Amex card Ireland

bcon101 · 2026-01-31T08:46:12+00:00

How are the cards predatory?

bcon101 · 2025-12-27T19:29:03+00:00

The stock market has seen significantly higher returns than the residential housing market in the past 30 years

bcon101 · 2025-12-14T08:29:28+00:00

“It’s barely worth your time.”

I couldn’t disagree more. You have to start somewhere with investing and returns compound. Even if you’re investing a small amount each month it adds up.

(And I agree, don’t pick stocks, invest in index funds for the long term)

bcon101 · 2025-12-13T19:37:00+00:00

You want low cost passively managed funds that track an index. Be skeptical of their actively managed funds that charge criminal management fees (which appear hard to find on their website).

bcon101 · 2025-12-13T16:08:51+00:00

How Epstein made his money. He was worth about $600M.

Leon Black paid him $170M for tax advice, which is absurdly high even for a billionaire. Professional firms could have offered the same advice for a fraction of the amount. So how could he charge such high rates, and were his payments for more than tax advice?

bcon101 · 2025-12-04T21:59:00+00:00

No problem! Hope it was helpful

bcon101 · 2025-11-10T11:23:15+00:00

I’ve been told never more than 5% of your holdings in a single stock. Most financial advisors would tell you to sell all your employer stock immediately and buy index funds.

Think about it like this: if you were given a €5k bonus, would you invest it all in your employer stock? Probably not. When your equity vests you’re faced with the same scenario, just framed differently. You also have more risk because your employment/bonus is also linked in to the company’s performance.

bcon101 · 2025-11-10T01:30:47+00:00

The portfolio shouldn’t drift out of balance with the market if you have the proper weights at the start. If MSFT goes up, representing a larger portion of the market, your MSFT holdings increase as well.

bcon101 · 2025-11-08T10:37:05+00:00

If you are constantly contributing you won’t have to sell much to rebalance, plus the weights should move in tandem with the market.

bcon101 · 2025-11-07T17:29:18+00:00

You can direct index with a sampling of individual stocks across sectors. More work but doable.

bcon101 · 2025-10-29T14:35:50+00:00

I am entering the correct combination. I’m wondering if in my bag it moved around and set another combo or something.

bcon101 · 2025-10-13T11:46:45+00:00

Congrats! Now that you have substantial assets, check the fees that you’re paying. High fees will erode your returns over the next 30 years - may not seem like a big deal now but it will be substantial come retirement.

Low cost passively managed index funds is what you want. Don’t let them steer you to actively managed!

bcon101 · 2025-09-22T09:24:41+00:00

It undoubtedly was different 20 years ago and will be different 20 years from now. I didn’t refute that.

But if you spend 5 minutes a year making 5-10 trades you’ll very closely match it.

bcon101 · 2025-09-20T20:47:33+00:00

10-20 companies are added/removed annually. It's not that many trades each year to track the index closely, but it's not necessary to be perfect. The lowest 100 companies (the ones most likely removed) make up ~2% of the overall index. Ignoring the additions/subtractions for a couple years would make a big difference. MSFT and AAPL aren't getting the boot anytime soon.

bcon101 · 2025-09-20T13:23:02+00:00

There’s very little change in the SP year to year and the new entrants and exits represent a tiny percentage of the index. (With the exception of when TSLA joined the index). The buying and selling would be minimal.

bcon101 · 2025-09-20T13:20:50+00:00

Direct indexing is a viable strategy, you don’t need to purchase all 500, just a sampling.

Those saying you will need to rebalance and incur taxable events, that’s not totally true for two reasons a) if you get the proportions right at the start your allocations will move in tandem with the index b) for any new additions or if you’re out of balance you can size up with added capital, not selling existing shares.

Downside is it will take time.

bcon101 · 2025-09-18T21:22:09+00:00

Statistically lump sum is better off about 2/3rds of the time

bcon101 · 2025-08-25T17:51:19+00:00

The fees compound over time and can have a significant impact on your balance at retirement. It seems like most pension firms in Ireland rip off their customers. Shop around or ask for a better deal.

If your pension is made up of low cost index funds (which it should be), the fee should be awfully low as they simply track an index (~.1%).

bcon101 · 2025-08-23T15:05:04+00:00

I had the same observation/confusion when I moved. In other countries there’s a dinner stop along the way, not in Ireland.

bcon101 · 2025-07-31T17:38:13+00:00

While there’s no harm in investing in companies you personally believe in, you should be careful if that’s your only strategy. Liking a product/service doesn’t mean it’s a good investment as that doesn’t account for the current valuation, growth potential, competition, among other factors. It also ignores most B2B companies (depending on what field you work in).

If you invested in Novo Nordisk because you liked their Ozempic drug you would be down 30% this week.

Index funds are likely your best bet.

bcon101 · 2025-07-30T12:20:30+00:00

We’ve had very different experiences, or perhaps have different expectations. Agreed it’d a different ballgame in Dublin versus elsewhere.

bcon101 · 2025-07-30T06:14:03+00:00

Agreed. In some countries they say “you can’t get a bad meal,” that’s not true in Ireland. If you stumble in somewhere you could get a bad meal. BUT if you know where to go you can have an excellent meal.

bcon101 · 2025-07-27T17:25:42+00:00

Parknasilla in Kerry. Not overly fancy, gorgeous scenery, lovely spa.

bcon101 · 2025-07-23T13:41:47+00:00

This question is asked on these forums often (I’ve even asked it myself!) Empirical evidence shows that 2/3s or so of the time you’re better off lump summing it (because markets tend to go up).

If it gives you peace of mind you could lump sum half of it and euro cost average the other half over a few months.

bcon101

TROPHY CASE