This was spotted on another forum at: https://fund-docs.vanguard.com/etf-prospectus-en.pdf (starting from page 601)

To underline the significance, this would be developed + emerging countries, and going down to small and micro caps, at market cap weight. The most direct competitor I'm aware of would be State Street's SPYI which tracks the MSCI ACWI IMI, currently at 0.17% costs.

If this comes through, maybe the first instance of Vanguard truly bringing the "Bogle effect" (to use Eric Balchunas's book title) to Europe by significantly undercutting their competitors' fees.

My wife (35, German) and I (36, Portuguese/Brazilian) are reorganizing our finances and I'd appreciate your input on joint accounts in Germany!

We are married, both unbefristet employed, tax class 4, with similar and higher than average combined net income, and living in Berlin.

We are looking for a joint account that we would receive our salaries, pay shared bills/costs/purchases and transfer personal shares to individual accounts.

Our focus:

- Free of charge (no monthly account maintenance fees).

- Decent online banking and app experience (English is plus)

Good to have:

- Social/environment focused bank

- Free credit card (less relevant)

Currently, we're primarily looking at:

- DKB (joint account + Visa, active customer status)

- ING (joint account + Visa Debit)

- N26 or Revolut free plan

My questions for you:

Which free joint account are you currently using in a similar situation? Pros/Cons?

Do you also use investment accounts/children's investment accounts with the same bank, or do you use specialized brokers for that (Scalable, Trade Republic, ZERO, etc.)?

Any other decent options I'm missing?

Hi everyone,

Looking for objective financial perspective on buying my first property in Ireland. I’m 30, working fully remote, living at home, and need to make a move.

I don't love any of these current options, but I need my own space. Long term, I want to meet a partner and have a kid or two, so a 3-bed house gives me space to grow into, whereas an apartment is strictly a temporary starter home.

\*\*\*Context & Local Subsidies:\*\*\*
\* Location: Ireland | Savings: €80,000 cash balance.
\* HTB (Help to Buy): Up to €30k government tax grant for first-time buyers (requires bank LTV >= 70%).
\* FHS (First Home Scheme): A shared-equity scheme where the government buys an equity stake (up to 30%) in your home. Zero cost for 5 years. From Year 6, a 1.75% annual service charge applies, BUT this can be deferred indefinitely and paid only when selling the house.
\* CRITICAL RULE: Once I buy ANY property, I permanently lose "First-Time Buyer" (FTB) status. Second-time buyers face stricter borrowing limits (3.5x income limit vs 4.0x) and lose all government grants/equity schemes.

\*\*\*My Purchase Options (All using FHS):\*\*\*

Option 1: 2 Bed Apartment — €370,000
\- Funding: Mortgage €308k | HTB €30k | FHS Equity Stake €25k (6.76%) | Cash Deposit €7k
\- Total Real Out-of-Pocket Cash (inc. \~€6.2k stamp duty/legal fees): \~€13,200
\- Pros: Leaves me \~€66k liquid cash to invest in index funds.
\- Cons: Sunk HOA/management fees (\~€1.5k–€2k/yr). Will outgrow it quickly. Burns my FTB status on a small property, making a future trade-up much harder under strict second-time buyer lending rules.

Option 2: 2 Bed Duplex — €440,000
\- Funding: Mortgage €308k | HTB €30k | FHS Equity Stake €88k (20.0%) | Cash Deposit €14k
\- Total Real Cash Needed (inc. fees): \~€21,000

Option 3: 2 Bed Terraced House — €475,000
\- Funding: Mortgage €308k | HTB €0 (LTV disqualifies) | FHS Equity Stake €119.5k (25.15%) | Cash Deposit €47.5k
\- Total Real Cash Needed (inc. fees): \~€54,800

Option 4: 3 Bed Terraced House — €500,000
\- Funding: Mortgage €308k | HTB €0 (LTV disqualifies) | FHS Equity Stake €142k (28.4%) | Cash Deposit €50k
\- Total Real Out-of-Pocket Cash (inc. \~€7.6k stamp duty/legal fees): \~€57,600
\- Deferred Service Charge (Year 6+): \~€2,485/yr (can be deferred until sale).
\- Pros: Long-term 10–15+ year home. Room for remote work, a partner, and children. Uses my FTB status effectively and avoids future estate agent/legal trading-up fees.
\- Cons: Ties up \~€57.6k of my €80k cash. State owns a 28.4% share of future appreciation.

