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Comment by emerongi | Hacker News Reader

Why do you want to invest in Europe specifically? There are European ETFs that track US indexes if that's what you're interested in.

Europe is a harder market for sure. There are less internationally recognized names, so you have to do more research.

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There is an exchange risk inherent in that which will turn your real estate speculation into a currency speculation.

Not sure if these are available in Europe, but Vanguard in Australia offers hedged indexes like this one https://www.vanguardinvestments.com.au/retail/ret/investment... specifically to avoid the currency exchange floating.

Vanguard doesn't really exist in Europe per se.

They have a range of funds in GBP in the United Kingdom, because the retirement system there is similar to the US. That's all.

There is a handful of funds in EUR through an European subsidiary, but it's laughable compared to what is available in the US and they are pretty hard to buy.

Vanguard offers a number of exchange traded funds in Europe domiciled in Ireland.

There are funds in base currencies of USD, EUR and GBP and traded on number of exchanges across Europe in several currencies.

https://americas.vanguard.com/institutional/funds/all-produc...

Someone looking for exposure to Europe could get that through one of the Vanguard FTSE Developed Europe funds - they’re available including or excluding UK and in accumulating or distributing versions.

Very easy to buy just submit an order on the market. I personally use Interactive Brokers and buy on London Stock Exchange but any broker that gives you access to one of the major European exchanges should do.

Vanguard as well as iShares (Blackrock) funds are readily available in Europe unless you are looking for niche stuff. But then there also is Xtrackers, Lyxor, HSBC, .. which offern funds based on the famous and not so famous indices.

And they not hard to buy at all.

I wasn't pointing out Vanguard really, just the hedged index option as a way to avoid the exchange rate issues.

Because I don't want to deal with exchange rates risks as Jacquesm already pointed out.

I created an Interactive Brokers account and used this investment scheme:

    65% of funds in:
    80% VWRL
    10% VEUR
    10% VFEM
    
    35% of funds in:
    VECP

This is pretty fire-and-forget. I also don't really know anything more about investing, so this is pretty much the extent of my help, sorry. I don't know if these ETFs are hedged against currency fluctuations, but my gains/losses don't seem to have followed the USD, so maybe?

Deviations from purchasing power parity in currencies have a half life of seven years. Unless you’re investing for the short term the effects of currency fluctuations on returns to your portfolio will be swamped by differences in growth across national economies and their stock exchanges’ growth rates. In the long run currency risk washes out in differences in economic growth. You’re better off investing in the stock market indices you think will grow more. Population growth in the US compared to the EU alone would suggest investing in the US over Europe. If you think we’ll continue to have a more or less peaceful 21st century you’re better off investing in economies you think will grow more, which would suggest investing in the Indian subcontinent and Africa. If you don’t think that’s the way to bet you should invest in places likely to have political stability above most anything else so you should invest in places with strong states unlikely to have massive political unrest that will maintain good relations with your home country. For security you’d invest in property in someplace like Switzerland through real estate investment trusts, or the US if you think the West will endure as a political reality and the US will avoid civil unrest in the coming decades.

On a particular point: the number of vacant properties in Switzerland has exceeded the population of the capital. The safe property investment idea got too popular to stay effective.

There are euro hedged S&P 500 ETFs. One of them is this:

https://us.spindices.com/indices/equity/sp-500-eur-hdg

But, if I may ask. What is the specific reason you don't want currency risk? The dollar has maintained it's strength since the recession and if there's a currency pair where one might not need to hedge, it would be USD/EUR.

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