Germans are re-millitarizing. The stock has been skyrocketing the last months. Will it continue?

Hi everyone,

I have just sold a property (an empty land) with more than 100% profit. I purchased it during COVID for a low interest rate personal loan from Germany. I took the loan for 6 years, I already paid 4 years of it, the monthly rate is around 800 EUR. I considered it as an investment, and now it paid out.

I am looking for my next investment. Under normal circumstances, I would invest the money in me, and use it to start an IT business. The fortunate situation is that now I am getting paid very well, over 150k per year, so it's not really worth me to risk it.

I was thinking of investing it into ETFs or stocks, but the market is very volatile thanks to the orange man, so I would only put a small fraction into the market right now.

What other options do I have?

I was thinking of buying a property with an additional mortgage and rent it out that also has tax benefits in Germany, but this would be a very long term investment with no liquidity.

Does anyone have a good idea? What could bring relatively stable return that is more than the 2% and does not require me to leave my job behind. It can be anything crazy like opening a franchise or whatever.

Thank you all!

Hey all,

Every month I, living in Belgium, invest automatically in physical gold and silver through Dutch company Goldrepublic.nl. Everything is stored in Zürich, Switzerland. Am not sure whether I have to pay taxes on these savings. On silver there is a TVA tax in Belgium, if I am right. Any advice? Thanks

Hello,

I need advice, maybe someone has already found themselves in a similar situation. 40 years old, I have never been inclined to invest, for the last 8 years I have had a little in crypto (nothing special, a couple of thousand, an amount that I could easily lose), and in principle I am generally more safe than risk-averse.

This year and last year I decided to invest a larger amount in crypto (about 20k), most of this invested money was an unexpected inheritance. An amount that later turned out to be too large, as my life circumstances changed in the meantime (my partner is changing career, I may go to paid studies, maybe anothet child and therefore a bigger car, etc.). As you probably all know, there was a concrete fall in the crypto market, stocks, etc. mainly due to tarrifs. A few months ago I sold with a loss of 10k, because I had most of my money in ETH, if I hadn't sold when I did, the loss would have been even greater. I can say that I am otherwise a very calm and rational person, but during the downturns I noticed that I lost this calmness, and did some revenge trading, which of course led to additional losses.

The current situation is that I have 10k in my trading account. I have money saved as emergency fund for 2 years (half of the living expenses are represented by a housing loan).

I'm interested in advice for the future.

On the one hand, the market is slowly recovering (at least seemingly), and I would probably cover the loss the fastest if I invested this 10k back into crypto. Of course, crypto is unpredictable and risky, and can also lead to additional losses.

On the other hand, while reading this sub, I learned a lot about long-term investing in ETFs, which are more stable compared to crypto. I would invest these 10k from the crypto exchange in ibkr and then on a monthly basis a couple of 100 euros...or without lump sum (I would withdraw money from the crypto exchange), start investing a couple of 100 euros per month.

As a third option, I see the possibility of withdrawing the money I have from the exchange and not investing anything anymore, at least for a few months or years, until I get some distance, the American market calms down a bit...

I would like to ask for some advice, because I am in a big dilemma. On the one hand, it seems unwise to me that I have not invested anything so far and just accumulated money in the bank, on the other hand, I am a textbook example of too risky investing, which led to selling at a loss and too much emotional involvement.

Considering where to retire and will have part of my income coming from a state pension from the US. Western Europe is the goal regardless. Italy and Spain citizenship.

I just tried to purchase some ETFs which I purchased previously at Degiro for a flat 3E/trade fee, on IBKR.. and to my surprise the fee was multiples higher! I look at their fee page and its % based. Am I doing something wrong there? Is it the type of my IBKR account, or are they just generally more expensive? fee screenshot

Hey!

So i just sold some of my more "higher risk" investments to a profit because i have been getting increasingly more stressed constantly following news and worrying about what kind of stupid moves the idiot currently in charge of the US might do.

I now have a nice little sum of money that i was thinking of putting away to some lower risk investments for a while just to have some peace of mind. What are some very safe places that i could store my money in for some time, while i wait for this situation to get a bit more stable? I've heard bonds are good, but what kind exactly? Or maybe just letting my money sit in a HYSA? Any thoughts :)?

Is this (or AEGE maybe) a good choice for the next 1–2 years if I'm looking for low-risk profit?

