocks in Swiss francs, and you will not have this issue. But having only Swiss stocks is not a great idea. A lot of Swiss companies are exporting to other countries. It means their performance is subject to currency exchanges.

The Swiss stock market is tiny, about 2.5% of the world’s stock market. So do you want to bet your entire portfolio on 2.5% of the world?

Finally, the Swiss stock market had lower performance than the world stock market historically. So if you only invest in Swiss stocks, you will need a larger portfolio to sustain your expenses.

Another way of reducing the currency risk is to use ETFs that are hedged to CHF. But currency hedging is expensive and is generally not the best tool for long-term investing.

So, how much should you allocate to your home bias?

Between 20% and 40% should be allocated to a Swiss Stock ETF. 10% is probably OK, but anything below 10% will not make enough of a difference to bother with it. 50% is also probably okay, but you are making a large bet on the Swiss Stock market with such a large allocation. It is why between 20% and 40% is a reasonable allocation.

In my ETF Portfolio for Switzerland, I have 20% of Swiss Stocks. Currently, I am pretty satisfied with this. I may consider bumping it to 25%, but no further.

I have done simulations of early retirement in Switzerland with Swiss Stocks. If you look at the results, this will also confirm the 20% to 40% bias.

For more information, I have an article about whether you should have a home bias in your portfolio.

What about bonds?

Swiss bonds have been in negative territory for several years in the past. However, as of 2023, Swiss bonds are once again interesting. It remains to be seen for how long, but it now makes to invest in bonds again.

Not everybody needs bonds in their portfolios. Indeed, this depends on your risk capacity. Personally, I do not own bonds. My portfolio is 100% stocks. But this does not mean it is a good portfolio for everybody. It is a good portfolio for me, with my risk capacity.

Using your risk capacity, you can choose your asset allocation. An asset allocation is the percentage of each asset in your portfolio. In our current, this will be the percentage of bonds and stocks.

Bonds are great for reducing volatility in your portfolio. They are especially useful in the early years of retirement when risks are higher for your portfolio.

What about foreign bonds?

Some people try to invest in foreign bonds instead. But doing so is not a good idea. I made this mistake myself. The problem with international bonds is that they will incur an additional currency risk to your portfolio.

When you invest in bonds, you want the bonds to lower the volatility of your portfolio. You want your bonds to help you when the stock market is not doing well. But if you add currency risk on top of that, you will not achieve this goal.

So, investing in foreign bonds is a lousy alternative to Swiss bonds for an ETF portfolio for Switzerland.

Alternatives to Swiss Bonds

If you do not want bonds but want to reduce volatility, there are several solutions to emulate bonds:

  1. Allocate some of your Swiss Portfolio to cash. Currently, cash is better than bonds. Of course, it is not great since it is still losing value due to inflation. But it still beats losing money with Swiss bonds.
  2. Invest in your second pillar. Most second pillar accounts offer around a 1% interest rate. And you will have some tax advantages as well. For me, this is the best alternative to Swiss bonds.
  3. Invest in gold. Gold has better returns than the second pillar and the Swiss bond market. And there are some excellent Gold ETFs. So you can directly invest in gold in your ETF Portfolio. But gold is not risk-free and can be quite volatile at times.

Of these three options, I prefer investing in my second pillar. But the second pillar has three limitations. First, it is limited because you cannot invest a limitless amount. Secondly, you will not be able to get the money before you retire. Therefore, it is not ideal for early retirement. Also, you can only get tax advantages if you have not withdrawn from the second pillar. And without tax advantages, the second pillar is not great.

So, I would recommend starting with your second pillar. And then, you can allocate some part of your ETF portfolio for Switzerland into gold. Or you can bump a little your cash allocation until you feel at ease.

How to choose ETFs

For each position in your portfolio, there will be several choices for you. There are many ETFs for each stock market index. So, how can you choose between these ETFs?

