EU investing

🇪🇺 You can apply the Bogleheads investment philosophy if you live in the EU, but you must be aware of a few things described below.

US domiciled funds distribute their income periodically, and you must pay withholding tax to the US government. There may be other tax-related problems with US domiciled funds, depending on your country of residence. In short, US domiciled funds aren't designed for investors from the EU.

There aren’t enough low-cost index funds available in the EU, but there are a lot of ETFs available. You can find all the ETFs available in the EU at etfinfo.com (enter keywords into the search field, such as "REIT", "emerging markets", "MSCI ACWI" etc. or use the advanced search function). These ETFs are usually domiciled in Ireland or Luxembourg. You should consult with your tax advisor before investing in ETFs. You must carefully read the Key Investor Information Document (KIID) and the prospectus of each ETF you choose. Look for important tax-related information in these documents. For example, UK citizens should investigate whether the chosen ETF has "UK Reporting Status" or not, French citizens should look for "Plan d'Epargne en Actions" (PEA) eligibility etc.

Accumulating/Capitalizing vs. Distributing ETF Share Classes
The biggest difference between US domiciled ETFs and EU domiciled ETFs is that EU domiciled ETFs can reinvest the received dividends/interests, without distributing them. Let's say that an ETF holds a number of stocks. The ETF keeps receiving dividends from these stocks periodically. In the US, a fund must distribute these dividends to the investors. In the EU, the ETF can either distribute the dividends, or immediately reinvest back into the ETF, buying more stocks.

As a general advice, buy only capitalizing/accumulating ETF shares, but consult your tax advisor before doing so. The problem with distributing ETFs is that you may have to pay dividend tax in your home country, then when you reinvest the dividends you must pay brokerage commissions, and also the bid/ask spread. These problems don't exist in capitalizing/accumulating ETFs. The KIID of the ETFs will tell you whether the ETF is accumulating or distributing, this is a very important piece of information.

Base Currency vs. Trading Currency
The same ETF can have different share classes, and can be listed on several different stock exchanges. For example, the SPDR® MSCI ACWI IMI ETF is listed on 5 different stock exchanges, and in different currencies. Where should you buy it, and in which currency?

This ETF tracks the MSCI All-Country World Investable Market Index, which is a truly global index. The base currency of the fund is USD. This means that the ETF shares are in the USD currency, and the tracked index is also quoted in USD, so it is best to buy the ETF shares in USD.

However you can also buy the ETF shares in the EUR, GBP or CHF currencies, on different stock exchanges. This is useful if your money is in EUR, GBP or in CHF, and not in USD, and you don't want to exchange your money for USD. For example, if your income is in EUR, and all or most of your expenses are in EUR, it makes sense to also invest in EUR, and don't buy USD just for the sake of the investment.

Please note if the base currency of the ETF is USD, but you buy it in EUR, then you won't get the same level of return in EUR as if you bought the ETF share in USD. Because your level of return will vary according to the exchange rate between the EUR and the USD. In short, you will be exposed to currency risk.

If you buy a multi-country ETF, you will be exposed to currency risk anyway. For example, the base currency of the SPDR® MSCI ACWI IMI ETF is USD, but this ETF invests in many different countries in many different currencies. You can see its holdings and the currencies in the annual/semi-annual report.

Net Total Return vs. Gross Total Return Index
It is important to know that ETFs almost always track the net total return version of an index. From the MSCI website (MSCI is one of the most popular index providers) MSCI Index Definitions:

The MSCI Total Return Indices measure the price performance of markets with the income from constituent dividend payments. The MSCI Daily Total Return (DTR) Methodology reinvests an index constituent’s dividends at the close of trading on the day the security is quoted ex-dividend (the ex-date).

Two variants of MSCI Total Return Indices are calculated:

With Gross Dividends: Gross total return indices reinvest as much as possible of a company’s dividend distributions. The reinvested amount is equal to the total dividend amount distributed to persons residing in the country of the dividend-paying company. Gross total return indices do not, however, include any tax credits.

With Net Dividends: Net total return indices reinvest dividends after the deduction of withholding taxes, using (for international indices) a tax rate applicable to non-resident institutional investors who do not benefit from double taxation treaties.

This means you can only earn the return of the net total return indicies, which is the gross total return less dividend withholding tax.

Securities Lending
Securities lending is a common practice for institutional investors as well as commingled funds, mutual funds and exchange traded funds (ETFs), and these practices are strictly regulated in most financial markets. In a securities lending transaction, securities are temporarily transferred by one party (the lender) to another (the borrower). Securities lending may directly benefit shareholders, as it generates revenue for the fund which can offset fund expenses and improve index tracking. Please note that you as an ETF shareholder will only gain a portion of the securities lending income, the rest will go to the ETF provider. The exact ratio may vary by ETF provider. For example, the ETF provider could say that you as a shareholder will receive 50% of the securities lending income, and the remaining 50% will go to the fund provider.

Index Tracking Strategies
Full physical replication: the ETF buys and manages all the underlying constituent securities of that index – ie the ETF aims to hold every security the index at the appropriate weighting.

Physical replication with optimization: optimization involves only holding some of the underlying constituents of the index being tracked. Optimization methods are entirely model-driven, with a computer system making the buy and sell decisions. The ETF manager may use the physical replication with optimization if the index being tracked contains too many securities, and the ETF manager would like to reduce transaction costs.

Swap-based replication: Synthetic ETFs allow replication of the index using derivatives as opposed to owning the physical assets.

The most transparent and simplest to understand form of index tracking is the full physical replication.