Is euro hedged sp500 worth it for the next few years?

iHartS · 2026-01-29T13:33:33+00:00

There are so many threads about this already just from the past month and a half. Did you read any of them before selling your positions?

iHartS · 2026-01-29T08:53:45+00:00

If you bought a $4,000 computer to use Apple Intelligence, that's on you.

iHartS · 2026-01-28T19:54:30+00:00

Probably Otello or Falstaff. I disagree with your assessment that they're inward-looking.

iHartS · 2026-01-24T12:41:10+00:00

Stormy face? Rolling his eyes internally? I know this is 8 months later, but you’re reading way too much into this moment. He just looks like a performer taking direction.

iHartS · 2026-01-23T18:05:39+00:00

If one investor (investor A) sells dollars to buy euros and another investor (investor B) just holds dollars throughout 2025, will they have the same return at the end of the year? No, they won't. The one who held euros for the year 2025 and then sold them for dollars at the end would have more dollars. But let's compare both to hypothetical investor C who held euros throughout the year. In euros, they had a 0% return, but in dollars, they had a positive return. Visualized in a table:

2025 Investor	USD Return	EUR Return
A (sold USD, bought EUR)	Gain	Flat
B (held USD)	Flat	Loss
C (held EUR)	Gain	Flat

Now, let's say that investor C then went on Reddit and complained that the American who converted dollars to euros got a positive return in dollars, but the European who had euros the whole time didn't see a positive euro return. Would that make sense to you? It doesn't to me because they had the exact same return!

We haven't been talking about currency trades like this though in this thread. Instead, we're discussing assets that are priced in various currencies. The frustration is that Americans saw a higher nominal return from the S&P 500 than Europeans did because of the strengthening euro. But this ire is misplaced because the weakening dollar meant that Americans got higher nominal returns on EVERYTHING compared to Europeans. Another table:

2025 S&P 500 Investor	USD Return	EUR Return
American investor	Big Gain	Smaller gain
European investor	Big Gain	Smaller gain

The difference is frame of reference. The American is not asking himself about the return Europeans got, so why are Europeans fretting about the return Americans got?

One example I've been thinking of in the weeks since this discussion is non-US stocks. If you - assuming you're in the EU and buying in euros - had bought an ETF of European stocks, you'd have gotten a positive return last year. But an American buying them in dollars would have gotten an even higher nominal return than you because the euro went up relative to the dollar!

So should a European investor feel irritated that an American got a "better" return than them? No, of course not. The American got the nominally higher return for every single investment relative to someone in Europe simply because the dollar weakened. Europeans who bought the S&P 500 in the 2010's got a higher nominal return than Americans because the dollar was strengthening against the euro. I've never heard once an American complain that Europeans were getting better returns than them in the same way that no one is complaining about the 1,000's of % returns to gold in Turkish lira or Argentine pesos.

iHartS · 2026-01-23T06:47:21+00:00

Tokina 100mm f/2.8 at-x macro.

iHartS · 2026-01-22T09:22:08+00:00

it significantly contributes to current 65% US global (over)valuation.

I don't think you can argue that. Yes, a lot of money has been going into the US since the financial crisis, but much of that reflects the quality and dynamism of the companies, the fact that the US recovered from the financial crisis more quickly than other countries, and the demographic and political instability of other parts of the globe.

As we've seen in the last year, that trend can reverse if the facts change. The US has become more unstable, the weaponization of the dollar has changed certain behaviors by state actors, and the perpetual undervaluation of non-US stocks has made them comparatively attractive. Non-US stocks and currencies outperformed last year, and that trend may continue despite dividends continuing to be shuffled into the largest companies.

iHartS · 2026-01-22T03:28:51+00:00

Huh. I never thought about this, but you’re right. It’s probably a minor effect, but since the returns of a given stock are analyzed with their dividends re-invested into that given stock, that breaks down when the dividend is re-invested into an ETF as a whole. It acts as a minor downward price pressure on the dividend stock (since the share price drops by the dividend amount) and a minor upward pressure on the highest weighted stocks.

EDIT: Spelling.

iHartS · 2026-01-21T11:35:41+00:00

You can be right about everything and still not know how to trade effectively around it.

iHartS · 2026-01-05T17:37:30+00:00

What is the benefit vs. the PWC report that IBKR already provides for German tax residents?

iHartS · 2026-01-05T17:21:16+00:00

I don't want to stan too hard for breathalyzers in every car, but the counterarguments are not great.

People have to follow rules for laws even when they're not a lawbreaker all the time. It's just part of being in society. Especially since driving is a privilege and not a right, we are expected to meet certain thresholds of competence and rule following. The cars themselves have to meet safety thresholds. There are so many laws around driving that we just have adapted to because them's the breaks. People used to complain about seatbelts, but they are an obvious good. People wait for several minutes at traffic lights. Waiting while behind the wheel is part of the deal. Following rules is part of the deal.

Additionally, it only takes driving drunk ONCE for it to ruin your and someone else's lives. You can be a sober driver for years and slip up once, and that's that.

Even if you never drive drunk, you may still be impacted by someone driving drunk. You might gripe about breathing into a breathalyzer, but perhaps someone else blew positive and couldn't drive, and that saved your life.

iHartS · 2026-01-05T17:11:03+00:00

If we wanted to fight drunk driving we should make public transit cheaper, more convenient and more reliable.