There are several things you need to look at:

  • The Total Expense Ratio (TER) of the fund is how much fees you will pay each year.
  • The domicile of the fund is the country from which the ETF comes from.
  • The size of the fund. You generally want large funds for smaller spreads and higher liquidity. But do not pay too much attention to the detail. A fund managing two billion dollars is not better than a fund managing a single billion. On the other hand, a fund managing 10 million is less attractive than one managing 200 million.
  • The way the ETF is replicating the index. You only want to invest in funds with Physical Replication.
  • The way the ETF is handling dividends. A fund can either distribute or accumulate dividends. In Switzerland, you will pay the same taxes for both, mostly a matter of preference. I prefer distributing funds to get the cash once I need it in retirement. And this cash will also help me with rebalancing.

One excellent resource to find and compare ETFs is justetf.com. They have an extensive list of ETFs, and you can compare the information on different ETFs in a very convenient way.

For more detail about this process, I have an article about choosing and comparing ETFs.

The best ETF Portfolio for Switzerland

Now, we have covered the most important aspects of designing an ETF portfolio. Thus, we can finally go over the details of the ETFs.

Now, remember that this is only an example, which only reflects my way of investing. Therefore, this portfolio may not be the best ETF Portfolio for Switzerland for everybody. And remember that I am not a personal advisor and that you should still do your research and not merely copy what I am doing.

Here is what I consider to be the best ETF Portfolio for Switzerland:

  • 80% World ETF
  • 20% Swiss Stocks ETF

This portfolio is extremely simple and highly diversified. As I said, the percentages can vary. Between 20% and 40% allocated to Swiss stocks is a good range. So you could go 25/75 or 60/40, for instance. Anything between 20% and 40% would be fine. Adding more Swiss stocks will reduce your currency risk but reduce your returns.

Now, we can look into the ETFs. Which one you use will depend on whether you can access U.S. ETF. Then, we will see how to add bonds to the mix.

ETF Portfolio with U.S. ETFs

If you have access to U.S. ETFs, for instance, with Interactive Brokers, I recommend the following ETFs:

  • Vanguard Total World (VT) for the World ETF with a TER of 0.07%
  • iShares Core SPI (CHSPI) for the Swiss Stocks ETF with a TER of 0.10%

With this portfolio, you will have very low fees and high diversification. You also have the advantage of saving 15% of the U.S. dividends on VT. Saving on dividends will make a significant difference compared to the other portfolio. It is some extra optimization that you can do to your portfolio. But in the grand scheme of things, it will not change everything.

As an example, my allocation of 20% to Swiss Stocks would give this ETF Portfolio for Switzerland:

  • 80% Vanguard Total World (VT)
  • 20% iShares Core SPI (CHSPI)

This portfolio is the current portfolio I am investing in.

If you wonder why I talk about U.S. ETFs, here is why U.S. ETFs are great.

ETF Portfolio without U.S. ETFs

If you do not have access to U.S. ETFs, I recommend the following ETFs:

  • Vanguard FTSE All-World UCITS ETF Distributing (VWRL) with a TER of 0.22%
  • iShares Core SPI (CHSPI) for the Swiss Stocks ETF with a TER of 0.10%

With my allocation of 20% Swiss Stocks, this would give:

  • 80% VWRL
  • 20% CHSPI

This portfolio would be the one I would be using if I were not investing in U.S. ETF. If you want to be cheaper, you can choose one ETF for the developed world and one ETF for the emerging markets. That way, you can save a little on TER. But I prefer to have only two ETFs, even if the fees are slightly more expensive.

This portfolio has two disadvantages over the one with U.S. ETFs:

  • The TER is about twice more expensive.
  • You will lose 15% of the U.S. dividends because you will not profit from the double-taxation tax treaty since the funds are not in the United States. This difference is more significant than the first one. But this difference is often ignored by many investors.

If you can, you should probably invest in U.S. ETFs. But I want to emphasize something that many elitists will not tell you: Investing in a good portfolio is much more important than investing in the perfect portfolio!

If your broker does not give you access to U.S. ETFs and you do not want to change, then invest with European ETFs!

ETF Portfolio with bonds

Now, what is the best ETF portfolio with bonds for a Swiss investor?

We can take an example with a reasonable 20% bond allocation. This is a common bond allocation that does not decrease too much your portfolio returns and still reduces volatility.

There are two ways to integrate your bonds in your portfolio regarding your home bias (if you have any).