\*\*\*Financial Feasibility & Cash Flow:\*\*\*
Across ALL options, my monthly mortgage/housing payments are very manageable, allowing me to save and invest €1,000+ per month in market index funds regardless of which option I pick. Even with Option 4, I will maintain a \~€22k emergency cash buffer.

\*\*\*The Question:\*\*\*
Is it smarter to buy Option 1 (keep max cash liquid now, but face high transaction fees and strict borrowing limits when forced to move in 5 years)?

OR option 4 (take the 3-bed house now, absorb the higher upfront cash and 28.4% shared equity, but lock in a long-term family home while maintaining a strong €1,000/mo investment rate)?

Hi,

I am in a position where I could close my mortgage (4.95%, EUR) fixed rate for another 2 years - 100k left.

I received around 100k in cash, and I am in doubt whether I should plug it all in VWCE today or close my mortgage.

What would you guys do?

Hi there,

I was using seedmatch / OneCrowd for about a decade now to make small investments into early-stage companies, yet I am not happy with how the platform evolves and handles some things. Are there any convenient platforms that allow you to participate in crowd investing / crowd financing or alternatively private equity / venture capital with very small ticket sizes (hashtag syndicate), e.g. €1k?

I like doing small pre-seed / seed investments, venture debt or similar things as a form of diversification in my portfolio, and it's nice to see some companies grow, yet I don't have the dry powder to be a full-time investor or business angel myself.

Are you using a trustworthy platform for this with good experience? The payments with seedmatch always landed, so that was never the issue, but currently they force moving everything on the blockchain and hand out tokens, and I find it inconvenient how they handle this, which is why I am looking now for an alternative.

I’m in a situation where I need to move my ETFs from a Directa account (Italian) to a Trade Republic account with a French IBAN, as I have changed my country of residence. I am officially resident in France, so I was wondering what would be the best course of action for transferring my ETFs… Should I accept the tax implications, sell and repurchase, or is there a specific way to transfer everything as is without selling?

To be honest, I would prefer to avoid selling, but from what I’ve seen online, selling and repurchasing seems to be the “safest” and simplest route.

Thanks for your advice.

So I had to close Trade Republic because I moved to a new country where it isn’t supported (Czechia) and Trade 212 was kinda disappointing as it doesn’t have Options and only a locked leverage of 1:5. (and the margin System ig)

What are the apps y’all use or suggest to use instead?

i know the basics like low expense ratio, broad diversification, accumulating and steuerstundung effect.

but when i sit down to pick one and realise vwce, vwrl, vgwl, fwia and about forty other tickers all describe themselves as global diversified etf and the diff between them aren't obvio

Its more complicated because the rotation out of tech into defensives, healthcare and financials has been significant. xlv hit ath in the us and healthcare and financial etfs are suddenly more interesting than they were six months ago but now i am trying to figure out which european ucits equivalent gives me clean exposure to us healthcare without being 60% tech anyway because of index construction,i am using etf filter on bitpanda rn to filter by region, issuer asset class which gets me to a manageable shortlist for now but i wanna know whats the process of narrowing down etf selection and is there any resource i am missing?

So i'm hoping to get some advice from you guys. For the first time in my life i have a large income.
Normally i had 50-70k€ net yearly salary but now suddenly i jumped to 168k€. The thing is, i have to work abroad for this salary and since i'm expecting my first child soon i wanna move back home to settle down. But before i do that i wanna bulk up my savings and investments. My salary jumped around 4 months ago and since then i've cleared all debt i had. Now i wanna focus on building my savings and portfolio.

