Equities provide high returns but are very volatile – their value fluctuates significantly and it can take years to recover after serious declines. To mitigate this risk, investor often combine equities with fixed income – assets that have low volatility but have low returns. When your portfolio has a portion of fixed income, a serious […]
A typical portfolio for investors looking for global equity exposure through accumulating index funds is a combination of the iShares MSCI World and the iShares MSCI Emerging Markets. Which percentage should you allocate to which? My preference is to have exposure to each country’s companies in proportion to each country’s contribution to the world economy. […]
I have some money saved up and it is earning really low interest rates. The rates are so low that I am losing money due to inflation. How can I grow my savings? In finance, investors are (generally) rewarded for taking more risk. Risk can be understood as temporarily or permanently loosing a portion or […]
Occasionally I hear things along these lines: I think technology has excellent prospects and will continue to grow like no other sector. Therefore, I am willing to take an additional risk by holding a (US) technology-focused ETF so I can get exposed to its high potential returns. It is reasonably understandable to hear that given that […]
You just created your portfolio and you would like to get a second opinion: Did I miss something? How can I improve it? Should I make any changes? You may be wondering. Below is a checklist of things I pay attention to whenever looking at other portfolios. These reflect the preferences I have therefore you […]
The S&P 500 had an approximate average annual return of 10% (before inflation) when measured from 1928-2016. This was the trigger that got me into index funds, the ability to put my savings to work for the long term, at low costs through a no non-sense approach supported by decades worth of data. It is […]
The iShares Core MSCI World ETF has 10 different listings. Which listing should you choose whenever you have access to multiple through your broker? An ETF has multiple listings across currencies, stock exchanges and countries in order to reach more investors. A listing is an entry for a security on the stock exchange. A listing […]
People may recommend you to hold IWDA but you can only find SWDA on your broker. To add to the confusion you go to the iShares profile of the funds and realize that there aren’t any differences between IWDA and SWDA. What’s the catch? IWDA, SWDA, EUNL are all tickets for the iShares Core MSCI […]
justETF lists 14 S&P 500 ETFs. Which one should you choose? How do you decide which fund is more appropriate when all track the same index? When faced with choices between comparable alternatives I prefer to use defined criteria to guide my decision making. In this case I think the important criteria is (in this […]
The choice between accumulating and distributing funds is one of the most important choices you will make when picking a specific ETF. It will narrow down the amount of funds to choose from, and it will affect your returns as well as your tax-related bureaucracy. A distributing fund is a fund that will periodically, usually […]