Degiro newbie (making losses)

tennessee time · 20-02-2018 11:33am #1

no real idea what i am doing on degiro, only put in about 200 to get used to it but im down 25 already, alot on transaction fees but also just losses. anyone got any tips?

do you need to be putting in a few grand to get over the initial hit of the transaction fee and make it worthwhile?

i was going to add in money gradually over the following months and years..

i have probably made some real basic errors but as i said dont really know what i am doing on it.. i have attached a jpeg of transactions so far, any advice?

retalivity · 20-02-2018 1:54pm

tennessee time wrote: »

no real idea what i am doing on degiro, only put in about 200 to get used to it but im down 25 already, alot on transaction fees but also just losses. anyone got any tips?

do you need to be putting in a few grand to get over the initial hit of the transaction fee and make it worthwhile?

i was going to add in money gradually over the following months and years..

i have probably made some real basic errors but as i said dont really know what i am doing on it.. i have attached a jpeg of transactions so far, any advice?

You bought 5 shares in hive with a value of €6.5 at a total cost of €14?? You dont need huge money to get going and get the fee as a % of value down, but the above was just stupid.

Im not being smart, but youd be better putting your money in a managed fund

TheSheriff · 20-02-2018 2:48pm

Its the fees are killing you here,

Just be clever about it - I would say the amounts your using are too small.

You bought BOI on both 18/01 and 25/01, both small (€7 and €8) amounts, but as a result you paid €4 in fees. If you had simply bought them all in one go it would have been ~€2 in fees.

HIVE is listed on the borse exchange, so it costs ~€7 to buy in, and also that amount to sell!!

Because you've paid so much in fees you would need all these purchases to jump significantly in value to get your money back.

tennessee time · 20-02-2018 3:10pm

fair comments, appreciate it, its tiny money so best to learn small..

the hive one was ridiculous, i didn't click the estimate fees tab. stupid move..

for a newbie is it best then to stick to the irish market where the fees are cheaper?

for funds i assumed the vanguard one was a good option..

Dardania · 20-02-2018 3:30pm

For the fund, it's not a bad choice - fees are very low. In your shoes, it may be preferable to get an accumulating find rather than distributing (in that any profits shared from the companies are reinvested in the fund rather than being distributed to you as a dividend)

A great website for comparing funds is: https://www.justetf.com/en/etf-profile.html?isin=IE00B3XXRP09 - you can set filters etc. for what you're looking for:

https://www.justetf.com/uk/find-etf.html?assetClass=class-equity&groupField=none&sortField=ter&country=US&sortOrder=asc

Also, bear in mind degiro have a list of funds you can buy for free each month, if you buy more than €1,000 at a time: https://www.degiro.ie/data/pdf/ie/commission-free-etfs-list.pdf

For any terms and explanations, a good website, albeit US orientated, is: https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Main_Page & https://www.investopedia.com/university/

Cute Hoor · 20-02-2018 3:51pm

tennessee time wrote: »

for a newbie is it best then to stick to the irish market where the fees are cheaper?

No, the fees are actually more expensive for Irish stock as you pay a 1% stamp duty on purchases of Irish stocks.

For example, you buy €10 worth of Bank of Ireland shares. This will cost you the €10 to buy + €2 Degiro fees + €0.10 stamp duty - total cost €12.10. It will cost you €2 Degiro fees to sell as well, so that is a total cost (buy & sell) to you of €14.10. So in order to get your money back the value of your Bank of Ireland shares would need to increase by over 40%.

By contrast, if you buy €10,000 worth of Bank of Ireland shares. This will cost you the €10,000 to buy + €2 Degiro fees + €100 stamp duty - total cost €10,102. It will cost you €2 Degiro fees to sell as well, so that is a total cost (buy & sell) to you of €10,104. So in order to get your money back the value of your Bank of Ireland shares would need to increase by less than 1.5%.

The above may be slightly off because DeGiro charge exchange fees as well so the difference would be even more exaggerated than the example above.