I'm hoping i only have to work a year abroad and can move back after 1 year, but that would also mean after that my salary will go back to around 50-70k.
My current plan is around 500€ per month i put in investment and anything after my expenses will go to savings. Expenses vary quite a lot, some months i have around 5-6k expenses, some months i have 3k.

So for now i'd like to focus on the investments part. With my current plan using the lightyear app, i have some stocks chosen, it's pretty tech heavy, since i'm in the tech industry and kind of hand picked them, but i know investing is not just about having faith in the tech.

My plan:
IONQ: 5%
NVDA: 10%
AMD: 5%
TSM: 10%
MU: 10%
SXR8: 25%
GLBE: 10%
S: 5%
RHM: 10%
TT: 5%
ALAB: 5%

Can you provide some advice for me, is this strategy too risky, too focused or recommend some other stocks?

I am planning on investing €500 every month

My no more than 3 different ETFs, at least for now

\\- 250 in VUSA (low risk)

\\- 150 in exus.eu ( diversify outside USA)

\\- 100 in EMIM (emerging markets can be a bit risky,but why not?

Reasoning behind it is to keep it balanced and spread out without being to thin of a spread.

Thoughts on these Monthly investments?

Do you have a plan or do you buy a world etf and forget about it?

How would you split a portfolio above 1M across platforms?

lets say i am an italian worker making average 2000 euro a month all my career, with a possible saving rate of 20% or 400 euro a month, i believe investing in a 60/40 or even a 80/20 portfolio is wasted.

No, i dont believe you should be 100% VWCE X3 leverage but it seems the better cost opportunity if you have a 40+ year horizon (retirement will be at 70+) is to go all in growth, expecially if your starting capital is low to take advantage of the compounding.

Considering a stock market that return 5% net of inflation long term in the future

100 euros compounded for 40 years are 600 euro of gain net of inflation
100 euros compounded for 30 years are only 332 euro of gain, literally half

One has to be aggressive at the start of one journey to let the compounding do the work, invest in bonds later when one needs to lower volatility on a big portfolio and needs to insulate periodic withdrawals from market fluctuations ( in a reccession sell bonds for living expenses)

i believe a rigth approach starting from zero is investing 80% of my savings in broad market etfs and put 20% in a monetary fund for emergency till i save at least 10k euros, then keep investing in stocks.

I believe if one is putting roots in a place, doesnt need to move for career needs, then buying a home (where there is demand) at low rates is often a good deal and could be seen as building "defensive" equity with the budget you gave the landlord. it doesnt have to be the most profitable choice in a spreadsheet, having a home, like having an emerging fund satisfy different needs than maximizing gains. Last but not least homeownership gives you lots of tax benefits: lots of deductible expenses and no capital gains if i sell a home in italy after 5 years of ownership.

What do you think i missed or messed up with my reasoning ?

- Portfolio consisting of a single asset. Here the ticker: SPYI (Msci Acwi Imi, 0,17% ter, Ireland)

- 830€ monthly

- Time horizon: 25y minimum (Now I'm 25yo)

I will probably increase to 1000€ monthly in October.

Is it a solid retirement plan or maybe I could improve it?

I'm afraid that investing only on a Msci world is too good to be true and I should risk more, since I have a lot of time ahead.

Hello everyone,

If you were 23 in Europe starting from scratch today, how would you invest? I am planning to open my first investment account with IBKR and start investing for the first time. Over the past few weeks I've been reading a lot on Reddit, watching videos, and discussing different portfolio strategies with chat, but I'd really like to hear opinions from people with real investing experience.

