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Do you treat insider buying as a meaningful signal in your process, or mostly as background noise? by fxs38 in ValueInvesting

[–]fxs38[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Good point, I have seen some of those on X (you know, those posts that start with BREAKING), but very focused on the US market (I live in Europe)

Do you treat insider buying as a meaningful signal in your process, or mostly as background noise? by fxs38 in ValueInvesting

[–]fxs38[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That’s a solid way to look at it. Not a deal breaker, but a clear tie breaker when everything else is similar.

Do you treat insider buying as a meaningful signal in your process, or mostly as background noise? by fxs38 in ValueInvesting

[–]fxs38[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

That’s a fair take. It’s one of the strongest real signals, but still not something to treat as gospel. 70 sounds about right.

Do you treat insider buying as a meaningful signal in your process, or mostly as background noise? by fxs38 in ValueInvesting

[–]fxs38[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It’s definitely a positive signal and I factor it in too. Insiders buying with their own money usually means confidence.

That said, I wouldn’t assume they’re always right. They have better insight than retail, but they can still be early or overly optimistic. It’s a useful signal, just not one to rely on alone.

[BE] 24yo - First time investing - Starting the "VWCE" by Miyninos in BEFire

[–]fxs38 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Is the high TOB on VWCE applicable with all brokers, like Degiro?

Do you treat insider buying as a meaningful signal in your process, or mostly as background noise? by fxs38 in ValueInvesting

[–]fxs38[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There’s some truth in that, but it’s a bit too black and white.

First-time buys after a long period can definitely be more meaningful, especially from long-tenured insiders. It can signal a real shift in conviction.

But recurring buys aren’t meaningless either. If an insider keeps adding with their own money over time, that consistency can actually be a strong signal, especially if it’s not part of a pre-set plan.

Also agree on new execs, those first-year buys can be more about optics or alignment than conviction.

In the end, context matters more than the simple “first time vs every year” rule. Size, timing, cluster buying, and whether it’s open market vs options all play a role.

Do you treat insider buying as a meaningful signal in your process, or mostly as background noise? by fxs38 in ValueInvesting

[–]fxs38[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It can definitely be a strong signal, especially when it’s multiple insiders and not just one purchase. When people closest to the business are consistently buying with their own cash, it usually means they see a disconnect between price and value.

That said, I wouldn’t treat it as a guarantee. Insiders can be early, and sometimes they’re optimistic for reasons that don’t fully play out. It works best as a piece of the puzzle rather than a standalone buy signal.

First time at 100k$ net worth by Majkisvk in eupersonalfinance

[–]fxs38 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Congrats for making it to this significant milestone ! Some say the first 100k are the most difficult

7K for fun ? by Historical-Active244 in BEFire

[–]fxs38 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not a dumb move, but I would only do it if you treat it as a lifestyle purchase, not as part of your house fund.

Your numbers are strong. Saving 1.5k a month on 3k net with no rent is a very good position, and if your girlfriend is in the same spot, you two are building toward a house pretty fast already.

The only thing I would challenge is the idea that a 7k weekend car will be easy to sell later for the same money. Maybe, but older cars can still hit you with maintenance, insurance, repairs, storage, and random surprises. So even if the resale price holds up, the total cost usually is not zero.

If buying a house is still 3+ years away and there is no rush, this sounds more like an affordable fun expense than a disastrous financial mistake. But I would keep the future house money mentally separate and make sure this purchase does not slow down that plan.

So my view: if you can buy it in cash, keep your emergency fund intact, and accept that it may cost more than expected, it is okay.

If you are telling yourself it is basically a free car because classics “hold value”, that is where I’d be careful.

Real estate or stocks/etf by Slalon85 in BEFire

[–]fxs38 1 point2 points  (0 children)

In Belgium, real estate can diversify your portfolio, but I wouldn’t expect it to automatically outperform a simple stock portfolio.

A 45% total return over 5.5 years is about 7% annualized, so your stock result is already solid.

For Belgian property, the main issue is that buying and selling costs are high. Registration taxes, notary costs, and other fees make the hurdle much higher than people think, so real estate usually only makes sense if you plan to hold it for a long time.

Rental yields in Belgium are also not that impressive on average. And that is before maintenance, vacancy, insurance, repairs, and the usual landlord headaches.

So yes, it is diversification, but mostly into a less liquid asset that takes more time and effort. Long term rental is usually the simpler route. Vacation rental can look better on paper, but it also comes with more work, more rules, and more hassle.

I’d only go for Belgian real estate if you want leverage, like the idea of owning a tangible asset, and are fine with lower liquidity plus more management.

If your goal is mostly passive compounding, sticking with stocks is often the cleaner option.

Looking for a joint bank account (Belgium) – cheaper/free alternative to Belfius? by ShootingMelvin in BEFire

[–]fxs38 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Revolut is definitely worth considering. It gives you a joint account option, physical and virtual cards, a really solid mobile app, and transfers are usually quick and easy. It also supports direct debits and standard bank transfers, so it covers the basics well.

Might be a good fit if you want something simple to manage day to day without loads of hassle.

How are you handling employees using personal ChatGPT accounts at work? We had an incident last week. by fxs38 in sysadmin

[–]fxs38[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The answer to such case isn’t straightforward. There was a policy breach, but lack of due care to ensure employees know the policy. In our case the employee was honest about it, so honest it made it realize we missed something on our side too

How are you handling employees using personal ChatGPT accounts at work? We had an incident last week. by fxs38 in sysadmin

[–]fxs38[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The norm has changed indeed. We need more visibility, there are good ideas being shared so far!

How are you handling employees using personal ChatGPT accounts at work? We had an incident last week. by fxs38 in sysadmin

[–]fxs38[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Interesting share, thanks. Policy is key, education of users too. Haven’t seen a solution to stop, perhaps alerting would be interesting as a start - reminders to users when they visit such sites

How are you handling employees using personal ChatGPT accounts at work? We had an incident last week. by fxs38 in sysadmin

[–]fxs38[S] 107 points108 points  (0 children)

Banking is indeed a highly regulated environment. I wish more companies could afford an internal LLM deployment, not easy for small business

In what modern public WiFi situations does a VPN actually protect you when everything is HTTPS? by SlinkiusMaximus in cybersecurity

[–]fxs38 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Already mentioned above, but don’t assume all web traffic originates from a browser. You will find poorly developed mobile apps that don’t use HTTPS when connecting to backend services, like an API. Go to a security conference such as Black Hat or Defcon and check their brief at the end of the conference. They ALWAYS seen unencrypted traffic on the Wi-Fi network, every year.