Hi everyone!

I've been investing for almost a year now with a small amount of capital, mostly to get familiar with the world of markets and personal finance. I’m 26, conservative investor, and I’ve always kept my distance from trading, YouTube “gurus” and get-rich-quick schemes.

After some time learning and experimenting, I wanted to share my strategy and hear what more experienced investors think.

🧠 The idea: build a modular portfolio with global exposure. Instead of the usual split between developed and emerging markets, I prefer dividing by region — using two ETFs per region: one accumulating and one distributing.

Why both? Honestly, I’m still figuring it out — but I like the idea of having some exposure to dividends while reinvesting long-term. My goal is to reach €50,000 in savings as a milestone, partly because that’s the cap for earning interest on Trade Republic’s savings account (which I’m also using).

⚙️ I invest monthly (~€700) and aim to rebalance the weights annually. I selected ETFs with low TERs and (when possible) EUR-based to avoid currency conversion. It’s not always easy to find the perfect match, but here’s the setup:

• Europe (40%)

ETF (Acc) --> $SMEA (-0,58 %) | ETF(Dist) --> $EQDS (-0,92 %)

• USA (30%)

ETF (Acc) --> $SPPW (+0,19 %) | ETF(Dist) --> $SPY5 (+0,36 %)

• Emergin Markets (20%)

ETF (Acc) --> $EIMI (+0,22 %) | ETF (Dist) --> $IEEM (+0,2 %)

• Gold + BTC (10%)

ETF --> $SGLD (+0,12 %)

The idea is to split each region’s weight equally between the two ETFs — that is, 50% of the region's allocation to each ETF. This results in a total TER of 0.289%.

Would love to hear your thoughts, feedback, or suggestions! Still very new to all this, so any insight from more experienced investors would be super helpful 🙌

Thanks for reading! 🚀

#etfs
#stockanalysis
#dividends
#crypto

$SPGI (-0,18 %)
$SPY5 (+0,36 %)

Beginning of this week, I had sold my full S&P position, taking some small profit (4.44%).

One day, Warren Buffett said, "don't bet against America.". This is no longer true even for him.

My sell price was €530, now it is already down 4% from this. The funny thing is that nothing yet happened (Q1 reports are yet to come). After Q1 reports index will be down more but after Q2 it will crush.

At the beginning of this year, I was predicting single-digit growth of S&P. Mainly I was thinking Trump would be saying more than he do, but since putting tariffs, turning his back against allies, it was clear to me that the US economy would be impacted a lot.

Now it is clear to me that all that has already happened will have an impact on the US economy for 10+ years with much smaller growth. For the short term, this and next yea,r we can expect S&P will be down 15-25% more from the current price.

Maybe the governments in EU or Canada are not yet that anti-US, but many ordinary people have already decided to limit or stop buying/using US products.

Keep in mind I'm not an advisor, and this is not a recommendation. It's just to share my opinion and see how other people think. You should do your own investigation.

$CSPX (+0,36 %)
$VUSA (+0,37 %)
$SPY5 (+0,36 %)
$VWCE (+0,18 %)
$SPYI (+0,11 %)
$SPYY (+0,16 %)
$FWRG (+0,13 %)

Source: George Maroudas, CFP® @ChicagoAdvisorR

It surprised me how few people talk about the impact that trump actions bring to the stock market.

It should be clear to everyone that it will hurt all allies, but it would be most painful for US, and in fact you can already see from the stock market.

• YTD $SPY5 (+0,36 %) down 1.16% (S&P500)
• YTD $VEUR (-0,69 %) up 13% (Europe ETF)

both above are nominated in US dollars.

There are only 2 countries that can gain from trade wars and it is China, and russia.

I think nobody expects it when trump was elected but it is the reality that we are currently living.

As for me, I decided already month ago that from now on I will invest only in EU stocks and ETF (plus I will use dollars I already have in my account), but I'm curious how you all see this and when the market will be more calm again.

As a bonus as EU citizen I feel that US betrayed us and shouldn't be trusted any longer for some unknown period of time.

In this series of posts, I plan to share my predictions for the upcoming Q1 and Q2 of this year. I will focus mostly on predictions instead of explaining why I think in a certain way.

I will try to focus on stocks and ETFs I already track performance and the ones I have in my portfolio.

- In general US stocks will not perform spectacularly like last year. I predict the $SPY5 (+0,36 %) won't reach more than a 10% return.

- $ASML (+0,92 %) will drop once again to the 650-670 eur range, creating a good opportunity to buy

- $MAIN (+0,12 %) will continue to grow both price and dividends I expect small single-digits

- $LMT (+0,52 %) is the one stock that can surprise with two-digit growth or low single-digit

Let me know what you think in the comments.

As usual, I'm not a financial advisor and this is not any recommendation, just sharing my thoughts.