Where to invest my money

Finance, Taxes, Banking, Insurance and Retirement
1
Hi dear forum members, since you helped me every time so far in all sorts of issues I am addressing you again for help.

8 months ago I started working in Switzerland and really saved a lot of money (since I am living here with my roommate and I am probably not used to a luxury that I 've now realistic could afford).

For some people this will not be lot of money, but taking in considiration that I am earning here 6 times more then my parents with master diploma for ME this really is A LOT ( I am 25 years old).

I have opened a foreign currency account in Croatia where each month I put an average of 2500.00 CHF . So far I have 15000.00 CHF . Recently, I was in Croatia and my officer in a bank proposed to invest in PBZ Fund ( since I said I do not want risky investments ) But the problem is that interests are small if I am saving in Swiss francs in Croatia.

Since they are not very hepful , I will have to find a way myself where to invest money ? That's why I need your help. I am not familiar with swiss banks and ways how to save or invest money. What do you think about funds, term deposits or something like that. Which bank to choose and which way the investment? Does not matter If I have to open a new account here if they are offering better conditions . I would like to deposit my money for 3 years with first payment of 15000 CHf and regulary monthly payment of 2500chf

Thank you very much for all help in advance. Marina

2
There are many ways of investing your money, and many companies will help you do so, at a cost to you...

What you could do is to buy a block of Swiss shares every month, the larger companies make some nice profits, and the share prices are quoted in the newspapers every day. Every month you can choose a different company and sector. With the Post Finance you can do the buying and selling online, and the charges are small.

https://www.postfinance.ch/en/priv/p...fo/secure.html

https://www.postfinance.ch/en/priv/p...ade/offer.html

3
If you can tolerate some risk, you probably can go for shares (although ETFs would probably be a better idea for you - for these purposes you can think of ETFs as a basket of shares, so that you can diversify by buying one ETF rather than small amounts of many shares).

If you are not already doing it, consider pillar 3a, as that can give you tax breaks (read up other threads on the forum about pillar 3a).

You should also consider if you intend to eventually retire here or elsewhere, because the exchange rate fluctuations are relevant and you probably should save up in assets denominated in the currency you expect to retire to (this does not mean you necessarily would have to convert CHFs into EUR even if you are retiring to an EUR country).

4
What you need is a really good independent financial advisor to help you out with this difficult decision.......just wait by your phone, one of them will be calling shortly.

(i'll get my coat)

5
Reported.

This is really not the place to ask for financial advice.

6
- Any particular reason for holding CHF in Croatia Vs Switzerland? I am presuming the interest rate on CHF is the same in both countries and you incur a transaction cost for the transfer every month?

- Where to invest would depend on your personal goals, where / when you need to utilize your savings and risk appetite?

- If your goal would be to own a property in Croatia then real estate could be an option, where you take on a mortgage and pay into it monthly. (Disclaimer - no idea on the Croatian real estate situation, plus currency risk) It will be less liquid.

- Blue chip dividend paying Swiss stocks (market risks)

- Lower risk would be bonds or pension fund

Higher the risk you take, greater is the return you can expect ( or loss )

7
Dear Mr. Sir,

REQUEST FOR ASSISTANCE-STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL

I am Dr. Scammity Scam, the cousin of Astronaut, Air Force Major Scam Me Too. He was the first Scammer in space when he made a secret flight to the Salyut 6 space station in 1979. He was on a later Soviet spaceflight, Soyuz T-16Z to the secret Soviet military space station Salyut 8T in 1989. He was stranded there in 1990 when the Soviet Union was dissolved. His other Soviet crew members returned to earth on the Soyuz T-16Z, but his place was taken up by return cargo. There have been occasional Progrez supply flights to keep him going since that time. He is in good humor, but wants to come home.

In the 14-years since he has been on the station, he has accumulated flight pay and interest amounting to almost $ 15,000,000 American Dollars. This is held in a trust at Our Made Up National Savings and Trust Association. If we can obtain access to this money, we can place a down payment with the Russian Space Authorities for a Soyuz return flight to bring him back to Earth. I am told this will cost $ 3,000,000 American Dollars. In order to access the his trust fund we need your assistance.

Consequently, my colleagues and I are willing to transfer the total amount to your account or subsequent disbursement, since we as civil servants are prohibited by the Code of Conduct Bureau (Civil Service Laws) from opening and/ or operating foreign accounts in our names.

Needless to say, the trust reposed on you at this juncture is enormous. In return, we have agreed to offer you 20 percent of the transferred sum, while 10 percent shall be set aside for incidental expenses (internal and external) between the parties in the course of the transaction. You will be mandated to remit the balance 70 percent to other accounts in due course.

For this, we ask only for an upfront administration payment of CHF 15'000 and occasional facilitation payments of CHF 2'500 per month for a limited period of time.

Kindly expedite action as we are behind schedule to enable us include down payment in this financial quarter.

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Yours Sincerely, Dr Scammity

Astronautics Project Manager

8
Holding cash over a long term is a huge risk due to inflation risk, historically CH had very little inflation however have beeb printing like crazy so I would want to hold equities as a hong term investment. Run very fast from bonds & their derivatives.

9
Since your time horizon is only three years, that would rule out everything but money or near money products - plain at simple. So you should be looking at deposit accounts, time deposits and money market products and so on.

Investing in equities, equity funds and so on, would to have a time horizon of about five years to allow for market fluctuations etc.

10
However most peoples time horizon is the rest of their life so 30-50 years, they just don't think that far ahead, but would be very much richer if they did.

11

Put 100% of your net worth in in stocks (Switzerland listed only, of course...) with a 3 year horizon. Brilliant advice....

12
Except that this one already stated her time horizon as 3 years....

13
"stated"...she doesn't know what her horizon is. It's almost impossible to invest prudently for 3 years. She needs to either accept the real value reduction associated with holding cash or change her horizon.

14
Any better advice? Maybe buy a gold bar every month? I suppose you want to sell her an equity linked life insurance policy?

Swiss shares have low charges, fairly safe, easy to sell anywhere, and are very flexible.

Shares do rise or fall on a daily basis, but overall are much better than a savings account.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss_Performance_Index

In the past year the SPI has gone from 6'000 to nearly 8'000, (+28%) & that is for all the shares averaged,

if she buys blue chip Swiss shares she might do better. http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/SPI:IND

.

15
One very important factor in investing is to ensure that time is your friend not your enemy and three years is too short a period to allow for any bump in the market to work itself out before you need to dispose of your holding at a possible loss.

Most people with such a short time line, need at least the principle in tact to do something else with it, so investing in equities is not the way to go. Just imagine it was 2004 or 2005 and the OP took your advice, by 2007 - 2008 the OP would have seen about 30% wiped off their investment and be unable to hold on for things to recover....

16

You are right, I made the 3 years up. It is not mentioned in her post.... Just like she didn't mention that she does not want risky investments...

I wonder what makes a genius like you waste your talents on a board like this as opposed to doing your magic in the financial industry.

17
Yes, my better advice would be to scroll right past the advice (that would attract liability in a professional situation) from yourself and others who ignore her information and only start reading once she gets to the comments of Jim2007.

18
Do you have any idea about what your talking about? The SMI is an index of 20 blue chip shares...........

BTW the 5 year performance of the SMI is about the same as the 1 year performance

19
I don't know about Croatia, but in Russia the interest rates on USD, EUR and even on CHF are much higher than here.

20
You can also buy and sell Bitcoins locally, take a look at the price of the last year: http://bitcoincharts.com/charts/bits...zm1g10zm2g25zv