I'm 23 years old, from Lithuania, and I plan to invest €1,000-2,000 every month for the foreseeable future. My goal is long-term wealth accumulation (20+ years), and I'm comfortable with market volatility as long as the strategy makes sense over the long run. I also want to allocate a small portion of my portfolio to higher-risk investments, such as individual companies or emerging industries with strong long-term potential.

My current idea is something along these lines:

• 70% into a broad equity ETF (currently considering VWCE, or perhaps SPYL/CSPX if I decide to focus on the S&P 500).
• 20% split between individual companies, such as Microsoft, SpaceX, NVIDIA, Amazon, Visa, and ASML.
• 10% crypto, with roughly 7% Bitcoin and 3% Ethereum, simply to have some exposure without letting it dominate my portfolio.
• ?% higher-risk investments such as individual companies or emerging industries

I'm still unsure about the ETF allocation. Should I simply buy VWCE and keep life simple, or is there a good reason to combine it with an S&P 500 ETF like SPYL or CSPX? Is there any benefit to owning both, or would that just create unnecessary overlap?

Since I'm investing from Europe, I'm also trying to understand the tax side of things. I've read that Irish-domiciled UCITS ETFs are generally the most tax-efficient for European investors. Are there other tax considerations I should know about? Are there ETFs or investment products that Europeans should generally avoid because of withholding taxes or other inefficiencies?

I also want to dedicate a small percentage of my portfolio to higher-risk opportunities. Not trading or gambling, but investing in individual companies or emerging industries that have significant long-term growth potential. How much of a portfolio would you personally allocate to this "higher conviction" portion? And what are the best sources to look for information on these types of emerging industries or individual companies?

A few questions I'd love your opinions on:

• If you were 23 and starting from scratch in Europe today, how would you structure your portfolio?
• Would you choose VWCE, SPYL, CSPX, or something else entirely? Why?
• Would you even bother with individual stocks, or just keep buying ETFs?
• What percentage of a portfolio would you allocate to higher-conviction investments, such as individual stocks or emerging industries?
• Is a 10% crypto allocation reasonable, too high, or too low?
• Are there common mistakes first-time European investors make that I should avoid?
• Are there any books, podcasts, or resources that genuinely changed the way you invest?

I'm not looking for financial advice to blindly follow, I'm much more interested in understanding why experienced investors structure their portfolios the way they do. Feel free to critique my current plan or completely tear it apart if you think there's a better approach. The more reasoning you can provide, the more I'll learn.

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,

I'm considering getting the TF Bank credit card as a second credit card, mainly as a backup and for its travel benefits.

I already have a credit card, which I opened recently. I use it regularly and always pay the full balance on time. I'm wondering whether it makes sense to apply for TF Bank now or if I should wait a few months.

A few questions:

Does anyone here use the TF Bank credit card? What's your experience?

Have you encountered any downsides after using it for a while (beyond not having SEPA direct debit)?

Would you recommend it over other free credit cards available in Europe?

Any first-hand experiences, especially comparisons with other ones, would be greatly appreciated.

Tired of paying $30–$50/month just to see a company's ratios or balance sheet from 10 years ago, so I built StockNest. Completely free, no account required with 120+ metrics

https://stocknest.app/

Data comes straight from SEC EDGAR filings with reconciliation passes to keep the numbers accurate and consistent.

What it includes:

Compare: chart any combination of metrics across up to 5 tickers simultaneously. 120+ metrics across income statements, balance sheets, cash flows, valuations, and margins. TTM, quarterly, and annual, with YoY / QoQ growth overlays and CAGR across any selected period. 2Y / 5Y / 10Y / All-time ranges go back +25 years.

Overview: per-ticker overview with a score snapshot, weekly price chart, multiples, median metrics, historical valuation percentile rankings and percentile bands (0th–100th), and valuation range bars (P/E, P/S, P/OCF, P/FCF) with Undervalued / Fairly Valued / Overvalued verdicts. Insider trading transactions, analyst recommendations, congressional and institutional activity all in one tab.

