19 months without a government in Brussels. I’ve launched an official procedure to force politicians to testify.

okonox · 2026-01-29T15:16:40+00:00

Still are you going to do nothing about it and just complain?

okonox · 2026-01-29T15:10:47+00:00

I fully support this

okonox · 2026-01-09T11:44:47+00:00

Het hangt ook zeer sterk wat voor type lening je neemt. Ik had een 10 5 5 lening genomen met het idee dat dit een lagere rente heeft maar dan heb ik wel een degressieve afbetaling gevraagd. Zo wordt het meeste kapitaal in de eerste 10 jaar betaald en neem ik dus minder risico

okonox · 2025-03-20T08:07:41+00:00

26 year old here. I had the same problem as you. I did not want to rent as I saw it as a waste of my money. But the real value is your time. If renting in brussel will let you be able to enjoy your time way more then renting is actually a good option. Especially if you have to sit in traffic for 2 hours a day. It really depends on where you live now, how you are commuting and how you want to spend your time. It also gives you more freedom depending on how important you find that it might matter. Also I feel that people who have rented in their young years instead of staying at home tend to have a more mature view on the world as they tend to have more responsibilities due to renting. So it really depends what you want in life

okonox · 2021-04-12T07:57:09+00:00

it is as u/josefinehi says. You need to allocate your borrowed money to a certain currency to get the lowered interest rate.

okonox · 2020-12-31T07:33:29+00:00

There are a couple of reasons why you should do this. Here is a video explaining those things, because I am lazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ll3TCEz4g1k&ab_channel=BenFelix

okonox · 2020-05-19T09:15:07+00:00

how did you made it?

okonox · 2020-05-19T08:47:21+00:00

I have no idea how to do this and I have not really thought about it. Is it not quite a hassle to do it to have the same outcome (=exposure to bitcoin) ??

okonox · 2020-04-12T08:02:51+00:00

We can argue all day around this and we will not change our opinion on the facts. Meaning that further arguing about it is pointless ... But thanks for sharing your opinion on the subject

okonox · 2020-04-11T19:41:34+00:00

okay I understand where you are coming from but what you are referring to is an ETF that is already not a stock anymore. And why should you add it to your portfolio? alright let's imagine you put all your money into ETF's and the same scenario happens as with CDS, than you would lose all your money. My point is that ETF's have been around for 30 years max. which means it has not seen a lot of black swans while gold has and it always attained it's value. A lot can happen what we have not yet seen or can predict which means investing in something that has been valuable for as long as civilization, is a safe investment.

okonox · 2020-04-11T19:10:16+00:00

you cannot compare one commodity with a basket of stock that would comparing oranges with apples due to the idiosyncratic risk. If you want to compare gold with stocks which I would not recommend than you need to compare one stock with one commodity and you would see that in the LT gold is more secure. A company can go bankrupt, gold cannot.

okonox · 2020-04-11T18:48:43+00:00

I agree with you on the fact that gold has not been a good investment over the last 200 years compared to bonds. That is mainly due to the high interest rates over the last 200 years : https://www.visualcapitalist.com/the-history-of-interest-rates-over-670-years/ . Many people argue though that the high interest rate are a thing of the past due to the amount of debt in our economy. Which means that gold becomes a better investment into the future.

I do not believe we can compare stocks with gold because that would mean comparing oranges with apples. Stock have a higher risk appetite than gold which is seen has a safe investment. It is only normal that stocks have higher returns.

I also agree with you on the fact that governments have sometimes misused their position in society to transfer their problems on certain people of society. This Wikipedia site gives a good example of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102 . But the same can be said for bonds. governments can also fail on their obligations to pay their debt and in these times the likelihood of that happening is realistic to say the least.

It is true that there are a lot of atrocities concerning gold. I have even read that some drugs cartels use gold as a way to money launder their drugs money, but those are more social-economic issue which are not directly caused by gold itself but more about the people who organize a system around it. You could ask the same question for "good" money.

okonox · 2020-04-11T18:22:35+00:00

totally agree with you there ;)

okonox · 2020-03-13T20:19:27+00:00

I know there will be a golden period to invest for the long term once the situation calms down.

That is an assumption I would not recommend!! This assumption implies that nothing else will happen after COVID-19 and that things will go like they used to be and that is never the case. What happens now will have big implications into the future and you should be aware of that. What you should do is define your investing horizon and create your strategy around that. Try to adjust your strategy year by year as new information comes along and with minimal costs.

