It is natural to feel overwhelmed by all the information when starting out. Specially when everybody recommends you to read 30 different things before even starting. One may get the impression that a Masters degree is a requirement to be able to grow your savings. There are many great books about personal finance and investing. […]
The decision that will have the biggest impact on your investment returns is your asset allocation – the percentage you assign to equities and the percentage you assign to fixed income. Bonds are a popular way to generate predictable returns with lower risks – fixed income – but they aren’t the only one. A few […]
You live in Europe, don’t earn in USD and don’t spend in USD. Should you have significant investments in funds with American holdings? Should you bear the currency risk associated with having assets in a different currency? You are highly invested in US stocks whenever you invest in a S&P 500 index fund (100% US […]
The Vanguard Total Bond Market ETF (BND) and Vanguard’s Intermediate-Term Bond ETF (BIV) are often recommended in personal finance literature as reasonable options for bond ETFs. What would be the comparable choices available for European investors? Similarly to my recommendations for equity funds, I think these suggestions may be useful for many investors but they […]
You’ve finally reached a decision regarding the equity component of your portfolio but aren’t sure on how to proceed regarding the fixed income part. You are looking to reduce the volatility of your portfolio but are not sure how to go about choosing a bond ETF. You shouldn’t invest in anything you don’t understand. The […]
So, you decided you want to invest in index funds but are not sure which specific funds you should pick. Or rather, you read a few personal finance books, saw the recommendations for funds like VTI or VXUS, realized that those funds aren’t available to European investors and are not sure how to proceed. I will […]
There are thousands of ETFs available for sale. It is natural to feel swamped by all options available: countless indexes, various asset classes, multiple legal structures. Unfortunately only a small subset of available ETFs are worth being in a regular investor’s portfolio. That means we, investors, need to be extra careful when choosing ETFs. My […]
In an earlier post I explained the important things to consider when choosing an ETF. An ETF screener is an important tool in that process because it will allow you to see which alternatives exist for your criteria and it will also give you all the information you need about an ETF. justETF is the […]
The majority of the books around personal finance, passive investing, index funds and ETFs have a US perspective. There is value in those books since the majority of their knowledge is generally applicable to European investors as well. Yet I wanted to point out a few things that (only/mostly) European investors in ETFs need to […]
When starting on the journey of index fund investing, choosing an ETF may look confusing due to: Thousands of ETFs to choose from; New concepts to get acquainted with: Replication, Tracking error, Distribution type; Lots of acronyms: TER, ISIN, NAV, KIID; Choosing an ETFs does not have to be complex. Below is my process for […]