First, you could replace your home bias with the bonds part. Indeed, a Swiss bonds ETF would play a similar role to your home bias. In this case, you can opt for a portfolio with:

  • 80% World ETF
  • 20% Swiss Bonds ETF

If you want to combine Home Bias in stocks and Swiss bonds, you have to be careful about not having too much in Swiss stocks and bonds. So, you can either go 20% Swiss Stocks, 20% Swiss Bonds, and 60% World Stocks. If 40% allocated to Switzerland is too much for you, you could also opt for 10% Swiss Stocks, 20% Swiss Bonds, or 70% World Stocks.

Finally, I recommend iShares Swiss Domestic Government Bond 7-15 (CSBGC0) ETF. It has a 0.15% TER, manages about 250M CHF, and has been around for 20 years.

So, with US ETFs, this would give us this portfolio:

  • 80% Vanguard Total World (VT)
  • 20% iShares Swiss Domestic Government Bond 7-15 (CSBGC0)

And if you want to integrate a home bias ETF, you can bring back CHSPI into the mix to craft your perfect portfolio.

Conclusion

You should now have a good idea of what ETFs you need as a Swiss investor. You can now decide on your ETF Portfolio for Switzerland.

The ETF portfolios from this article are just examples of what I recommend. Of course, this portfolio may not be the best ETF Portfolio for everybody. But you should now know enough so that you can do your research and decide for yourself in which ETF Portfolio you want to invest.

And remember: investing in a good portfolio is more important than investing in the best portfolio. If you take years to decide on the best portfolio and delay investing, you lose out on some opportunities. It is better to get started with a good portfolio, and you can refine it over the years.

Of course, you must have a broker account to invest in your ETF Portfolio. If you do not yet have a broker, here is a guide on choosing the best broker account for Switzerland.

If you want more control over your portfolio, I have a guide on creating an ETF portfolio from scratch.

What do you think of this ETF Portfolio for Switzerland? What does your portfolio look like?

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Baptiste Wicht started thepoorswiss.com in 2017. He realized that he was falling into the trap of lifestyle inflation. He decided to cut his expenses and increase his income. This blog is relating his story and findings. In 2019, he is saving more than 50% of his income. He made it a goal to reach Financial Independence. You can send Mr. The Poor Swiss a message here.

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359 thoughts on “The best ETF Portfolio for Switzerland in 2024”

  1. Hello The Poor Swiss,
    Maybe basics, but it is not clear on your recommendation on getting US funds such as VT vs VWRL.SW with the currency risk (USD/CHF going south). In another article you also mention that it is not a good idea to hedge currency; but if I do an exercise with VT vs VWRL.SW it is not so clear that choosing VT is best (see example below not counting IB fees).

    Example:
    (1) VT Purchase
    I buy 100,000 CHF of VT in 12.30.2018 at the price of 66,45, USD/CHF 0,9871. In 03.12.2020, the price is 90,14 but USD/CHF 0,8995. This means that with the currency dropping my return in CHF in 03.12.2020 is drastically reduced to around 3K.
    (2) VWRL.SW Purchase
    I buy 100,000 CHF of VWRL.SW in 12.30.2018 at the price of 74,52 CHF. Without the exchange rate my return is 21K in 03.12.2020.

    Am I missing something. Thanks for your help!

  2. Hello Mr the Poor Swiss,

    I know you are a strong advocate of the VT but I struggle to invest on this fund today with the USD going south.

    I made a quick exercise of investing 100K CHF on 12.30.2018 when VT was priced at 66,45 and USD/CHF at 0,9871. On 03.12.2020 price was 90,14 but USD/CHF at 0,8995 (probably still depreciate in the future). With this difference in Exchange rates I would be left with 3K after +/-2 years. However during the same period, the VWRL.SW which seems to be the same index converted in CHF went from 74,52 to to 90,25 without the exchange risk… 20K profit. Choosing the VWRL.SW in CHF seems a no brainer… or am I missing something?
    Thanks, I am looking to invest in a one fund diversified strategy & not so comfortable to loose all my profit with currency risk.

    Thanks for your advice!
    Sean

    1. Hi Sean,

      It’s not that simple :)

      First, these two funds are not exactly the same
      * The TER is higher on VWRL than on VT
      * VT holds also small caps, while VWRL only holds larger caps. In practice, VT has more than twice the number of stocks of VWRL
      * VT is American, so you can reduce greatly the withholding on dividends, this makes another about 0.15% fee for VWRL

      So, just on this, VT is slightly superior to VWRL.

