A new broker comparator

Baptiste Wicht

The Poor Swiss
Staff member
Hi

I have written a new calculator for the blog:


This will compare multiple brokers for a given investing scenario and tell you which one would be the cheapest.

I hope this will be useful!

Please let me know if you have any comments on this calculator.
 
Thank you for this, it's great to have an overview like this. IBKR is so superior compared to Swiss brokers, it's almost shameful.

It would be interesting though, if possible, to see how much each fee represents of the total (for example for Yuh's 500CHF, how much of that is FX and how much of that is custody fees).
 
Awesome tool, thanks a lot! I'll definitely send that to people I know that are undecided about their broker.
The blogposts are great resources, but some people can only convince themselves when they can play around with some numbers, hence this interface is perfect for them.

Personally I invest in only 1 ETF per month, but not always the same. Mostly it is 4 months VT, 1 month CHSPI; so my asset allocation is not perfectly the same and hovers between 20-25% Swiss ETF, but I'm fine with this. That saves more fees; but for the sake of simplicity/user experience I think it makes sense how the interface is built now with the % of World ETF.
 
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Thanks for all the feedback.

It would be interesting though, if possible, to see how much each fee represents of the total
I was thinking about it, but decided against it because I was thinking it would make the interface more complicated.

I will try adding this as collapsible data when I have time.
 
Personally I invest in only 1 ETF per month, but not always the same.
I do the same.

I wanted to incorporate that into the interface, but I did not find an easy way of doing so. The problem is that it only works for some nice split of the portfolio or over longer periods of time. Over one year, even a percentage like 80/20 would yield weird ratios. I will try to think about it again.
 
I have added the feature to consider savings plan into the mix for Neon and Yuh.

Don't hesitate to let me know if you have any other suggestions for this comparator (or any others).
 
I've played around a bit and actually it would be the most economical strategy to get two brokers, one for world ETF (IBKR) and one for Swiss ETF (e.g. Yuh savings plan with SMI), right?
Only drawback is that you don't know for how long these "free saving plans" will last, but fees of any broker can change and one could reassess.

Have you given that a thought for your own portfolio (most stocks at IBKR and home bias at Yuh/Neon)?
 
I've played around a bit and actually it would be the most economical strategy to get two brokers, one for world ETF (IBKR) and one for Swiss ETF (e.g. Yuh savings plan with SMI), right?
I am not sure the difference would be huge. The main issue will be that you still pay stamp duty and currency exchange when buying. And you will pay all fees when selling. With Yuh and Neon, you will pay 0.5% when selling (and stamp duty). This could be more than on IB if selling large amounts.

It would be necessary to do the investing+divesting scenario together to make sure.
 
stamp duty and currency exchange when buying
Stamp duty yes, but no currency exchange if you buy e.g. CSSMI with Yuh Sparplan.
But your comparator shows that even with including stamp duty it would be better to do the Swiss ETF via Yuh than IBKR (setting "World ETF" to 0%).

Example:
1737373023425.png


But I calculated now with this scenario and the payout fee (for IBKR i found the rate in a forum post which said its 50.88 + 0.015%; not verified).
This looks like this for 25 years (5% average capital gain/year included):
1737374073250.png

So long story short, IBKR would still be beneficial in this case. Do you consider adding the payout fee to the broker comparator? Otherwise it seems a bit misleading now with the "cheap" price of Yuh/Neon etc., no?
 
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Stamp duty yes, but no currency exchange if you buy e.g. CSSMI with Yuh Sparplan.
But your comparator shows that even with including stamp duty it would be better to do the Swiss ETF via Yuh than IBKR (setting "World ETF" to 0%).
Correct, currency exchange applies to savings plans, but there is no conversion for a Swiss ETF.
But I calculated now with this scenario and the payout fee (for IBKR i found the rate in a forum post which said its 50.88 + 0.015%; not verified).
This looks like this for 25 years (5% average capital gain/year included):
That sounds about right.
So long story short, IBKR would still be beneficial in this case. Do you consider adding the payout fee to the broker comparator? Otherwise it seems a bit misleading now with the "cheap" price of Yuh/Neon etc., no?
The problem is not adding it. The problem is adding it without confusing users. You need to be able to configure the investment period and the payout period and ideally be able to configure how much you want to sell per month/year. This will make the calculator much more complex.
 
adding it without confusing users.
Agree it can get too much for most users.
Maybe there would be another way to at least warn about it (e.g. different coloring of those where high selling fees occur) to let people know that this is not the full picture.

Now they might just fill it out and think "oh great, i used the PoorSwiss comparator and made the best decision to save money by choosing Yuh/Neon for my whole portfolio". Which would be the wrong conclusion, as they would still (in many/most cases) be better off with IBKR.

If you spin it further, with Neon you could transfer the position to IBKR later for 100 CHF. So you would have saved money after 2.5 years of adding 1000/month into Neon instead of IBKR. And you end up with the position on IBKR anyway. Yuh doesn't seem to allow this, which would be a strong argument for Neon.
 
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What about I do three scenarios?
  1. Investing scenario (the default) where people buy only
  2. Divesting scenario where people sell only
  3. Life scenario where people buy for X years and then sell for Y years
 
For me that would be interesting to see yes. As long as there is some hint (or even just a "*") with Yuh/Neon & co. to check the others for the full picture.
Personally I feel nr. 3 is way more relevant than nr. 1.

Nr. 1 is as if you compare different investment funds, but rank them only based on TER and ignore entry fees. In this specific broker case/comparison its about exit fees, not entry fees, but both are relevant for a decision.
 
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