An other birthday

Last week, the Swiss Performance Index celebrated its 20th birthday. The SPI is a index of Swiss shares. As its younger brother, the Swiss Market Index, it is a dividend-corrected index of about 230 equity issues (the SMI consists of about 30 blue-chips).

Nesté is the most important share, consisting of over 16 % of the whole index, followed by Novartis (13 %), Roche (11 %) and UBS (10%). The five most important shares therefore are weighted more than half of the basket.

Even though there was a smaller crash this year, the average yield during these twenty years was 9.5 %. Which of course is much higher than what you’ll receive from the bank if you put your money in an savings account. And part of the gain is tax-free because only the dividends are subject of taxes not the advance of the market value.