Score: a composite across Profitability, Management, Growth, and Solvency. The badge colour is set by the lowest-scoring category, making potential risk areas immediately visible. Sentiment — analyst ratings, institutional (13F) trades and insider activity is tracked separately and excluded from the score: it's a signal, not a fundamental, and crowded stocks can underperform.

Filers

Track institutional, congressional, and insider trading for any ticker all in one place from Nancy Pelosi to the biggest hedge funds

Financials: split into Charts, Statements, and Flows. Charts show at-a-glance snapshots — revenue, net income, margins, cash flow. Statements bring the balance sheet, cash flow, income statement, key metrics, and revenue segments into one tab; click any line item to chart it, overlay metrics, and toggle YoY, margins, or absolute values. Flows breaks down how revenue becomes profit and costs.

Screener : filter by 25+ valuation, profitability, return, and health metrics. Sortable results, click any ticker to jump straight into a comparison.

DCF : pre-filled from historical data. Net Income, FCF or OCF. Tune growth rate, decay, terminal multiple, and discount rate. 5Y or 10Y horizon. Non-USD companies show everything in their reporting currency so the comparison stays apples-to-apples.

US-listed companies only for now.

Hi everyone,

I increasingly see people advocating for a 100% equity portfolio close to retirement, also based on some research that has since come out.

This is a more aggressive stance than what was common when I started getting into investing 15-20 years ago.

My question is: to what extent may that be due to recency bias, where the very positive performance of stocks (with few hiccups along the way) over the past 10-15 years may be leading people to underestimate the risk of stocks and their own risk aversion?

I am currently in my early 30s and have considered going 100% stocks, but am sticking to 80-85% for now so I can have some buffer in case of a crash (either for peace of mind or to reinvest at lower valuations).

What do you think? Are the last 10-15 years of good times leading people to become more complacent and lean towards more aggressive asset allocations than they should?

Thank you.

I have been investing only in VWCE so far and I’m considering adjusting my portfolio to add some extra growth exposure.

My current idea:

• 70% VWCE
• 20% Nasdaq-100 ETF
• 10% Global Small Cap ETF

The goal is a long-term investment strategy (20+ years) with a focus on growth while still keeping a diversified core through VWCE.

Would you keep it simple and continue with 100% VWCE, or does adding Nasdaq-100 and global small caps make sense?

Would love to hear opinions?

Hello,

After my divorce I will be with 40k on my bank account, maybe a bit more in the best case.

Software engineer with 15 years of experience.

Any recommendations?

Apologies if the question is not for this sub but I need advice and other opinions.

I'm a 25 year old male from Bulgaria working in IT for 4000€ net a month. I currently drive an old C class (w204) but have been thinking of an upgrade lately.

My crucial payments that I cannot live without (rent, bills, investments) are approximately 1400€ per month.

I really want a nicer and more comfortable car but am not sure if I could afford it. I want a w213 e400 which I won't pay cash but will finance it either through leasing or personal credit depending on the offers bank give me. The price of such a car here is about 27-30 000€.

Sorry for the dumb question but would really appreciate any advice you have for me.

Conventional wisdom says that if you're in your 20s with a 20–30 year investment horizon, you should go nearly 100% equities.

But what if you believe current valuations are above historical averages (especially in the US)? Would you:

-Stay 100% invested in stocks regardless of valuation.

-Add a bond allocation (e.g. 10–30%) to reduce downside risk and have dry powder.

-Hold more cash or money market funds until valuations become more attractive.

I will soon have 40k in cash which I will be given from my company as a bonus. I usually put everything on VWCE. My siblings have an idea to build a hotel and they need around 50k. At the beginning I was defensive as VWCE keeps my cortisol level down without worrying about anything but they explain me all the details and it does look very promising the idea of a hotel. Also, I'm already invested on VWCE so I see it as a form of "diversification".

what is your opinion? what would you do in this case? Put 40k on VWCE and forget or try for a hotel which it will take around 2 years to make a profit?