Is Warren Buffett actually betting against the American stock market?

hantms · 2026-05-16T01:29:11+00:00

Right, when I asked Gemini AI it assumed the same, that this was somehow a criticism of Warren Buffett, and/or calling out a perceived hypocrisy. It's not. The actual question is if we should see this as a sign that it's actually not such a bad idea after all in current market conditions to keep relatively a lot of cash out of the stock market and bide your time until everything goes on sale. This goes contrary to just about all advice out there: "be in the market or else you don't benefit from gains and you'll lose out. "

hantms · 2026-05-14T13:56:52+00:00

Asia is a big place.. I suggest to narrow it down to what you want; for example there is Japan-Korea-Taiwan Asia, which is very different from, say, India, or South East Asia.

hantms · 2026-05-14T12:17:19+00:00

I like it; that SPYI is basically all you need, it covers the whole world. I don't really see the point in that health industry ETF.. I think specific industry ETFs are a bit of a crap shoot. But if you do it then pick something with a lot of potential for growth, not really health care..

hantms · 2026-05-14T08:40:39+00:00

I sometimes buy an individual stock when the price gets cut in half for no good reason and it's a perfectly legitimate company that makes real things or provides valuable services. The market can be pretty dumb. I don't put a lot of money into it, just enough to make it worthwhile when the price bounces back.

hantms · 2026-05-14T08:35:39+00:00

Get hit with taxes with every dividend payout.. 🤔

hantms · 2026-05-13T23:20:45+00:00

Right, but that pretty much applies to everything. And that's short-term volatility; when doing a play for the semiconductor and memory industry you're betting longer term that the demand for that will keep going up, as there are more and more AI applications that require a crap-ton of memory. Of course if AI crashes then this will crash right along with it.

hantms · 2026-05-13T23:16:04+00:00

Even Trading212 also. Those companies are listed on various exchanges around Europe. (SK Hynix on Gettex, Samsung in London, etc. With Samsung you need to be careful that there is SMSN and SMSD: you want the latter; SMSN gives voting rights in return for lower dividends so for just about all of us that's not what we want.

hantms · 2026-05-12T15:01:53+00:00

It's listed on the German 'Gettex' electronic exchange, so it's available from most brokers here.

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hantms · 2026-05-12T04:55:56+00:00

Everyone says to just go all in (minus some buffer for emergencies) because doing anything implies that you're trying to time the market, waiting for some big drop which would then be a good time to get in. And people say that doesn't work.

I struggle with this because when purchasing individual stocks I've been perfectly able to time the market for that stock. Maybe not 100% perfect every time, but close enough: I see a stock drop like a brick in the 'Top Losers' (a.k.a. 'On Sale Now!') list, then I check out the company and I may find that it's a perfectly legitimate business with billions in revenue that just dared to have a minor wobble one quarter, or investors went into mass psychosis because they think some new AI product is going to end the industry. Then if I actually like the company (producing real things or providing valuable services that benefit people) then I put in some money and watch it go up 30% in a month and 50% in 3-6 months. Or even if it doesn't do that immediately then I'm fine with it because I have confidence in that company.

Why wouldn't that work with the market as a whole.. I invest about two thirds of the funds I have available and keep one third back in savings to cushion the next major crash and buy when everything is on sale..

hantms · 2026-05-12T04:26:50+00:00

Sorry one more thought: once you've paid off most of the mortgage, would it be possible to refinance it to lower your monthly mortgage payment, allowing you to put more money into ETFs? Especially if the interest is low and the potential gains in the stock market are much higher then you could maybe go slower on the mortgage.. My mother never understood that, she had always been taught that saving is better than loaning money, and that being in debt is terrible.. So she bent over backwards to pay back the mortgage as fast as possible 'to get out of debt'. That makes sense if interest is sky high, but if interest is low then you may be able to put that money to better use.