      Now, VWRL.SW is actually not what you think. It’s exactly the same as VWRL, except that you buy and sell in CHF, converted directly in USD. So, there will be no protection from currency variations in this case.

      What you are looking for is currency hedging. If you buy a World ETF hedged in CHF, you would indeed eliminate the risks of CHF/USD variations. You would also lose out on potential opportunities for these variations.

      One such example is the IWDC ETF from ishares. This is hedged in CHF, so there are no currency risks (to the extent of the currency hedging working). Now, this is an accumulating ETF, so difficult to compare with VT. But we can compare with SWDA which follows the same index but is not hedged:
      * IWDC has an expense ratio of 0.55%, SWDA is 0.20%
      * IWDC is about 733M of assets while SWDA is about 28B, that’s almost two orders of magnitude of difference

      Overall, there is not enough evidence that currency hedging is beneficial for me to use it.

      Now, if you cannot sleep at night without it, currency hedging would be the way to go indeed. But as you can see, it’s not that simple :)

      Thanks for stopping by!

      1. Thanks for pointing all the differences The Poor Swiss. I am in for the long run so really want to ensure that I know what I am doing.

        One question remains in your 5 yr comparison, are the returns you mentioned total in CHF? Maybe I got the math wrong but on my 3 year example the exchange rate was eating almost all the return in CHF. Is there anything that I am not considering here? I was just looking at the price of the index, don’t know how to consider the dividends. Since you started with VT what has been your annualized return in CHF?

        Finally a last question, I am looking to invest 100 K CHF so what will be your advice… I saw on another article you mention that it is best to invest “at once” (Indeed great content in your blog!). How would you split that amount in EFTs? If I understand correctly it is not ideal to invest more than USD 60K on a fund (taxes at your death) so: VT 60%, HSBC 20%, CHSPI 20%?
        I know we never know what will happening but I see many analyst are saying to wait early 2021 to enter in the market as it is already pricing most of the hype… what is your viewpoint?

        Merci!

      2. Hi Sean,

        All the returns I have mentioned are the returns in the fund currency. There are definitely some cases where the difference in the exchange rate could kill all the returns. But it’s also easy to find scenarios where the exchange rate would play in favor of the investor. In the end, the only thing that matters is the average returns in the long-term. One particular scenario is irrelevant. If you are thinking in the long-term, 3-year returns are completely irrelevant and even 10-years are still irrelevant.

        My annualized returns has been about 8% in CHF. But I am a recently new investor and I have sold everything to move from DEGIRO to IB and then sold again everything for our house. So I do not have a good track record yet.

        The 60K limit is wrong. I have an article about the U.S. estate tax.
        Mathematically, the correct solution for long-term investing is always to invest right now and never wait.
        I would not wait, but then I am not you. If you decide to wait, the only thing you need to set is a time limit for your waiting. For instance, you decide to wait until the market has dropped 10% OR June 1st 2021 is there. If you do not put a time limit, you’ll wait too long for a drop that may never occur.

        Thanks for stopping by!

  3. Dear Mr the Poor Swiss,

    Thank you for your blog, I really like it :)

    You convinced me to open an IB account however, I have one doubt. I am a Swiss resident with a B permit, so I do not fill a tax return. Will I have to declare anything to the authorities regarding taxes for investments at IB? Will I be taxed at 35% on any dividends I receive?

    I also assume I will not be able to get some of the witholding taxes back on U.S ETFs because I cannot fill that form since I do not fill a tax return…

    Thank you for your input!

    Carla

  4. Hi Mr. The Poor Swiss,

    Thanks again for the great blog, it is very helpful and I really appreciate the content. It beats by far the advice I have received from PostFinance in the last 5 years.

    Regarding the Swiss part of your ETF portfolio, do you invest in CHSPI also through IB? If so, I believe this fund is priced in CHF, contrary to the VT in USD, right?

    Thank you!

