Should you pick a currency-hedged ETF if you don't live in the USA?

Some ETFs are 'hedged'. This usually means they are currency-hedged.

Currency-hedged ETFs are designed to protect investors from currency risk. They are a simple, cheap and effective way for small investors to access currency management techniques that were once the preserve of major financial institutions.  

Currency risk affects you negatively when your home currency strengthens against a foreign currency – reducing the value of your assets held in that foreign currency. That means UK based investors are exposed to currency risk on all non-hedged ETFs that trade in overseas securities.  

Currency-hedged ETFs are useful because they remove the uncertainty of exchange rate fluctuations. They sterilise your portfolio against the effect of currency so that your overseas investment doesn’t gain when the pound falls or lose when the pound rises.  

Let us look at the US Dollar versus the GB Pound.

This Android phone tip may save you $THOUSANDS one day!

So picture this - you have an android phone (e.g. android 14 or 15) and you are happily using it in your favourite pub or eating house. You are checking your emails, reading Reddit, playing a game, talking to someone or reading a text message - just the usual stuff.

So, of course, at this precise moment your phone is unlocked simply because you are using it.

You have taken the precaution set up a SIM card PIN however, so that even if someone steals your locked phone and puts your SIM card into their own unlocked phone, they will not be able to steal from you by using your phone number to receive SMS password reset messages or call premium rate numbers. You think you are pretty safe...

But now, all of a sudden, someone snatches your phone out of your hand and since they now have your unlocked phone, they can easily access your SMS messages and emails. This means they can now reset your bank PINs and email passwords which then locks you out of your own accounts and gives them full access instead of you! Google will helpfully fill in any of your passwords! Two factor authentication is not a problem because the second factor is your phone!

Best long-term ETFs for UK investors (and retire with £3 million)!

If you just want to invest in the stock market, say with £100 each and every month (called 'dollar cost averaging') automatically taken from your bank account a few days after your pay day, what ETFs should you buy?

US investors, including the famous Warren Buffet, say to just invest in the S&P 500 but UK investors may also want to diversify outside US stocks because we are affected by foreign exchange rates as well as a 15% dividend withholding tax applied to US dividends.

However, US stocks have performed much better than UK or even EU stocks, even allowing for exchange rates and foreign taxes, so we have a difficult decision.

Generate autounattend.xml files for Windows 10/11

You may be familiar with https://www.windowsafg.com/ which helps you to generate unattend.xml file to automate Windows installations. Easy2Boot also includes a utility XMLtoE2B which can be used with WAFG.

There is also a site at https://schneegans.de/windows/unattend-generator/ which you may find useful.

These can be useful if you are installing Windows using Ventoy or Easy2Boot.

My eBook sale was 'hacked'! (only 3 days left!)

My eBook sale has only 3 days left.

You can get between 15% and 25% off with multibuys, however, some enterprising customers seem to have been able to get 30% off by combining multiple discount offers!

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Are Dividend ETFs performing better than other ETFs?

The last 6 months have been rather weak for Tech ETFs such as IITU and even Global tracker ETFs like the benchmark SWDA.

I see that dividend ETFs show better performance as well as paying dividends.

It expected that we will continue to see volatility during October/November 2024, so it may be better to switch some funds into dividend and value ETFs during this period.

The table below shows some of the best ETFs available in the UK and for comparison IITU and SWDA. Some Dividend ETFs are accumulating funds and some pay dividends.

A 6-month chart is shown below:

Should I Buy Commodities ETFs?

Everyone needs commodities such as coffee, sugar, natural gas, etc. Their value will depend on their availability and future demand.

Wisdom Tree have many ETFs which allow you to 'gamble' on the futures price of some commodities such as Coffee (COFF) which has shown 100% gain in this last year.

Do you want to get free shares worth up to £100?

 Do you want to get free shares worth up to £100 (£8-£100 randomly allocated)?

Join Trading 212, invest with my link and we will both get free shares.

https://www.trading212.com/invite/17tLB1ol6b

Trading 212 will pay 5.1% (UK) interest on cash in your T212 accounts, no monthly charge and no share buy/sell transaction charge (apart from Stamp Duty on UK company shares and Foreign Exchange charge of typ. 0.15% on non-GBP conversions). You can also get a debit card with your account to give you a debit card account paying 5.1% on your T212 balance (check spending/ATM withdrawal limitations).

Stock market tip September 2024 (after Fed reserve rate cut 0.5%)

The USA federal reserve cut the rate by 0.5%. I am taking a cautious approach to large (magnificent 7) US stocks however and especially Tech stocks.

This means I am reducing my USA Tech exposure (XLKQ and IITU). I see finance companies (esp. credit card/lending) doing well in next 6 months and also Energy companies seem quite cheap just now. I am DCAing into world index instead of USA tech.

I have updated my ETF tip blog article with this note:

Update 21/9/2024 - Fed 0.5% rate cut happened which gave approx 1% rise to S&P. Smaller companies should now begin to do better as they will pay less interest on borrowings and can expand. The S&P600/small cap is a good bet now - e.g. ISP6 (2 divs/yr) or USSC (acc - heavier in financials which is good) or invest in both as their top 10 don't overlap. Also Financials (WFEG or XLFQ or UIFS) and Energy (IESU) seem good.

My core ETF XDEQ holding has not performed very well this last 6 months compared to the benchmark SWDA (XDEQ 1yr performance was better than SWDA), however, XDEQ has top holdings in Visa, Mastercard, Nordisk, Costco and ASML, so I expect XDEQ to outperform SWDA in this next 6 months.

N.B. This is not investment advice and I am just a random guy on the internet! Please do your own research before investing.

P.S. On 20 August I tipped gold (SGLN) as perhaps a good hedge, it is currently up 2% (probably more good luck than judgement though!).

P.P.S. I sold SGLN in early October as I don't see it going up much more compared to finance/energy/world quality/small market.

eBook SALE IS NOW ON (15%-25% off this week!)

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Even though my eBooks have an average review rating of over 4.5 Stars and only cost $5 (+10% less if you buy more than one), I have now reduced the price by 15% for a week (finish 30 September) so you can get 25% off if you buy two or more!

If you found my eBooks useful, why not get another?

My shop front is here,

P.S. If you like the idea of earning income from a side hustle, why not get my 'How to make $1000 a month from the internet' eBook!  - recently updated to v1.10. If you think you can write and sell eBooks or have a product or business idea, this eBook should save you a lot of time and prevent you from losing money! My own real and truthful sales figures are included + useful hints and tips on how to get started, etc, Surely that is worth a few $ ;=(

Here is an example of how to set up a simple website to sell Digital Products by Hostinger, but read my eBook for hundreds of tips and Gotcha's first!