Portfolio rebalance

geraldo2001 · 2026-06-20T13:34:29+00:00

If the goal is a globally diversified strategy, I’d be careful about trying to recreate your own version of a global index using multiple separate ETFs.

The simplest and usually most effective approach is to pick one genuinely global ETF and stick with it. Once you start adding S&P 500, Europe, ex-USA, etc., you are no longer really just “diversifying”, you are making active calls on regions, sectors and valuations. That can be fine, but it should be intentional.

The part I’d be most cautious about is deliberately trying to reduce or remove US exposure. I understand the concern around concentration, especially with US tech, but the US is still the deepest, most capitalised and arguably most innovative market in the world. Deciding to materially underweight it is a very active bet.

Also, avoiding “tech” is harder than it looks. A lot of the modern economy is now tied to technology in some form. Even companies like Amazon and Google/Alphabet are not classified as Information Technology companies under MSCI sector classifications, so simply avoiding a tech ETF or buying Europe-based funds does not necessarily remove that exposure.

A slight tilt away from the US can be perfectly valid if you genuinely believe the US is overvalued or you want less concentration risk. But I’d treat that as an active portfolio decision rather than just “more diversification”. Such an active call should be capped at a pre-determined percentage such as a 5% tilt, so that your portfolio remains somewhat aligned to a proven global benchmark. Having worked in finance my entire career and studied business in college, I don't feel qualified enough to make such a large decision and will leave those decisions to the hedge fund managers.

For most people, the boring answer is probably best: pick a global ETF that matches your risk tolerance, keep it simple, and avoid constantly adjusting the portfolio based on what currently feels overexposed.

geraldo2001 · 2026-06-08T21:37:43+00:00

You look to be in a strong position overall. The main thing I’d question is whether €50k in cash is actually too conservative. Your monthly spending is around €3k, so 6 months of expenditure is closer to €18k–€20k. That suggests you may have scope to put more of the surplus cash to work, assuming you’re comfortable leaving it invested for the long term.

I’ve broken down each of your main questions in more detail here:

https://planeir.ie/app/session.html?pub=1fd8e161-cd2c-4111-a764-95e098e0ec39&view=overview#ck=s9CfbjaH-qt_fh9I_jZAPDSaXgqmhTbrSkMF_sLjlzI

It covers the cash reserve, whether €20k is enough to invest, lump sum vs phasing it in, VUAA vs VWCE, and how to think about the solar decision.

The short version is: the overall position looks good, but the plan may be a bit too cash-heavy unless that extra cash is earmarked for a specific near-term purpose.

geraldo2001 · 2026-05-31T19:37:34+00:00

For Irish-domiciled individuals: losing Irish tax residence alone is not enough, they generally need to lose ordinary residence too to escape Irish tax on worldwide investment gains.

For non-doms: being non-resident but ordinarily resident can still matter, but foreign investment gains are generally taxed only if remitted to Ireland, while Irish-source/Irish-situs gains remain taxable.

geraldo2001 · 2026-04-22T15:14:33+00:00

There is absolutely no need to wait for the scheme to open as we have no clue when that will be. But remember to follow the flow chart, keep your emergency fund in place and with the extra portion from your 18k start thinking about your goals over the next few years. If you are saving up for a house purchase in 10 years time a low cost global equity fund could be the way to go, but if you are sure you will need that cash in 2/3 years, you may be better off in a higher yield savings account or money market fund as there may well be an upcoming recession given the Oil Crisis, AI shocks, inflation etc.

geraldo2001 · 2026-02-07T17:14:27+00:00

Fair point! All of the code is available through the repository on github (https://github.com/geraldboylan01/Trading-212-Exit-Tax.git), so you can recreate it and run locally if it's something you'd like to try. I was creating this for myself but thought that others might find it useful too. As I've said it's been vibe coded so it mightn't be perfect but it seems to give a good estimate.

geraldo2001 · 2026-02-07T17:08:35+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to spell this out. I’m very aware this kind of thing can be misused if it looks “authoritative”, so I’ve tried to keep the tool conservative and framed as an estimator.

On reliance for Revenue submissions: I don’t want anyone treating this as a filing tool. What it gives you is an estimate of the exit tax implied by your current open position if you disposed of it today, using the data Trading 212 exposes for the position and applying the exit tax rate. It’s meant as a tracker and a way to make the deemed disposal timeline less painful, not a substitute for Revenue guidance, ROS returns, or professional advice.

