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It is an exchange-traded fund that lets investors buy a basket of large and mid-sized Swiss companies in a single trade.
The Franklin FTSE Switzerland ETF is a simple shortcut to owning a slice of the Swiss stock market. It buys and holds a broad basket of large and mid-sized Swiss companies, bundles them into one fund, and sells shares in that fund on the NYSE Arca exchange. When you buy a share, you get a tiny piece of all those companies at once instead of picking individual stocks.

The fund tracks an index called the FTSE Switzerland Large Mid Cap Index, which means it aims to match that index rather than beat it. The heavyweights inside are the famous names most people associate with Switzerland: Nestlé for food and coffee, Roche and Novartis for medicines, and UBS for banking. A large portion of the money sits in just those kinds of giant, stable firms, so owning this fund is heavily a bet on big Swiss drugmakers, food brands, and banks rather than on scrappy startups. Who pays? Everyday investors, financial advisers, and institutions who want Switzerland exposure without the hassle of buying foreign stocks directly. They pay a small annual fee — well under a tenth of a percent — which is the main reason to choose a fund like this over a pricier rival. The low cost and the ability to trade it like any normal US-listed stock are the selling points.
A few things are worth knowing. Because the fund holds Swiss companies, its value moves with the Swiss franc as well as with the stocks themselves, so currency swings hit your returns. It is also concentrated: a handful of global giants drive most of the performance, so this is not a diversified bet on the whole world, just on Switzerland's biggest names. It is a lean, cheap tool for one specific job, and it does that job without much drama.
Saved answer · last researched 15 Nov 2026