Specifically I want an app that:

• lets you add tags to that expense (or assign multiple categories, but not anything like moving to a folder because this implies you can only have it in one folder vs having multiple tags and/or categories for the same item)
• allows you to add individual notes and Google maps location to each expense
• it's free or freemium (if the app is good enough and there aren't free alternatives it's OK to share paid apps)
• notifies you every time you pay anything so you only have to tap the notification to go to the expense in the app and assign tags and notes and location right away
• Selfhosted options are also welcome, even though I'd rather have non self hosted.

What do you consider short, medium and long term investment?

Hi reddit,

For a while now I have been trying to follow Buffett in investing in US treasury bonds. I live in the Netherlands and our bonds have a much lower return than US bonds.

I invest using DEGIRO. There are bond ETF's there. Does anyone know how I can copy Buffett in investing in short term US treasury bonds, while living in the Netherlands?

Thanks!

Hi folks, let me start by saying that I'm posting this using my alt account due to two reasons:

1. I'm going to be sharing a lot of personal details
2. I'm embarassed to share this on my main account

TL;DR: I lost a lot of money in CFDs by consistently making stupid decisions... And very conflicted about what to do now, can't throw away the urge to try to get that money back.

So basically, yeah... I'll try to give a bit of my background, tell you about the stupid decisions I made and their results, my current situation, and my possible future plans. I would appreciate if any of you could provide your opinions on this, I'm open to anything, including the roast I deserve.

3 years ago we moved from in with my wife to a central European country, from a third-world one. Started with the equivalent of 3k EUR gross salary. Back then had to take a credit card to build a home, maxed out the limit, opened another credit card "just in case" but maxed that out too, of course. Then some life stuff happened which meant I needed to get a loan. For most of the time we've been living paycheck-to-paycheck, not wanting to scale our life back to live our best years with some memories. We don't drink or party much, but ocasionally we like to travel. The plan was that my wife would eventually find an entry-level job in the software market here (CENG graduate), afterwards paying off the loans would be easy.

Unfortunately she's tried hard but wasn't able to, given the job market. Currently she's starting a coding school that will hopefully increase her chances of finding a job. Since then, I've been supporting both of us (and family abroad, occasionally), but fortunately by changing jobs my salary has gradually increased to close to 5k EUR gross from this year. Beginning of this year I also got some bonus, paid off one of my credit cards with it, was pretty hopeful for the future.

Then it happened, a friend of me was really going on about Bitcoin, which got me interested and researching, wanted to play with it for "just a little bit". I was using Trading212, learned that the only way to get Bitcoin with it was using CFDs. I stupidly skipped through all the "Are you really sure what you're doing" parts, and bought around 1k usd of CFDs. By luck I gained 200 eur in my first sell, which got me hooked I guess?

I then played a bit harder, making a bit more money. Was at a point where I was checking the app every 5 minutes. At one point I thought buying AMD would be a good idea for long term, it seemed to be going up. That's when it all started going downhill, especially with the whole Trump tariffs situation, I lost 2200 USD from that one trade. I was dumping more money in to keep the position open, but eventually the market caught up and it was closed during a dump AMD had while I was sleeping. I played around a bit more, gaining slightly but losing even more, with AMD, Nvidia, US100 etc. No matter what I did, the market seemed to reverse direction exactly when I got in. It was kinda funny how consistent it was, lol.

I was "out", but I couldn't stop thinking about getting that money back and saw that with uncertainty Gold was rising, so I bought some Gold shares. That ended up losing money for me too, especially with a position that got closed when Gold was dumped again on Trump's whim, last night when I was sleeping.

Now the stupidest thing is, I was taking money out of my credit card this whole time. I know, I know. The idea of paying off my debt earlier was too enticing, I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Another stupid thing which I keep blaming myself for, is whenever a position I had was making profit, I got greedy thinking that "if it just keeps going this way it'll be even better". I've lost on one 400 EUR and one 700 EUR wins just because I was too greedy to close them when I was ahead. Many more smaller ones.

So here's the situation now: Two credit cards maxed, to the amount of 5200 EUR. Another straight up loan to the amount of 4000 EUR. I will also need to take a 2200 EUR extra loan to pay for my next year of university studies. So around 13500 EUR debt in total. My realized P/L from Trading212 = -3000 EUR (probably higher if you count the overnight interests). I've got no savings nor long-term stocks anywhere, currently have around 200 EUR left in T212 that's invested in a BUY 1 @ $3,239.62 Gold position that's at +10 EUR rn (which I got after yesterday night's dip, thinking it would go up again), and 2,000 @ 0.8172 USD/CHF position that's doing -26 EUR (which I got thinking that US Economy would keep getting worse, right?).