    1. Hi Henry,

      I am glad you like my blog :)
      And I am glad I am beating professional advice :P

      Yes, I also invest in CHSPI through IB, in CHF. My base currency is CHF, so I do not have to convert currency to buy my shares. But when I buy VT, I convert CHF into USD to buy it.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      1. Hello Mr. The Poor Swiss,

        I started to invest just to get a feeling for it and currently use Degiro. I purchased 8 shares of IE00B3RBWM25. I purchased the ETF via SWX and in CHF, is that a good choice? Or should I buy in other currencies and foreign stock exchange?

        Kind regards
        Sherry

      2. Hi

        There is not much difference. The price will be synchronized based on exchange rates.
        The differences will be:
        1) The fees of different stock exchanges are different.
        2) The display currency of your position will be different
        3) The trading volume is likely lower on the SWX. This means that the spread when buying and selling is likely worse
        4) You save on exchange rates (not cheap at DEGIRO)

        But overall, none of these differences are life-changing. So, in the end, it is kind of a matter of personal choice. You could run the math to see the difference it makes, but it’s likely irrelevant.

        Thanks for stopping by!

  5. Dear Mr Poor Swiss,
    First of all, thanks a lot for all the information that you provide. I just moved into Switzerland and converted into FIRE. You can imagine that I read your blog everyday :)
    I have a question about bonds ETFs. I understand your argument about their negative yield which make them bad investment. But They also sell at a discount price at least for some of them, isn’t then the best to purchase them? especially when considering a long term investment?
    Thanks in advance for your answer

    1. Hi Mike,

      Thanks for your kind words :)

      They sell at a discount price, compared to what? Compared to their assets?
      I am mostly talking bout Swiss Bond ETFs, there are other bonds out there that could be worth investing, but they will add on your currency risk which may not be best if you want to reduce the volatility.

      The only “bonds” I want are in my second pillars. My risk capacity allows me to not have bonds in my portfolio. If you still want bonds for volatility reason, you could still purchase them even with negative yields. But I would think that even cash is better right now.
      I do not buy things because they are at a discount price, because I do not know the real price.

      Thanks for stopping by!

  6. Hi PoorSwiss,

    Many thanks for your very insightful posts. I’ve been learning a lot with the blog! I didn’t have previous financial knowledge but, with the help of your blog and other sources, I’ve started investing recently.

    Sorry for the novice question. I’d like to accommodate in my portfolio some Swiss stocks (I live in CH) and I see that you recommend CHSPI for Swiss stocks ETF. However, as I’m using Degiro (I have much less than 100k invested), they seem to offer a different version than the one recommended. It’s called Csam ishares Spi (ch) (Credit Suisse Asset Management). They even ask the user to take an appropriateness test before buying this one… I didn’t find any info (like TER) about this ETF in Degiro’s platform so I’m reluctant to buy this one.

    Questions: do you recommend this ETF and taking the test? Or should we use another ETF to represent the Swiss market? Do you know how can I find further information about a specific ETF in Degiro?

    Cheers,
    Gpamplona

    1. Hi Gpamplona,

      I am glad my blog is helpful to you :)

      That’s weird, if you look for CHSPI in DEGIRO, this is the only one that comes up?
      Looking into this, it seems like it’s the same one, but it still weird.
      You should not have to take a test to invest in an ETF. It may be a mutual fund.
      What happens if you search for ishares SPI in DEGIRO?
      The search in DEGIRO is not great to get information, you can use justetf for that.

      I hope that helps

      1. Hi PoorSwiss,

        Thank you for your kind reply :)

        Yes, I confirm that Csam ishares Spi (ch) (Credit Suisse Asset Management) is the only one that comes up when I search for CHSPI (and ishares SPI) in Degiro. I didn’t find information in JustETF about this ETF, but I also suppose it must be the same. Perhaps now Credit Suisse is the one managing this fund… I hope they don’t change things like the advantageous TER.

        As we are here, would you mind giving a quick opinion about the “magic formula”, introduced by Joel Greenblatt? It seems to me like a good compromise between timing the market and passive investment, but would it be interesting for investors in Switzerland?

        Cheers,
        Gpamplona

      2. Hi gpamplona,

        Thanks for the confirmation. It seems indeed that it’s the same one, just make sure it’s an ETF and not a mutual fund.

