Hi all,
as an EU/US citizen living in Norway with no American address I was wondering if you have some advice for me?
1. Generally I would like to invest monthly into index funds but from reading through this thread there doesn't seem to be an option to do this, correct?
2. Is it fine to invest into individual stocks from a European account on European exchanges without complicating American taxes? Or is it better to open a Schwab international account even though that will complicate my Norwegian taxes (Norwegian taxes are manageable though)?
3. Is there somewhere where I can find a lets say 15 stock portfolio that I can copy that would track major indexes like the S&P500 with an accuracy over 90%? Other portfolio ideas that are well diversified would be fine too. I am just thinking I want to keep it simple with not too many stocks if I have to go this route.
I must admit American taxes are too complicated for me so your advice is really appreciated a lot!
If you don't have a US address but are also EU citizen, the easiest way for you to invest would probably be through EU-based funds. You should be able to invest monthly into ETFs (not sure about mutual funds, it doesn't seem possible/easy but from what I understand they're basically the same except with ETFs you can't buy fractions of shares and you get them for their price at the moment you buy, not at closure). I don't know if you can do that automatically.
You don't need to create your own indexes, you can invest in them on European exchanges (Paris, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, etc.) as long as an EU-based version exists.
For example, with the SP500:
https://www.morningstar.co.uk/uk/etf/snapshot/snapshot.aspx?id=0P0001CLZ9You can use
https://justetf.com/de-en/find-etf.html to search for ETFs tracking the indexes you want.
Regarding taxes, I didn't need to bother with US taxes even while investing in US companies because they were listed in EU-exchanges, it may be different for you as a US person and also depending on treaties between Norway (or the EU country you're a citizen of) and the US.