What to buy
This page is still a work in progress, stay tuned for more details!
This page will describe 3 different approaches, in ascending order of execution difficulty.
- Easy: focusing on a single, wide encompassing ETF.
- Intermediate: focusing on a combination of ETFs to introduce a custom weighting for some regions, sectors or factors.
- Advanced: introducing indivual stock positions into the mix, for a more active portfolio management.
Easy
This first approach to investing is the most simple yet quite likely to generate attractive long-term returns.
In short, this strategy relies on:
- Buying global ETFs: to provide diversification to every stock, industry and geography.
- Buying regularly whatever the price: to avoid the temptation of looking for the best entry point.
If you want to learn more about this approach, you can read about Dollar Cost Averaging (DCA), and Buy and Hold.
This strategy would be appropriate for you if:
- you are not particularly interested into knowing more about the stock market details
- you would like to minimize the time dedicated to your investments
- you want to be invested quickly
The following ETFs are available to implement this approach, based on which accounts you have opened.
CTO
You can litteraly buy any of the following ETFs, performance variations between them are not significant.
| ETF | ISIN | Annual Fees | Share Price | Boursorama | Saxo | Trade Republic* |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amundi MSCI World | IE000BI8OT95 | 0.12% | ~$120 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Amundi Prime Global | LU2089238203 | 0.05% | ~$30 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Amundi Prime All Country World | IE0009HF1MK9 | 0.07% | ~$10 | ❌ | ❌ | ✅ |
| iShares Core MSCI World | IE00B4L5Y983 | 0.20% | ~$100 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| iShares MSCI ACWI | IE00B6R52259 | 0.20% | ~$80 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| SPDR MSCI World | IE00BFY0GT14 | 0.12% | ~$35 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| SPDR ACWI IMI | IE00B3YLTY66 | 0.17% | ~$215 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Vanguard FTSE Developed World | IE00BK5BQV03 | 0.12% | ~$100 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
| Xtrackers MSCI World | IE00BJ0KDQ92 | 0.19% | ~$100 | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |
*Trade Republic allows to buy any amount of ETF (even just 1€): the share price is not an important factor.
Ideally, this is what you could do:
- Periodically deposit a fixed amount of money into your CTO account.
- You select one (or more) ETF from the list above.
- You buy shares of the ETF whenever you cash balance allows.
PEA
Your choices are much more restricted when it comes to buying a global ETF on PEA, due to limitations in eligible ETFs. If the share price seems too high, you can check the intermediate section below.
| ETF | ISIN | Annual Fees | Share Price | Boursorama | Saxo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amundi MSCI World | LU2655993207 | 0.38% | ~$30 | ✅ | ❌ |
| Amundi MSCI World | LU1681043599 | 0.38% | ~$500 | ✅ | ✅ |
| iShares MSCI World Swap PEA | IE0002XZSHO1 | 0.25% | ~$5 | ✅ | ✅ |
PER
Boursorama MATLA is the PER I would recommend for anyone interested in the most simple PER investment. 3 different management profiles are available: cautious / balanced / dynamic (in ascending order of potential risk and reward). With the dynamic profile (my situation), funds are automatically invested into multiple ETFs.
As of March 22nd 2024, the dynamic profile invests in ETFs tracking the following indexes:
- 44% MSCI World SRI Select Reduced Fossil Fuel Index
- 32% MSCI USA SRI Select Reduced Fossil Fuel Index
- 12% MSCI Europe SRI Select Reduced Fossil Fuel Index
- 9% MSCI Emerging Markets SRI Select Reduced Fossil Fuel Index
- 3% MSCI Japan SRI Select Reduced Fossil Fuel Index
If you choose another PER, available investment options may vary considerably. Below is a selection of global ETFs investable with a Linxea Spirit PER.
| ETF | ISIN | Annual Fees |
|---|---|---|
| LifeStrategy 80% Equity* | IE00BMVB5R75 | 0.25% |
| LifeStrategy 60% Equity* | IE00BMVB5P51 | 0.25% |
| Amundi MSCI World | IE000BI8OT95 | 0.12% |
| Amundi MSCI World SRI Climate Net Zero Ambition PAB | IE000Y77LGG9 | 0.18% |
*LifeStrategy ETFs automatically invest a percentage into equity, the remainder into bonds.
Intermediate
If you want to go beyond a "basic" MSCI World Index (or equivalent), you can invest into one or more ETFs covering:
- Specific sectors or industries such as: semi-conductors, technology, healthcare, automobiles etc.
- Specific regions or countries such as: Europe, Emerging Asia, LATAM, Switzerland etc.
- Specific factors such as: Quality, Value, Momentum, Growth etc. You can read more about factors here and compare their relative performances here.