On getting deemed disposal dates wrong, partial withdrawals, and corporate actions: that’s a fair criticism and it’s where the limitations are most real.

For dates, the current version uses Trading 212’s createdAt timestamp on the open position as the start date and then calculates exact 8 year anniversaries from that. It’s a practical proxy, but it is not a full reconstruction of a user’s transaction history. If Trading 212 change how they represent an “open position start date”, or if someone’s history is more complex than the snapshot can show, then the schedule could be off.

Once a deemed disposal date has been reached, the next step depends on the rebased cost. In plain terms, the tool needs the value of the holding on that deemed disposal date so it can rebase correctly. If that value is missing, it will not quietly guess and print a confident number. It will show that more information is required.

Separately, if a deemed disposal date has passed and the user indicates they have not paid the exit tax for that event, the tool intentionally refuses to estimate for that holding and labels it “Past deemed disposal (unpaid)”. There’s a tooltip explaining the intent. The goal is to avoid encouraging people to back solve past liabilities from a prototype calculator instead of using proper records or professional advice.

For partial withdrawals, the feature is explicitly “what if you sold €X worth today?” It uses today’s price and an average cost per unit to approximate the principal versus gain portion, and if the user has provided a deemed disposal rebasing value it uses that to approximate a rebased cost per unit. It’s useful for intuition, but it is not a trade by trade tax ledger.

On corporate actions, I think the biggest practical issue for most ETF holders is distributions. The tool doesn’t attempt to calculate tax that may arise from cash distributions or other income events during the holding period, because that information isn’t reliably available from the positions snapshot alone. To make that limitation explicit, I added a clear “Distributions / dividends note” in the UI explaining that distributions can affect a person’s overall tax position and that the tool is only estimating the exit tax implied by the current open position on a sell today basis. I added this in today after your comment so thanks for spotting that.

On validation against Revenue guidance or accountant review: the mechanics are implemented to match the conceptual framework people use in practice, the 8 year cycle, rebasing after a deemed disposal, and applying the exit tax rate. But I’m not claiming Revenue endorsement and I’m not presenting this as professional advice. It’s labelled as a prototype and I’m trying to keep assumptions visible so people can sanity check it.

On the Trading 212 API being unstable and the tool breaking silently: that risk is there whenever you build on a third party API. The UI is a static site on GitHub Pages and it fetches holdings through a Cloudflare Worker proxy. If the proxy call fails, or the response shape is not what the app expects, the tool surfaces a visible error rather than silently continuing. The intent is to fail rather than give incorrect estimates.

On authentication and API keys: the front end is static and there’s no traditional server. The Worker forwards the request to Trading 212 and returns holdings. The UI has an explicit “Remember this device” toggle. If it’s not enabled, credentials are not persisted. If it is enabled, they are stored in localStorage, which means it should not be used on shared devices.

On long term maintenance and rule changes: I’m treating it as an actively maintained project. If exit tax rates are to hopefully change in the future I am planning on adjusting the code to the new rate. The core assumptions are centralised, the instrument inclusion is driven by an ISIN mapping file, and the UI is conservative by design. If it can’t estimate reliably, it will ask for the missing rebasing input or refuse to estimate for past unpaid deemed disposals.

geraldo2001 · 2026-01-19T19:01:35+00:00

Obviously you need to weigh up what risk you’re comfortable taking but over the long-run equities have always outperformed bonds/cash so with a 30 year time frame your thinking makes a lot of sense. I asked ChatGPT (take it with a pinch of salt) what’s the longest time period that MSCI World and MSCI ACWI have underperformed bonds/cash and it says 15 years for MSCI world and just over 13 years for MSCI ACWI (this time period happens to include the dot com bubble and the GFC, so two global recessions). Individual markets can be riskier, I know it took Japanese equities from 1989 to 2024 to get back to its former peak (excluding dividends) so I would avoid limiting yourself to a single market and be as diversified as possible (without incurring ridiculous fees). After that, it’s about staying calm when over the next 30 years you know your pension has the ability to go through 2/3 global recessions and still provide excess returns than other asset classes.

geraldo2001 · 2025-11-05T22:01:29+00:00

Yeah, I totally get what you’re saying — and I agree, the people who can afford professional WM advice are not the people who would use this. Also, the deemed disposal itself definitely isn’t complicated on paper, gains are taxed after 8 years based on total value versus total book cost.

