Chapter 5 — How to buy an ETF with Saxo Bank?

Now we’re getting down to business! In this chapter we’ll look at how to buy your first ETF via Saxo’s trading platform.

As explained in the previous chapter, I recommend you use the SaxoInvestor platform. It’s simple and efficient, with no unnecessary frills for us passive investors.

Step 0: find out which ETFs to buy in Switzerland

If you haven’t yet decided which ETF to buy to build your investment portfolio, I recommend you read these two blog posts:

Step 1: check how much free cash you have on Saxo

Before you buy an ETF or a stock, you want to make sure you have enough cash in your Saxo account.

As a reminder, just check your “Portfolio” view on SaxoInvestor to see how many Swiss francs you have:

You can see how much you have on your Saxo account via the 'Portfolio' view

You can see on my screenshot that I have CHF 120.

Now let’s see how much the ETF I want to buy costs.

Step 2: find my favorite VT ETF

Good news, because, as you know, Saxo offers us the US VT ETF of choice.

The proof is in the pudding, using the stock search field with the VT ETF ISIN “US9220427424”:

Search for my favorite VT ETF in Saxo

Just click on the search result to go to the detailed view of this ETF:

Detailed view of our VT ETF

In the image above, you can see the price of the ETF to date where there are numbers (1), (2), and (3). Note that this is the price in US dollars (USD). At today’s price at the end of April 2025, this gives us a VT ETF at 115.79 USD worth CHF 95.32.

We therefore have more than enough Swiss francs in our account (CHF 120) to buy a VT ETF (CHF 95.32), including Saxo’s transaction fees (less than CHF 1).

Step 3: buy a VT ETF from Saxo Bank, finally!

This is the moment you’ll remember for the rest of your investing life: the day you bought your first ETF, for real.

After clicking on “Buy”, you arrive on this screen:

Purchase order ticket for our favorite VT ETF on Saxo Bank

And that’s the explanation for each of the points in the screenshot above on how to buy an ETF with Saxo Bank:

1 — ETF name and price: check that the security (ETF, stock or bond) is the one you want to buy, in particular via its name and price
2 — “Order type”:* refers to the way you want to buy your ETF. Either at the market price, or at a maximum price limit that you define yourself. I myself only use the “Limit” type to say how much I’m prepared to pay for a stock or ETF at the maximum (here 115.79 USD)
3 — Quantity: indicates the number of VT ETF shares you wish to buy — as I only have CHF 120 in my Saxo account, I can only buy one ETF share
4 — The limit price: as I said in point 2 that I wanted to place a limit order, I need to specify the unit price of an ETF share. I usually specify the current purchase price (as shown towards point 1 on the screenshot), i.e. 115.79 USD. If you indicate less than this price, it may take several days for your order to go through, since nobody will want to sell at such a low price
5 — Validity: you need to specify how long your trade order will remain valid. Personally, I always choose the “Good Till Cancel” (GTC) option, which means that the order remains active until it’s executed, unless I decide to cancel it. The other options are: just for the day (“Day Order”) or a date you enter yourself
6 — Trading fees: Saxo tells you directly how much you’ll have to pay for this ETF order
7 — Nominal value: corresponds to the amount in the ETF’s currency (in this case, the US dollar) of all the units you are buying (specified limit value multiplied by the quantity of units you wish to buy)
8 — Available cash: the amount of Swiss francs available in your Saxo trading account, useful for checking that you have enough for the purchase you want to make
9 — Buy: once you’ve checked each point, it’s time to click on “Buy”! Take a deep breath, and… click!

Saxo asks you to confirm that you have read the information about the rules of conduct on the markets (for each stock exchange in Switzerland, New York, Montreal, etc.)

And here's the last real click to confirm your stock market order!

Step 4: check your current orders

If the stock market is open AND your buy price is low enough to interest a seller in selling it to you, then your buy (or sell) order may be executed directly.

On the other hand, if the stock market is closed, or if your purchase price is too high, your order may take some time to be executed. In this case, you can consult your current orders in the corresponding section of your “Portfolio” view:

List of your current Saxo Bank orders

Step 5: Saxo executes your order

And once the stock market is open and there’s someone OK to sell you their ETF at your price, you’ll see this notification appear in Saxo:

That's it, you've placed your first ETF order on the stock exchange! Congratulations!

Step 6: check out the ETF you’ve just bought

Just to make sure you own the ETF you’ve just bought, you can check it in your “Statement” view:

And here's your purchased VT ETF (click on 'Portfolio' > 'Statement' > and you'll see your 'Positions')

Step 7: see your executed trades

And you can also see a list of all your executed trades over a specific period:

List of transactions carried out on your Saxo trading account

And that’s it, we’re already at the end of this Saxo guide.

Congratulations on taking action. You’re well on your way to financial independence in Switzerland!