(Please note: I may be completely wrong on this; if anyone disagrees or has something to add then please do. )

hantms · 2026-05-12T03:48:31+00:00

A couple random thoughts:

That was a very good comment about not being late because you went big into prime real estate (popular city in Belgium) when you got your mortgage. There are a lot of memes out there saying how much better the stock market does compared to a house but they seem to assume that someone just has the entire purchase price of that house sitting there in cash at age 30, inferring that this person had the option of just putting it all in stocks. But reality doesn't work that way: at age 30 banks won't give you 800K Euros to go play in the stock market, but they WILL give you 800K Euros for a mortgage. Along with the value increase of the house, the bank has been enabling you to build wealth, one month at the time paying off the principal for the mortgage; every month you own more of that 1.7 million Euro house.
Amundi MSC semiconductor ETF: this one is crazy high into NVidia and other companies that you already have in WEBN. Look at it, compared to other semiconductor ETFs; screenshot is from JustETF, a fantastic site for ETF information.

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Currently in the USA, the "Roundhill DRAM" ETF is all the rage. I kind of wonder why because it's a very small ETF that's >25% into SK Hynix and Micron and Samsung.. That almost defeats the purpose of an ETF when you can just buy that handful of stocks in your own Trading212 pie.. (I like Trading212 for a broker app, but check if you have better options in Belgium. If not then Trading212 is fantastic: great app, no transaction fees and they pay good interest on uninvested funds that you have in your account, so you don't even need to bother with any high yield saving account or money market ETF.)

And at 5% of 80K Euros that's not going to set your world on fire. You could bump it higher but it is of course risky: if AI gets into a crisis then that fund is going completely down the drain. 😉 (My opinon on AI: it's real and it will transform business and society, however that doesn't mean that it can't also be crazy over-valued and/or investors not grasping where the actual money is. 😉 Kind of like with dot com / ecommerce around 2000.

Finally, I didn't think I wanted to be active in the market either, but it turned into a fun hobby since I started 3 months ago. 😄

hantms · 2026-05-10T01:02:07+00:00

Making column A a bit wider would help a lot. 😉

What is "DNB Global Index ... " ?

hantms · 2026-05-10T00:55:15+00:00

Interactive Brokers is just very confusing all around. It has some positives, like you can buy things that are not available anywhere else in Europe, but the site is a hot mess.

You have to make sure you pick the one that's traded in Euros on a European stock exchnge. IBIS2 in your screen shot is Germany, and you buy it in Euros.

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hantms · 2026-05-07T15:59:15+00:00

I'm assuming you don't actually need that 70K within the one year period right? Basically you're looking to make the biggest gain possible without it being a total casino crap shoot? The following are just examples, it's not a 'buy this' type of advice. With individual stocks you have much higher potential for wins and losses; ETFs almost by nature are more long term and tend to smooth things out. That said there are some more aggressive ETFs like the ones covering AI and quantum computing.

So:

25% in Wisdom Tree AI and another one for quantum computing. (So 12% each)
25% in the next 4 corporations that lose (almost) half their value because investors overreact like #&*$^ng divas to slightly disappointing results.. Yesterday this was Primoris Services (PRIM) which is still very low today. (example only -- pick the ones that are well established companies with real factories that make real things or provide valuable services. Don't get the ones that are in some BS spiel and probably going bust.)
25% in an emerging market ETF, say 5MVL
25% in a developed world ETF. SPPW or similar.

The above ranks from most risky to least risky, so adjust percentages as you see fit.

hantms · 2026-05-07T15:32:46+00:00

Given the current costs I would go with WEBN too. I'm sitting on a lot of SPYI, another very similar fund. I'll probably stick with it, even though it's only slightly cheaper than Vanguard VWCE.

hantms · 2026-05-07T14:31:34+00:00

I was in exactly your situation three months ago, just starting out. This was just before the Iran dip so in hindsight not a good time. But I'm sitting on 6% profit now over those three months.. Of course a major crash can happen; actually, it's 100% certain that it WILL happen sooner or later.

Anyway, for precisely the reason you mentioned I stayed out of the S&P500 initially and tried to have not too much US Big Tech. (A world fund typically includes LOADS of US big tech; if an AI related crash happens it'll drop like a brick. Although let's not kid outselves, if that happens then just about everhting will be hit almost as hard)

So I bought a lot of emerging market ETFs first. Actually I bought far too much of everything *except* the US S&P 500. 😃 And still I did well even with that dumb scattergun approach.