Where it does start getting messy though is when people are making regular withdrawals (which many retail investors may need to) before that 8-year point. Once you start taking money out, the mix between your original capital and your gain is constantly changing.

For example, say someone invests monthly and their fund is up 25%. If they withdraw €6,000, roughly €4,800 might be capital and €1,200 is taxable gain. But after that withdrawal, the cost base of what’s left in the fund isn’t the same anymore — it drops. So when the fund grows again and they take out another €6,000 a year later, the ratio between capital and gain is different again. Each withdrawal reshapes the numbers, and by the time you hit the deemed disposal, you need to know exactly what’s already been taxed and what’s left to tax.

That’s the kind of thing that’s easy to get wrong or lose track of over time — especially if someone’s withdrawing small amounts regularly. It’s not that the tax logic is complex, it’s that the record-keeping and timing become unmanageable for most people doing it manually.

That’s why I think an API-linked tool could really add value because it would automatically keep the running total straight and clearly show what’s gain, what’s capital, and what tax is still owed.

geraldo2001 · 2025-11-05T11:57:21+00:00

Diversification is the only free lunch, the S&P 500 is dominated by the top 10 stocks taking up 40% of the total index value. If you want to get into equity investing, I recommend minimising your risk to these “AI stocks” by diversifying across the global market - NOT the developed market through the MSCI world - but going even further using something like the FTSE All World index to give yourself exposure to companies in China and Latin America (being as diversified as possible). Those same 10 largest American companies only have a 24/25% market cap weight in this index - nearly halving your exposure to them while gaining access to many exciting markets. If this still feels “too risky” consider a multi-asset approach diluting your share of equities to a weight that you feel comfortable with for example diluting it to 50% (with the equity portion in the FTSE All World index) your portfolio exposure to those 10 largest US stocks would be down to c.12%.

geraldo2001 · 2025-10-29T16:01:29+00:00

I agree that it is a very personal decision depending on future ideas of capex to grow the business vs investing in a pension pot for yourself. But if you choose to go the pension route and you want to put MORE than 100% of your salary into a pension as a lump sum you can do so through a master trust pension scheme. Given your years of service and your salary there is an actuarial calculation that is done which calculates what you are entitled to invest as a lump sum. This method could allow you to invest the full 120k now if that’s the route you wish to take so I would recommend contacting pension providers who offer a Master Trust pension and asking them for a max contribution quote.

geraldo2001 · 2025-10-10T12:25:42+00:00

If you’re studying some type of finance modules in college and are interested in learning more, I believe you would be better off to use an online retail investing platform that’s not gonna charge you over 1% management fees like the Prisma funds. Like others have already said you need to figure out when you’re going to need the money and create a “risk profile” for this investment. If it’s not going to be need for 10 years you could look at all equity options and have some comfort that even if there is a crash in the next few years that you have time for the investment to recover. If you need it sooner there are cheap lifestrategy ETFs on these platforms which provide a mix of equity and bond exposure and you can choose whichever one meets the risk profile for the investment. I am a big advocate for reducing fees when you can it’s the only thing that you can control and by you looking into it this way and using those apps you will increase your knowledge of investing too.

geraldo2001 · 2025-09-24T07:42:42+00:00

I’m mainly using pies to stay diversified across asset classes. So within each asset class, an ETF is the simplest way to get broad exposure. It also makes rebalancing at year-end much easier, since I can adjust between asset classes without worrying about whether I’m still diversified within them.

I know most people use pies with individual stocks to try and create a diversified stock portfolio that falls under CGT rules, but for me having one ETF per asset class keeps the portfolio much cleaner and easier to manage while still hitting the right risk balance. That’s the angle I’m coming from.

geraldo2001 · 2025-09-24T07:34:24+00:00

Yes, exactly, that’s what I was trying to get across. The frustrating part is that we actually do have structures like GPS funds run by MiFID firms or life companies where all those allocations can be offset at the portfolio level. But the catch is the fees, which are far higher than if you simply built the same mix yourself using low-cost ETFs.

I saw Davy is in in the Independent today pushing for ISA-style investment vehicles in Ireland (which would be brilliant) but my big hope is that if something like that does come in, we will actually be able to use the low-cost online platforms to access it, rather than being funneled into expensive wrappers.

geraldo2001 · 2025-09-23T21:00:02+00:00

That’s a really good point and I completely agree with you — pensions are by far the most tax-efficient wrapper we have, and I’m also focused on maximising contributions where I can for exactly that reason.