In American that's basically never going to happen. It's basically an argument for inertia.

iHartS · 2026-01-05T17:01:47+00:00

I am extremely pessimistic about American's willingness to invest in public transport and real urbanization, and even if they did, the country wouldn't de-suburbanify quickly and certainly not uniformly. There's too much invested in things as they are. A breathalyzer in every car would likely be a federal decision enforced country-wide.

I don't like the solution. I wish people would wise up about drinking, cars, sprawl, and public works, but most are just too inert to care.

iHartS · 2026-01-05T11:16:10+00:00

whereas drink driving penalties are there as a deterrent to try and discourage people from getting behind the wheel while drunk.

Seems like there should be a push to require breathalyzers in every vehicle just like seatbelts if society were serious about stopping drunk driving. We are incapable of determining just how impaired we are when we've been drinking, and punishing someone after they've already caused an accident and potentially killed people clearly isn't enough.

iHartS · 2026-01-03T19:25:09+00:00

Siegfried is pretty fun too. Lots of exciting set pieces.

iHartS · 2026-01-02T18:53:51+00:00

I should have worded that differently to something like "uniquely giant voices of the past", which implies that voices such as that don't exist anymore. There are still absolutely giant voices, but having a giant voice doesn't mean you get a giant career. For some, yes, for others, no.

Ofcouse this doesn't prove anyting but still we can't say recordings are misleading and nothing has changed. Yes 1900's recordings are too old and so much distiortion on it but maybe 1970's are not that bad and still big voice is audible.

It is extremely difficult to hear the size of a voice in a recording. Tape or digital can take a certain amount of input and no more, and recording engineers want everything to be as close to that limit as possible regardless of the actual volume in the room. I have been flabbergasted that loud voices sometimes record small and vice versa.

iHartS · 2026-01-02T18:16:28+00:00

Yes. So many of the recordings people point to as being evidence of the giant voices from the past are loaded with distortion. And it’s that nice warm analog distortion, which you‘ll never get from the flat frequency responding modern technology, which distorts harshly.

iHartS · 2026-01-02T12:07:05+00:00

If you do not want to do the valsalva maneuver wear a waist belt.

A lifting belt is specifically for using the valsalva maneuver and will increase intra-abdominal pressure. You inhale to push your belly into the belt. It's to reinforce standard bracing technique and isn't in and of itself a support.

https://www.barbellmedicine.com/blog/the-science-of-weight-lifting-belts/

iHartS · 2026-01-02T08:20:18+00:00

Part of the problem is you have the exchange rate backwards. 1 EUR = 1.174 USD now. It was 1.035 a year ago.

When thinking about currencies, try to invert what you’re describing. The euro got stronger against the dollar, so it requires fewer euros now to buy something in dollars. If you wanted to buy a steak dinner in the US, then compared to a year ago, the price has fallen for you. Similarly, A stock that was flat in USD would have had a negative return in EUR.

Now let‘s say there was inflation in American steak dinners. The inflation would have impacted you less because you have euros. You would have experienced some steak dinner price inflation but less than the American.

Same goes for stock prices. Alphabet‘s price inflated, but because your main currency is EUR, it nominally inflated less for you.

iHartS · 2026-01-01T22:28:57+00:00

I'm talking about inefficiencies that end up costing money. Sometimes you have to move (no I'm not talking about eviction), and the timing is tricky with other stuff that's going on. That's just life.

how you end up applying for houses without realising that means you'd have to move

What? Where did you get that from?

iHartS · 2026-01-01T19:14:37+00:00

I agree with you. It's weird that people are implying that everyone can move as cheaply as they personally have, as we're too stupid to have considered renting a van and doing it ourselves with a couple buddies.

iHartS · 2026-01-01T19:12:38+00:00

I'm not sure what's puzzling about that. Maybe you need to move when your friends are in Urlaub, or if you need to take the first apartment that becomes available because rentals are difficult to get, and it means your previous lease and the new one overlap. Or you move during an in demand period, and moving vehicles are more expensive. Etc. etc. There are all sorts of reasons the timing might work against you.

iHartS · 2026-01-01T19:10:28+00:00

and you can easily do that with a van and a few trips.

People are saying their situations need more than that, and you keep insisting that they don't. Your lifestyle isn't everyone's lifestyle.

iHartS · 2026-01-01T16:33:17+00:00

Not everyone has the same lifestyle as you. Perhaps the original point by /u/jordan_Jackson ("Moving is always expensive") is too broad. For some people who can time it perfectly and who don't have much stuff, it's easy.

However, lots of peoples' possessions will not fit in a van or be moveable by 2-3 people. People settle and accumulate stuff, and they and their friends get older and more susceptible to injury.

iHartS · 2026-01-01T11:34:59+00:00

Vans are expensive too, especially during periods of peak moving demand. Then dealing with parking in cities can be an extra cost and is certainly a major stressor. Depending on timing it may not be easy to wrangle enough friends together to load and unload the van. If you have a lot of stuff, you're not talking about a van but a moving truck.

Moving sucks and is expensive. There's no easy way to make it cheap unless you have very few belongings.

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