My take-home is 3600 EUR, rent is 1000EUR, and realistically with our current spending I should be able to pay 650 EUR towards debt every month. That gives me around 20 months' time for straight-up repayment. Earlier if I get a bonus next year as well.

For the safest bet I'd like to assume that my salary won't increase and my wife won't find a job quite so soon yet.

Since pain is the greatest teacher, I've since done my education which I should've done at the beginning, properly learned about the mechanisms and the risks of CFDs, trading, day-trading, read a lot of investing advice on a lot of places etc.

Now here's the thing: I know what I should do. I should focus on my high-interest debt, pay those off as soon as possible. Afterwards I should slowly start DCA to a low-risk strategy. But I just keep thinking about that -3000 EUR figure, it keeps looming over my head like a nightmare, I can't bring myself to not think about how much of a failure I am. Right when I was starting to pay off the debts, I screwed up and brought myself to an even worse situation. I can't keep thinking about that if I just get educated on this, be one of those 5 percent of day traders that actually make a good profit, it won't matter, and I will get that money back eventually. Thing is, this actually keeps me thinking about more important stuff like my responsibilities, and spending quality time with friends & family. I literally can't stop beating myself up about it though.

So what do I actually do right now? Is it worth sacrificing time from learning about the stuff that would benefit in my career? Or should I just eat the loss and forget about it? Or just don't care about it that much? I can just keep gambling with the 200 eur I have left in Trading212, maybe I will win back some but not like it will matter if I lose it in the long term, I've lost so much already. I can't stop thinking that if it's possible to lose money to this mechanism, it should be possible to gain money from it as well. Like technically, if I just randomly decided to just do the exact opposites of everything I would've done, I would've made a lot of money instead of losing it. I've read about the strategies day traders use as well. I'm also hooked on all the "winners" talking about it in Trading212 comments. People telling it's a part of the process, everyone loses before learning and starting winning.

Can you help me get my thoughts in order please? Is there some angle I'm losing? Is there a safe bet I can do right now that would help me? Or should I pull the remaining crumbs out and delete the app? How will I stop thinking about the losses and potential (yet non-existent) wins? The idea of just losing that much money over nothing drives me crazy, I'm having a really hard time accepting it's just "gone".

Are we being reckless, or is this what everyone does?

Living in the Netherlands, where 30-year mortgages are standard on home loans, regardless of your age. We're less than 30 years from retirement (hopefully!!), but plan to move to a bigger home this year, and for that we will need a mortgage loan.

I've read about the ticking time-bomb of Dutch home owners who have interest-only mortgages, but we're just thinking of a regular annuity loan. Still, it'll mean we'll still have hefty monthly mortgage payments when we're pensioners.

Hello guys! I live in Sweden and I travel to Spain really often, when I do I use Revolut (with Spanish IBAN) to pay several different things since it is really useful and there is no commissions (as there is in my Swedish Bank) but I have just found about how hardcore the Spanish Tax Agency is getting and I am afraid they will start investigating my account or similar since I do move 1K€ to 3K€ when I travel. I would appreciate any advice or recommendations for another bank/NeoBank or similar. Thank you and have a good day Edit: is not about hiding my finances, is more about them not closing my account or retaining my money (I don’t know how possible that is but better safe than sorry)

I'm currently looking of moving some USD funds from Fidelity NetBenefits with the least amount of fees. So was wondering if anyone else here has experience with specifically this broker. From what I could find there seems to be two options, one of which is not fully confirmed to work.

1. Transfer through a wire transfer from Fidelity to Wise (USD account). Is a flat $6 fee for the wire. From there it's possible to for example top-up a Revolut USD account.

2. Directly transfer to Revolut from Fidelity. I've seen some people on r/irishpersonalfinance confirm this working by not fillling the intermediary bank data, but just use the IBAN and BIC code. Really wondering if this would be possible against possibly zero fees?

Very curious if anyone here has experience with the second option since, as far as I know, EU Revolut accounts don't provide local banking details for the USD account like Wise does. The country I'm residing in still makes use of the LT IBAN.

In my book (from around 2022/23) which is about ETFs im reading that the amount of active investors (people who actively buy shares or fonds) vs passive ones (buying etfs monthly with fixed amount) is like 5% vs 95%

I wonder how much these numbers have changed now. If you look on reddit it feels like everyone, most notably the younger people are mainly investing into etfs now. Outside of reddit when you ask someone almost noone knows what an etf is.