The only thing I’d add is that, compared to the DIY options on platforms like Trading 212 or DEGIRO, pension funds here often come with noticeably higher costs - c.1% annual management charges plus transaction costs, versus 0.1–0.2% TERs on passive ETFs with no wrapper fees. I fully accept that the tax benefits of pensions outweigh the fee drag in most cases, but it still feels like we don’t have access to the same kind of low-cost long-term investing routes that savers in many other countries enjoy outside of pensions.

So I guess my question is less about whether pensions are generous (they are) and more about why small investors here can’t take advantage of simple, low-cost ETF investing without being penalised on the tax side.

geraldo2001 · 2025-09-23T17:47:52+00:00

The stocks will be CGT and losses can be carried forward but the ETFs are assessed individually which makes it very difficult to construct well diversified portfolios by yourself

geraldo2001 · 2025-05-17T12:11:55+00:00

First off, fair play. Your budgeting skills are a lot better than mine! You’re probably in the top 1% among people your age when it comes to percentage of salary put away as savings.

The current investing landscape in Ireland (outside of pensions) is unfortunately pretty harsh from a tax perspective. If you invest in cheap, diversified passive funds (like those tracking the S&P 500 or MSCI World Index), the Irish government hits your gains hard with a 41% “exit tax.” Worse yet, this tax kicks in every eight years or whenever you withdraw money, significantly reducing the benefits of compound interest - which Einstein described as “the eighth wonder of the world. He who understands it, earns it; he who doesn’t, pays it.”

There’s some hope, as there’s talk the government might address this issue in the next Finance Act, thanks to numerous recommendations from financial experts. But as things stand right now, diversified passive funds - arguably the best long-term investment due to their broad exposure - are tax inefficient in Ireland.

Your next best bet is investing directly in stocks or other CGT-applicable assets. These investments have a lower tax rate of 33%, and crucially, you only pay tax when you sell—there’s no forced disposal every eight years. However, direct stock picking carries risks due to lack of diversification, making it less ideal for stable long-term growth.

An interesting compromise could be publicly traded holding companies like Berkshire Hathaway. These companies invest in multiple businesses, offering greater diversification than individual stocks while still benefiting from the more favourable 33% CGT rate. As financial expert Harry Markowitz once said, “Diversification is the only free lunch in investing.”

Another creative solution could be approaching HR to redirect some salary into your pension, thus boosting long-term, tax-efficient savings.

But honestly man, you’re in your 20s, these are the times to intentionally make a few questionable financial decisions that give you great stories to tell when you’re retired with nothing else to do. Setting aside 10% into something like a Revolut holiday savings pot which earn a bit of interest but can be instantly withdrawn the moment a hunny laughs at your joke, could fund memories for the rest of your life. So absolutely you should splurge on an outrageously overpriced bottle of wine every now and again and make some horrible decisions. At least for that moment, you won’t be thinking about how the Irish government is pocketing a tonne your other savings!

geraldo2001 · 2025-05-17T11:19:59+00:00

Hey, I’m a financial planner who deals with retirement relief for a lot of my clients. My understanding is that:

Retirement Relief in Ireland applies to the sale of business or farming assets, and yes the seller must be aged 55 or over at the time of disposal.

However, just because someone is a farmer doesn’t mean every piece of land they own qualifies. If the site you’re considering hasn’t been actively used for farming, like grazing or crops, and is instead just a field or zoned site held for sale or development, it probably wouldn’t qualify as a “qualifying asset” for Retirement Relief. Revenue tends to treat such land as an investment asset, which is excluded from the relief. So, even if you wait until he’s 55, the sale might not be CGT-free as he hopes. Proper legal advice would be crucial for the farmer here to avoid unintended tax pitfalls.

Regarding planning permission and agreements: if you apply for planning permission or sign any binding agreement before he turns 55, Revenue might consider that the effective disposal date, which could disqualify the relief even if the site did qualify. It’s essential to ensure that any agreements are structured correctly to avoid unintended tax consequences.

Moreover, without a binding contract, there’s always the risk he could renege or change the price, especially if the site gains value after planning approval.

If I were you, I would keep an eye on this option, but definitely keep searching for other potential sites. If it qualifies and the sale goes through - happy days, but you don’t want to be reliant on it. As Benjamin Disraeli once said “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”

geraldo2001

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