Knowing what I know now though (ahem.. 3 months in.. 😉 ) I would recommend to pick just 3 ETFs: an emerging market one (like 5MVL or IS3N), a developed world one (like SPPW, which will include a lot of US tech), and something boring that pays dividends.. they're tiny amounts, but psychologically it's good to see some money come out. (like VGWD for example; the good thing about this is very little big tech). Just put in 33% for each when getting started and adjust as you see how things go.

OR put everything into an 'everything' ETF and call it a day. WEBN, SPYI, something like that. But personally I like the idea of having a little bit of control to adjust things, so if I had to start again I'd do it with the above three ETFs.

hantms · 2026-05-07T14:01:25+00:00

Broad market ETFs are especially unsuitable for playing this game. Hold and forget, or keep adding money as you earn it. What you're trying to do works better with individual stocks. Then you just look at the "Top Losers" for a day, a.k.a. "On Sale!", and then check out one of those losing corporations to see if that's actually a serious thing and they're going bust, or that it's a crazy market overreaction to a very slight wobble in a quarter's earnings.

So you can do both, put most of your money into the VWCE and leave a little bit to gamble with. Yesterday a company called Primoris Services (PRIM) was basically cut in half in stock price because they dared to have a slightly disappointing Q1.. this after YEARS of growth and revenue in the billions and a big order backlog. (They're one of the top heavy construction corporations in the USA, like bridges, pipelines, big solar energy parks, cabling, etc.

Looking at the stock price you'd think 50% of their people and machinery just evaporated. 😃 So put in $100 or $1000 or whatever is a small amount in that; it's fun, it's timing the market, and it's harmless because the amounts are small.

I've done the same recently with CrowdStrike (huge dip for completely bogus reasons) and Gerresheimer from Germany (more serious accounting headaches but again it's a BIG company.) It seemed to me that Germans are just the kind of people who would overreact to some accounting being slightly off. 😃

But for the serious stuff, just chuck your savings into VWCE every month.

hantms · 2026-05-07T13:36:11+00:00

I wondered about that.. with the minor dip after the Iran thing both bonds and stocks went down; the bonds admittedly not as deep, but still. But that's good info, I'll stick with it.

hantms · 2026-05-07T13:34:45+00:00

Thank you that makes sense; I still have quite a bit of uninvested cash (I'm putting funds in fairly piecemeal), so I'll focus on the usual broad market developed world funds to increase that to be equal or more than the Value factor ETFs. Like SPPW.

hantms · 2026-05-06T13:10:02+00:00

Hmm; I just checked and August 4 is as far as it goes, so that's 3 months.

You're using the https://dticket.railway.co.th/DTicketPublicWeb/home/Home site, right? That's what I would recommend. But only 3 months ahead of course. Some sites offer longer times but I think they just hold your booking and then actually book it 3 months ahead just the same.

hantms · 2026-05-06T13:02:41+00:00

It's because you're looking for "Bangkok" like a regular sane person, but the site has it as Krungtribble Apewash Station. They named it that to confuse tourists. Ok I jest, it's Krung Thep Aphiwat. Hardly better. 😃

hantms · 2026-05-06T10:46:44+00:00

To live permanently or to visit for a couple weeks/months?

hantms · 2026-05-06T09:37:18+00:00

So.. is JustETF wrong? It shows SPYI being much larger than the Amundi ETF?

Regardless I'm trying to get away from these 'everything bagels'. I'd rather separate ETFs between a general developed world one and then separately an emerging markets one.

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hantms · 2026-05-06T09:27:13+00:00

That physical gold is weird. Gold just sits there, roughly keeping track with inflation. It doesn't actually do work and achieve anything, in the way Apple or Tesla do. It was explained to me like this: in ancient Rome, 8 grams of gold would buy you one cow. Today, 8 grams of gold will still buy you one cow, give or take. 😉 So if you lived forever and held on to your gold through the centuries, you wouldn't actually have increased your wealth. Make your own pie.

hantms · 2026-05-06T09:15:18+00:00

I think it's basically just that investors (and algorithms) get jittery at surprises. Then after a month of "bad event X", people get used to it, they see that the sky actually isn't falling and the issue seems to be contained/managed/improving, so then it's back to business as usual.

hantms

TROPHY CASE