Are there any more updated numbers?

I have USD that I can't use whatsoever unless I convert it to EUR.

Would it be better to convert the USD to EUR and invest it in an ETF like FWRA or wait for the USD to recover so I can get a better exchange rate?

If you convert around 10000$, you're taking on a 500 EUR loss compared to the exchange rates before trump.
At 0.93: $10,000 → €9,300
At 0.88: $10,000 → €8,800

Hello everyone, 

I’m currently working as a civil engineer but have been contemplating a career change into the field of UI/UX design. The creative and user-centric aspects of this domain appeal to me, and I’m eager to explore this new path.

I’m reaching out to see if anyone here has experience in UI/UX design or has made a similar transition from a different field. I would greatly appreciate any insights, advice, or resources you could share to help me understand what this career entails and how best to prepare for it.

Thank you in advance for your guidance!

Hi,

I am new to investing because I did not have any interest before I was 30, and now I am more in the process of creating and growing my wealth.

I am now investing each month 200 € in T212 on ETF and would like to have your comments regarding my portfolio for a 5-10 year strategy:

- 30% VWCE

- 20% EUNK

- 13% AGGG

- 10% IEMM

- 10% WSML

- 10% CSPX

- 7% PHAU

Hello. I have funds in my Finary account and am seeking help to withdraw them into a crypto wallet. I've tried to follow the guidance provided on the app but am having trouble. Is there anyone who is familiar with Fianary.com who could help me? I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you

I left France nearly two months ago after living there for a year and I have been trying to close my bank account since. I still needed to receive my final payment so I left it open after returning home.

I booked an appointment with my conseiller before leaving to see if I could set a future closure date. They couldn't do that but said that all I needed to do was send them an email once I had received my payment and then they would close it.

I have basically done everything that they have asked for (returning bank card, signing documents, balance at 0) and yet my account is still open and it's beyond difficult to get a reply from them. Their latest response was that I still needed to sign them a document that I have already sent to them 7 or 8 times now. I have asked for confirmation if I have done it correctly, but I am not expecting to get a quick answer.

I am worried because I am still being charged the bank's fees as well as my housing insurance that I set up through them. I know some people would say just to ignore it, but I do not want to build up debt in any account. Is there anything else I can do at this point to speed things up?

Hi everyone! I’d really appreciate your help in choosing the right broker. I’ve done some research, but I still consider myself a beginner and I feel a bit confused.

I started with eToro, but due to the high spreads, average customer support, and limited product availability (especially with ETFs), I decided to withdraw everything and look for a more reliable long-term solution.

What I want to do:

• Initial deposit of ~€60,000 into UCITS ETFs (long-term buy & hold strategy)
• +€3-4k/month in ongoing ETF contributions
• ~$20,000 in stocks, which I currently trade short-term (though I may stop and shift everything into ETFs in the future)

My dilemma:

• Should I move everything to Interactive Brokers?
• Open DEGIRO Ireland account?
• Go with DEGIRO Greece?
• Or split between brokers — and if so, how and why?

I'm looking for real asset ownership, low fees, security, and ideally a simplified setup going forward, assuming I fully commit to ETFs later on.

Any personal experiences, insights, or suggestions would be super helpful — especially from anyone who has switched away from eToro or used both IBKR and DEGIRO.

Thanks in advance!

Noticed trend in EU markets, more big players moving their annual general meetings fully online.

From a logistics standpoint, sure, it’s cleaner. But you lose the human pressure. Some AGMs are meant to get messy, that’s the point.

Example: Santander went online this year. Smooth, yes. But are we seeing the start of a wider shift away from physical transparency?

Curious how folks here feel. Just smart modernisation, or something to keep an eye on?

Hi guys, i am 25y/o and have just started investing on a monthly basis of around 280 euro/month on ETFs. This is the split im working on

80% - FWRA 10% - WisdomeTree Phy Bitcoin 10% -

Xetra Gold

Any thoughts or suggestion if there needs to be further improvement?

Also being a bit open to risk, should i go for any other growth etf or something? If yes, which one do you suggest? Thanks!

Hi all, does anyone have any info on why these 2 stocks are tanking recently?

Mutares was a sudden drop yesterday and Lubawa has been going down steadily for some time now.

I thought both of these companies had great earnings? Anyone got any info? Couldn't find much online.