Investing into specific sectors, regions or factors require to do some due diligence: past performance is not indicative of future returns. If you can't clearly articulate why you are buying a specific ETF, stick with the Easy approach.
CTO
The CTO is the type account that offers the most choice in terms of ETF offering: it would be impossible to mention them all in this section.
As an example: the table below lists ETFs I personnaly own (not investment advice).
| ETF/ETC | Ticker | ISIN | Annual Fees | Share Price | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Invesco Real Estate S&P US Select Sector | XRES | IE00BYM8JD58 | 0.14% | ~$22 | Focus on USA Real Estate |
| iShares MSCI World Quality Dividend ESG | QDVW | IE00BYYHSQ67 | 0.38% | ~$7 | Focus on dividend yield, with ESG screening. |
| iShares Physical Gold | EGLN | IE00B4ND3602 | 0.12% | ~$42 | Tracking of physical gold price movements. |
| WisdomTree Global Quality Dividend Growth | WTEQ | IE00BZ56RN96 | 0.38% | ~$33 | Focus on dividend growers, quality and momentum. |
| Xtrackers MSCI World Quality | WDEQ | IE00BL25JL35 | 0.25% | ~$65 | Focus on large and mid cap quality. |
PEA
| ETF | Ticker | ISIN | Annual Fees | Share Price | Comment |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| BNP PARIBAS Easy S&P500 | ESE | FR0011550185 | 0.15% | ~$25 | Large cap US equities. |
| Amundi STOXX Europe 600 Healthcare | HLT | LU1834986900 | 0.30% | ~$150 | Exposure to European healthcare companies, incl. Switzerland and UK. |
| Amundi PEA MSCI Emerging Markets ESG Leaders | PAEEM | FR0013412020 | 0.30% | ~$30 | Large and mid-cap equity from Emergning Markets, screened on ESG criteria. |
| Lyxor PEA Inde (MSCI India) | PINR | FR0011869320 | 0.85% | ~$30 | Large and mid-cap Indian equities. |
| Lyxor PEA NASDAQ-100 | PUST | FR0011871110 | 0.30% | ~$70 | Large cap traded on NASDAQ, concentration on big tech companies. |
| Amundi PEA Japan TOPIX | PTPXE | FR0013411980 | 0.20% | ~$25 | Japanese equities, from large to small cap. |
| Amundi Russell 1000 Growth | RUSG | FR0011119171 | 0.19% | ~$420 | Large cap US equities, focused on growth. |
| Amundi Russell 2000 | RS2K | LU1681038672 | 0.35% | ~$300 | Small cap US equities. |
| Vanguard FTSE Developed Europe ex UK | VERX | IE00BKX55S42 | 0.10% | ~$45 | Large and mid cap European equities, excluding UK. |
PER
Here again, available ETFs on PER depend on your particular contract. The only advice I would give is to really focus on ETFs: most contract lists lots of mutual funds, that are usually charging much higher management fees and end-up underperforming equivalent ETFs.
Advanced
Finally, this last approach embeds ETFs from the Easy or Intermediate approaches, but also adds individual positions into the mix. First, you should read the pros and cons about owning stocks on the Stocks vs ETFs page.
If you are willing to dedicate the necessary time for buying individual positions, you can continue to read this section (most people won't).
You can invest primarily into ETFs and keep a small pocket of cash to "play with" on the side. This way you can keep some fun by buying some individual stocks, while minimizing risk because it will not represent a significant part of your investments.
CTO
PEA
You can invest into any european company being headquartered into the European Economic Area.
This includes the largest french companies such as:
- LVMH: owns brands such as Louis Vuitton, Dior, Givenchy, Moët et Chandon etc.
- Hermès: one of the most exclusive luxury brand.
- L'Oréal: the world's largest cosmetics company.
- TotalEnergies: one of the supermajors (largest oil&gas companies).
- Schneider Electric: specialized in energy management and industrial automation.
- Sanofi: largest french healthcare company.
- Air Liquide: among the 3 largest suppliers of industrial gases.
As well as other large european companies:
- Novo Nordisk (Bagsværd, Denmark): one of the largest pharmaceutical company, specialized in diabetes.
- ASML (Veldhoven, Netherlands): photolithography machines used to produce the most advanced chips.
- SAP (Walldorf, Germany): the world's leading enterprise resource planning (ERP).
- Accenture (Dublin, Ireland): IT services and consulting.
- Inditex (Arteixo, Spain): owns brands such as Zara, Bershka, Pull&Bear.
Even on a PEA, foreign dividends are taxed at source (usually 15 to 25%) and cannot be recovered.