Lesson is, buying small amounts (in value terms) of shares will burn you alive in fees.

If you can buy the funds fee-free that's the way to go.

Best of luck

Sabre Man · 20-02-2018 7:00pm

As a general rule when I buy I make sure the fees are at most 1% of the purchase amount. For US shares the fees are a lot less.

dickface · 20-02-2018 9:09pm

The amounts are too small. I usually buy at least several hundred worth at a time, also us stocks are generally the cheapest and degiro have a large list of free ETF's (1 free per month) so you could spend nothing on transaction fees potentially.

TiGeR KiNgS · 20-02-2018 9:19pm

Honestly OP, your not even close ready to begin investing.

You need to read a lot, about 1 year from the time you pick up your first finance book before you purchase your first stock. Save in the meantime and build up about 5K.

Learn and master the simple points.
Your just going to lose money if you don't.

Taylor365 · 21-02-2018 2:43pm

TiGeR KiNgS wrote: »

Honestly OP, your not even close ready to begin investing.

You need to read a lot, about 1 year from the time you pick up your first finance book before you purchase your first stock. Save in the meantime and build up about 5K.

Learn and master the simple points.
Your just going to lose money if you don't.

Yea, you don't want to learn while burning money away.

Learn before you touch the trading platform.

I presume this is the reason while most people don't invest, it requires a decent effort the calculate the actual cost + charges + fees of what you're investing in.

LimeFruitGum · 01-05-2018 8:49pm

Exactly, I made the same mistake starting off. You don’t have to use all your money. And resist the FOMO. 🙂
Say you buy 500 CRH shares and you see you have €150 left over. Don’t spend, you can leave that 150 alone. Chances are CRH share prices will not change that much until your next DeGiro installment. Buy more CRH with your new lodgement plus last month’s 150 balance if you want. But don’t bother putting 50 against X, 20 against Y.
What sectors do you know best? If you work in construction, you probably have a decent idea about what is happening at CRH, Cairn and other related companies already
I think there are some share simulator sites, if you want to experiment there instead of in a live environment. DeGiro is just a platform and it’s not really their fault if you make a bad call on a share.

Bob Harris · 02-05-2018 11:04am

If you lose 200€ and learn something then it's a cheap enough lesson.

The fees are killing you on such small amounts. As Tiger Kings said, save a few quid and learn a bit about what's involved. Open up a spreadsheet and buy some virtual shares and see how you would get on over a few months.

evolving_doors · 02-05-2018 7:34pm

Maybe if you bought a thousand or so penny stock valued less than the US/Canadian/Australian Dollar, you'd get more of a rollercoaster ride and follow trends on news and company developments more!

Its be better than say buying 4 Intel shares and twiddling yer thumbs trying to make yer money back on small rises over a year.

Tl:Dr do the penny slots before blowing everything on 1 hand of blackjack.

But be careful, pennies can add up very quick. Set a limit and sick to it.

Wheety · 04-05-2018 1:55pm

Can anyone link to a good article on taxes due on having shares in Ireland and abroad? Some pay dividends, some don't.

I have some through Degiro. Was planning on starting a regular investment but i want to know how much and how to pay any taxes due. It's only a small amount but I'd still like to read up on it.

D'Agger · 04-05-2018 2:11pm

Just to chuck in my 2c

I opened a DeGiro account with the plan being to put a certain % of savings in there monthly and work from that. However, having made two small investments, it's easy to see that the fees will cripple you if you go small unless they're penny stocks.

So my plan for now is to save separately in my own bank a/c and transfer my monthy savings on a quarterly basis. This will reduce fees for transferring and give me enough funds to make sufficient orders for stocks, in the mean time, I'll monitor stocks and make my quarterly decisions based on this research.

Also, as another poster mentioned, you don't have to spend everything in your account as part of a scheme to 'have your money working for you'. I've a bit left over from my initial entering of the fray, that will be sitting there for the next few months until I add funds to it and then put to use. Better to have it sit in your DeGiro account unused than hastily invested and possibly losing value.

evolving_doors · 04-05-2018 2:41pm

Wheety wrote: »

Can anyone link to a good article on taxes due on having shares in Ireland and abroad? Some pay dividends, some don't.

