Market update: A challenging first quarter 2022

The first quarter of 2022 was overshadowed with the news of the Russian invasion in Ukraine. We feel deeply with the country and its people and condemn the attacks. For you as a Swiss, Selma can currently only support you with expertise on the turbulence on the financial market caused by the terrible war. We take this job seriously and make it our mission to explain the situation in an understandable way and to do a good job for you and your investments.

This is why, you will learn more about how high the Russia exposure of your Selma investments is, how Selma managed to keep your investments quite stable even during shaky times and how all this can also work sustainably. 🌲

Russia exposure at Selma

Currently, the Selma customer support team faces a lot of questions around the Russia exposure of Selma’s investments and how to avoid investing money in Russia. Here, we have good news for you!

Before the Russian invasion in the Ukraine about 0,5% of your investments were held in Russian companies. After the attack, all Russian investments were removed from the index. For you as a Selma client this simply means, that there are no more investments in Russia.

Should you have chosen the sustainable investment strategy at Selma your portfolio has never had any investments in Russia. In the pillar 3a strategies at Selma around 0,3% include Russian related shares, meaning only a very small amount of your pillar 3a investments, which are managed by our partner VZ Bank, have a Russia exposure.

Selma does not plan to invest any money in Russia in the future.

Selma’s strategy for crisis

As you might already know, one of the main principles when investing is “invest broadly.” Don’t put all your eggs in one basket! This helps to even out your risks much better and is the reason why in every account and strategy Selma also invests in precious metals. Precious metals tends to be more stable in times of uncertainty. 🪙

Already in 2021, Selma has increased the amount of precious metals in the portfolios in order to protect you from losing money. In the first quarter, this move paid off and did indeed protect your investments from heavier losses. Long story short, due to higher investments in precious metals you “gained” percentages compared to the world market and lost less money than without the Selma algorithm and the decision to invest in gold and silver.

Selma’s approach of investing broadly and including precious metals in portfolios has definitely proven its worth during this crisis.

Update in sustainable strategies

When you switch to the sustainability strategy at Selma, your investments are also spread widely – now the distribution has even improved. Selma recently added a sustainable investment product for real-estate. The product also meets all the sustainable ESG (Environment, Social, Government) criteria. When choosing the right investment product, special focus was placed on sustainable construction and energy consumption.

Learn more about sustainable investing with Selma

The key to success

We don’t know yet what the year 2022 will still bring us (Hello, Dinosaurs?!) – but when it comes to investing, we do know what the key to success during a crisis is:

1. Invest for the long run! 
2. Invest broadly! 
3. Invest regularly! 

Rest assured Selma keeps an eye on the market 24/7 to keep your investments following your personalised investment plan.