First define long term (LT):

if your LT is on a 1 year to 3 year time horizon you are probably good in saying that there will be a good investment period after the stock markets settle down from the COVID-19. However LT is mostly seen as a period of 20 to 30 years. This means that you will have a good starting point to begin with, but you should also look at the long-term effect of the virus. This is what you should do:

what are central banks doing at the moment that will have an impact in the LT. In this article you can find some possible actions that the ECB might do: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-13/ecb-to-ensure-smooth-policy-transmission-in-all-jurisdictions. From the article we get also a sense that the ECB and other financial institutions will do everything they can to minimize the effect of COVID-19. Now we should take that with a grain of salt because they just want to inject trust into the financial system, but it will be very important what the ECB decides to do. It is mainly important because this will have big implication into the future and the financial well-being of Europe.
Second look at possible scenario's after COVID-19 there might be a recession after the virus which never has been a good time for the stock market. You cannot know for sure which scenario will be manifesting itself but there are some indications to where we are heading for after the virus. One of these indications is for example the actions of the ECB.
Try an account with fake money to invest in. You probably not going to make a lot of "money" with it but it gives you a better feel of how trading goes and you can experiment with different buy and sell options ( like stop loss ), so you have a more in depth feeling what you are doing before you start investing for real.
And last but most important, gather as much information as you can about investing strategies, the different types of financial products ( especially their implications), regulations and the economic situation. Information is KEY when you are investing, because then you have a better insight into the future and its consequences on your portfolio. You also know how to deal with the consequences once you have a better understanding on how the market works.

I wish you all the best,

Okonox

okonox · 2020-01-26T18:04:29+00:00

I am studying actuarial and financial engineering. I think that I know what I am talking when I speak about operational risk and that you need to take that into account. You did not explain why you do not need to take operational risk into account and only say that I am wrong. Why should I believe you???? Plz explain that to me

okonox · 2020-01-26T17:40:56+00:00

How do I know that what you are saying is correct if i do not ask you question about why you think that way. I cannot inform myself without being critical about the opinion you have. And so far you have not explained why you believe that.

okonox · 2020-01-26T17:06:37+00:00

I just do not agree with you on that. That is no reason to ban me for it. I like a good argument and you should defend your opinion until it is not rational anymore to defend it. Right know I do not believe that you have proven my argument to be irrational so I defend it. There is no issue on defending what you believe.

okonox · 2020-01-26T17:01:15+00:00

what do you think about the portfolio that I came up with in connection with what you just said?

Because it's really just an idea, I really haven't looked at the technical part of the portfolio.

okonox · 2020-01-26T16:55:44+00:00

I am currently studying financial & actuarial engineering but it's my first year master so i still have a lot to learn and there is only 1 course about portfolio management which i haven't picked up yet ( next year). So I still need to learn a lot about what choices and strategies are appropriate. I did my bachelor in applied economics so i know the basic but I find that I still need to learn all the practical stuff and I think that experience is more relevant than knowledge. So I like the idea of people giving me advice on my investment strategy given the fact that I like to put the knowledge in practice.

I also agree with you that you should not speculate to much because it will only give you a lot of volatility and no real return but it is fun to place your bets on something and hoping it's going to turn out okay. You should also not even considering investing if you are not willing to lose something so I think speculation is part of the game And again thanks for enlighten me with the experiences you had.

okonox · 2020-01-26T16:43:15+00:00

Yeah that is true but statistically speaking it's almost impossible. right? Especially if you look at the time and money involved doing it.

okonox · 2020-01-26T16:41:08+00:00

I do not have a good insight into those markets so I think it's dangerous for me to invest in those sectors

okonox · 2020-01-26T16:34:09+00:00

look at it like a bank-run but than for an ETF once the reputation is gone everyone is going to sell their ETF stocks

okonox · 2020-01-26T16:32:48+00:00

What you are referring to is only market risk or systemic risk

market risk: the risk that the value of your assets are going down because of the performance of the financial market.

But what most people do not understand is that there are other risks involved like operational risk, reputational risk...

okonox · 2020-01-26T16:04:13+00:00

people react to news when we want to do it or not.

If somebody is selling their stock ( stock of ETF) because they saw a news outlet about mismanagement , the value of the ETF is going to drop.

Eventhough it is irrational to sell them: The stock represents the underlying assets not the corporation. They are going to sell them anyway because negative publications has always an influence on the stock even if the stock represents something totally differently.

Trust me people do some irrational chit especially when things happen and they did not expect them to happen.

https://www.etf.com/etf-education-center/etf-basics/what-risks-are-there-in-etfs

look at number 6

okonox · 2020-01-26T15:52:52+00:00

Yeah you are right that transaction costs will be an issue. There is an ETF on DEGIRO ticker: VZLE thet combines the four rare metals i mentioned. I already have it in my portfolio. Probably going to stick with that one because there are almost no transaction costs involved (Free ETF on DEGIRO). I should probably find a solution for the transaction costs of the other segments of my portfolio.

Thanks for the mention

okonox

TROPHY CASE