        Honestly, I do not really have an opinion on that, I barely heard about that formula. I am not convinced at all. Since 2010, it has shown below-average results. I would not surprised if this formula was simply reverse engineered based on historical performance of the market.
        I would not invest in such a thing, but of course 33% average in the past is nice and it sells, which seems to be the goal.

        Cheers
        Mr. The Poor Swiss

  7. Hi,
    I was wondering if you have considered a mix of VTI (TER=0.03%) + VXUS (TER=0.08%) as alternative for VT (TER=0.08%) to bring down the effective TER? Or are there good reasons for you to go with VT?

    1. Hi Sander,

      That’s a very good question. It’s true that it would bring the TER down. But it will mean one more fund to invest in instead of simply one. And especially, it will mean you will have to rebalance between U.S. and the world. If the U.S. outperforms the world, you would sell some VTI to get more VXUS and the reverse if it happens. You could also let it go, but then you would have an incorrect representation of the world stock market (this could be fine for some people).

      For me, I prefer the simplicity of having a single fund. For very large net worths (>1M), it could make sense indeed. But for me, at this point, I will keep it simple :)

      Thanks for stopping by!

  8. Merci pour cette article!
    Une remarque concernant VWRL,tu parles de la gratuité des transactions sur DEGIRO, mais il s’agit uniquement du fond converti en EUR (et non USD ou CHF) cela ajoute donc un risque de devise, sauf erreur. Dans ma compréhension c’est une mauvaise idée et j’investis donc dans VWRL côté sur le SWX (la bourse suisse).
    Je ne sais pas si mon raisonnement te semble correct?

    1. Hi Trajan53,

      That’s a very good point. The real currency of the Fund is USD. So, getting in USD would make the most sense in my opinion. This is what I would do at least with IB. But with DEGIRO, it’s not very efficient because of the foreign exchange fees.
      But then, you are entirely right that for a Swiss investor, the EUR one is probably not the best choice since you will still exchange fees and have slightly more risk than with the CHF one.
      Now, the risks are not huge. Only USD price matters. So, if the EUR/USD changes, the price in EUR will change, but it will still be worth the same amount in USD. The difference is that now you also have to consider EUR/CHF when you buy and sell.
      In any case, you will have a USD to CHF currency risk.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      P.S. If you can, I would appreciate comments in English.

  9. Hello, thanks for your post! very interesting and well documented

    Why not this world ETF IE00B3RBWM25 with Degiro ?
    There is also no fees… TER is to high ?

    1. Hi John,

      VWRL is a pretty good ETF as well. It’s just 0.07% more fees than the HSBC one. This is why I would not use it.
      Now, if you prefer Vanguard, it’s a good ETF.
      The transaction fees are not that important in the long-term (you still want to optimize them of course), the TER is more important once your portfolio starts to grow.
      But I will mention this in the article, it’s a good point.

      Thanks for stopping by!

  10. Hi PoorSwiss, thanks once again for the nice and interesting article :)

    I am investing in VT as well (easy choice) and I wonder if I should allocate some money on domestic stock ETF. I am considering CHSPI or CHDVD but at the same time, my 3a is under VIAC with a global 100 strategy that is actually allocating 38% into CH.

    so that:
    1) how do you handle your 3a?
    2) don’t you think it would be better to use a CH ETF investing in the medium cap as long as the high cap companies are already present in VT (2.8%)?

    1. Hi Pol,

      Given the fact that my 3a is very small compared to my investment portfolio, I do not account for it in my 20% allocation of Swiss stocks. This counts as extra security and home bias.
      Now, if you really want only 20% of Swiss stocks (or any other allocation), you should indeed account for 40% of your VIAC account as Swiss stocks and buy more stocks accordingly.
      CHSPI will also invest in medium and small companies. But since it is weighted on market capitalization, their percentages will be fairly small.
      The UBS SMIM ETF is pretty good for that if you want to add a hedge to smaller companies in your portfolio.

      Thanks for stopping by!

      1. thank you for your clear answer! I will investigate more and make my decision :) right now I am considering my 3a in my asset allocation, maybe it is worth to exclude it and have a CH ETF as extra security, good point!

        thank you again!

      2. Now, don’t forget that this is only the way I am doing it. There is absolutely nothing wrong in considering your 3a directly into your asset allocation :)

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