I have some through Degiro. Was planning on starting a regular investment but i want to know how much and how to pay any taxes due. It's only a small amount but I'd still like to read up on it.

I haven't gotten that far but noticed I've a whopping dividend from the recent AIB novelty special offer purchase :pac:

So is this tax taken at source and sent to revenue or what?

Bob Harris · 04-05-2018 7:27pm

Wheety wrote: »

Can anyone link to a good article on taxes due on having shares in Ireland and abroad? Some pay dividends, some don't.

I have some through Degiro. Was planning on starting a regular investment but i want to know how much and how to pay any taxes due. It's only a small amount but I'd still like to read up on it.

In case you're looking at ETF's have a look at this link.

https://www.matheson.com/news-and-insights/article/tax-treatment-of-exchange-traded-funds

Taylor365 · 04-05-2018 9:26pm

D'Agger wrote: »

This will reduce fees for transferring

You get charged for this?

LimeFruitGum · 05-05-2018 10:15am

evolving_doors wrote: »

I haven't gotten that far but noticed I've a whopping dividend from the recent AIB novelty special offer purchase :pac:

So is this tax taken at source and sent to revenue or what?

Woohooo! &#55357;&#56836;
You don’t need to do anything with this one. Irish companies have to file the return.

Bubbaclaus · 05-05-2018 11:08am

LimeFruitGum wrote: »

Woohooo! ��
You don’t need to do anything with this one. Irish companies have to file the return.

What?

He needs to declare it on his tax return and pay the tax. Just because a portion of tax has been withheld doesn't mean the job is done.

Looking at the rate it looks like 15% tax has been withheld, so appears to be the foreign tax that got withheld and no Irish tax has been paid at all on it. Depending on your marginal rate of tax, you could potentially have another 40% to pay on that yourself through your tax return (if your marginal rate is 55%)

D'Agger · 05-05-2018 11:15am

Taylor365 wrote: »

You get charged for this?

Like a €1 transfer fee from the transfer partner...forget their name but if you're looking to avoid fees then that's another place where any gains made on minimal investment might take a hit

Bubbaclaus · 05-05-2018 11:58am

D'Agger wrote: »

Like a €1 transfer fee from the transfer partner...forget their name but if you're looking to avoid fees then that's another place where any gains made on minimal investment might take a hit

Or you can just do the other transfer option (straightforward bank transfer) for free.

650Ginge · 06-05-2018 9:32am

LimeFruitGum wrote: »

Woohooo! ��
You don’t need to do anything with this one. Irish companies have to file the return.

It's not helpful to give advice when you haven't a fooking clue.

Please shut up until you do.

LimeFruitGum · 09-05-2018 8:09pm

650Ginge wrote: »

It's not helpful to give advice when you haven't a fooking clue.

Please shut up until you do.

Of course I know you have to declare dividend income and pay tax on it, but I understood the post to refer specifically to the dividend tax deduction at source, as in this is done already by the company at source, and the poster doesn’t have to do anything else in that context. I considered further income declaration to be another matter. I obviously didn’t clarify this well enough, so ok - my bad.

On the other hand, it’s not helpful to be rude either. So how about you lay off on the attitude? I would hope that we are here to discuss, help, ask questions and learn from each other.

res ipsa · 13-05-2018 2:12am

Dr Alexander Elder says if you lose less than 10% in your first year of trading, this is satisfactory.
Some blow up everything in months.
Back to the day job.

Bubbaclaus · 13-05-2018 7:41am

I've been trading about 3 months on Degiro and I'm up just over 10%. Wish I started this sooner!

Keith1111 · 17-08-2019 2:40pm

Some great information there thanks
What stocks ye watching for brixet
Or ye know any good Facebook chat groups

Degiro newbie (making losses)

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