Six months ago I started an investing experiment to see if I can create an “all weather portfolio” that would perform well in different market conditions, and at the same time beat S&P 500 index and Warrent Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. I won!
Congrats on your performance, well done! I am also buying bitcoin since it had such a great performance this year.
Regarding your comment about Interactive Brokers. I had an account there, but I was not happy with the platform and closed my account.
I am afraid that the same EU regulation is present in IB and you will not be able to buy US ETFs as an underlying asset. The regulation affects all EU citizens.
Main reasons for closing the IB account:
1. User interface is awful and outdated. It is hard to get around it. The website is slow too.
2. If you have EUR as a base currency and want to buy US stocks, you will have to perform a Forex trade to convert the money to USD.
3. You can fund your account only via wire transfer.
4. And the last but maybe the most important one to me is the inactivity fee.
Here the answer from support regarding the inactivity fee:
"Please note that every IBKR PRO account is subject to a monthly minimum activity fee. This fee is capped at USD 10 for accounts with a balance greater than USD 2,000 (USD 20 for accounts maintaining equity of USD 2,000 and below). This fee can be waived for an account in any given month only if the commission worth of USD 10 (equivalent in non USD) generated or the Net Liquidation Value (NLV) of each account is greater than or equal to USD 100,000."
Yes, maybe it will affect IB as well, and I agree about user interface. But I better pay $10 per month and know exactly how much I pay in fees than try to guess it as it is in case of eToro. IB is a good option if portfolio size is 10-20k or above, for a smaller portfolio Revolut or eToro are alternatives, but I don't have much trust in eToro.
I am currently using 4 platforms - Revolut, eToro, Trading212 for stocks and ETFs, and Kraken for crypto. Check out Trading212, it is a good alternative to the eToro.
The thing that I liked about IB is their support. I got answers from them on the same day or the next day.
I heard, that etoro will issue a debit card. I guess, that should help with withdrawals, as then one can use that for payments, or upload cash to revolut, from which it is rather easy to send money anywhere.
Nice Stats, thanks for sharing.
I've been using eToro since 2016 and never had issues.
On eToro I only trade CFD's with leverage x5.
https://www.etoro.com/people/allik82/stats
I also use Revolut. It's basic but works. You can sell your stocks, immediately move the funds back to your account and spend it.
Now I'm testing IG.com higher fees but for CFD's I can start trading in pre-market and the visuals/graphs are better then eToro.
My favorite Latvian account on etoro is from Bobtheguy. All in on Tesla with leverage x5 🚀🚀🚀 Simply EPIC
https://www.etoro.com/people/bobtheguy/portfolio
haha.. Tesla guy is crazy! :)
Congrats on your performance, well done! I am also buying bitcoin since it had such a great performance this year.
Regarding your comment about Interactive Brokers. I had an account there, but I was not happy with the platform and closed my account.
I am afraid that the same EU regulation is present in IB and you will not be able to buy US ETFs as an underlying asset. The regulation affects all EU citizens.
Main reasons for closing the IB account:
1. User interface is awful and outdated. It is hard to get around it. The website is slow too.
2. If you have EUR as a base currency and want to buy US stocks, you will have to perform a Forex trade to convert the money to USD.
3. You can fund your account only via wire transfer.
4. And the last but maybe the most important one to me is the inactivity fee.
Here the answer from support regarding the inactivity fee:
"Please note that every IBKR PRO account is subject to a monthly minimum activity fee. This fee is capped at USD 10 for accounts with a balance greater than USD 2,000 (USD 20 for accounts maintaining equity of USD 2,000 and below). This fee can be waived for an account in any given month only if the commission worth of USD 10 (equivalent in non USD) generated or the Net Liquidation Value (NLV) of each account is greater than or equal to USD 100,000."
Yes, maybe it will affect IB as well, and I agree about user interface. But I better pay $10 per month and know exactly how much I pay in fees than try to guess it as it is in case of eToro. IB is a good option if portfolio size is 10-20k or above, for a smaller portfolio Revolut or eToro are alternatives, but I don't have much trust in eToro.
I am currently using 4 platforms - Revolut, eToro, Trading212 for stocks and ETFs, and Kraken for crypto. Check out Trading212, it is a good alternative to the eToro.
The thing that I liked about IB is their support. I got answers from them on the same day or the next day.
I heard, that etoro will issue a debit card. I guess, that should help with withdrawals, as then one can use that for payments, or upload cash to revolut, from which it is rather easy to send money anywhere.
Can you please tell more about that regulation update? Will it mean that it won't be possible to buy US ETFs also on, for example, Swedbank?
Check out this article:
https://www.etfstream.com/features/etf-insight-european-investors-set-to-be-impacted-by-kid-requirements/
check trading212/invest account/ if you look for etoro replacement. p.s. using bitcoin to beat old warren is cheating!
It does not have freedom to trade in Latvia judging from FKTK website so its a no go for me.
Yes, trading212 is quite all right. It has some stocks that eToro does not offer.