Investment strategy based on ETF issued in European Union

[Alex @ Logical Invest]

This is a topic which regularly comes up. We currently do not offer strategies based on EU issued ETF, as we prefer the liquidity and low cost offered at US exchanges. But obviously QuantTrader can be used to work with any ETF, as long as there is historic data available at any of our datasources.

The best source for finding equivalent EU based ETF’s for me is the list published by XETRA. It contains the index description, so allows you to filter to see most similar structure. Also the symbols mentioned will help you to find the equivalent Yahoo Finance symbol for data download. For example EUN1.DE for the iShares STOXX Europe 50 UCITS ETF EUR

See here, Excel list on bottom: https://www.xetra.com/xetra-en/instruments/etf-exchange-traded-funds

You can then use our desktop app QuantTrader to create your very personal strategy using EU based ETF. Be careful not to mix EUR/USD and other currencies, and to pick the ETF with the longest available historic data, even if you decide to invest in a different ETF with the same index due to fees and spreads.

Here a video-tutorial to get you started with your first strategy: https://logical-invest.com/quanttrader-application/backtesting-software-tutorial/

The same is true for Canadian, Australian, HK, SG, etc based ETF – the challenge is mostly to find a long enough data history – 10 years at least.

Have any other data source or tricks to share?

[Jan Vannieuwenhuyse]

I am based in Belgium and can’t buy many of the ETF’s on US exchanges (even with Interactive Brokers) due to regulatory restrictions. A second problem are the very high taxes (0,35% for each transaction).

Would there be an alternative by buying the “equivalents” of the ETF’s under the form of futures (low transaction cost and no tax) or event options. But of course not for every ETF exist an “equivalent” future and if you want to invest e.g. 500.000 euro you have problems to match the % ‘s of the different instrument to emulate a specific strategy.

Could such a strategy by introduced by Logical invest for EU citizens?

[Martin Unzeitig]

Hi Jan, shouldn’t you already be considered as a professional investor with an amount of 500 000€? In that case there should be no restrictions for you here in EU regarding the ETFs availability.

[Author]

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