Never put all your eggs in one basket – this also applies to the stock market. For long-term investors, diversification is therefore one of the most important rules of all. And the diversity on offer is easy to implement with ETFs.
ETF stands for exchange traded fund. Investing in this way means buying a share in a basket of securities. The basket is put together in such a way that it tracks a specific index as closely as possible – for example, the Swiss Market Index (SMI). If the Swiss stock market performs positively, the value of the ETF also increases.
Generally, any index can serve as the basis for an ETF – plus indices that are created specifically for this purpose. There’s a large choice: around 1,600 different ETFs are traded on the Swiss stock exchange alone. Investors for whom environmentally friendly action, social responsibility and conscientious management are important will also find products with a sustainable focus.