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WOLF EUROPE 🇪🇺
Recorded: Dec. 16, 2025 Duration: 1:02:49Space Recording
Short Summary
The conversation highlighted key trends in the UK and European markets, including rising unemployment rates and a significant growth in the European ETF market, which has reached over $2 trillion in assets. Participants discussed the implications of these trends on consumer spending and investment strategies, particularly in the context of crypto assets.
Full Transcription
Thank you. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Good afternoon over here from Europe. How is everyone doing today?
Can you guys hear me?
Yeah, how's it going?
Awesome. Hello. can you guys hear me yeah how's it going awesome lovely to hear your voices again we have a few new faces um just uh wanna highlight to you guys this is a you know purely educational and fun
you know exploration for us in europe over here um as i don't think the EU market gets a lot of coverage. And today we're going to be covering
all things in the ETF world, investments, how people diverse, the various ways we could diverse.
So hopefully by the end of this, you have a little bit more understanding how you can start to invest,
especially if you don't want to pick your own individual stocks and names, which is generally seen as a little bit more high risk.
And then latest data today we had from the UK,
unemployment rates ticked up by 5.1%, an increase from October,
which is not great news, unfortunately, for our side.
And I believe the EU also had a bit of PMI data as well.
A bit of mixed figures here.
I think we have for Great Britain, flash manufacturing PMI 51.2 came a little bit higher.
And then flash services PMI 52.1.
And then Germany came lower, actually 47.7 versus 48.6 as the forecast and then their flash pmi was 52.6 and 53
and then the french as well they came in a little slightly lower um and so a little bit of a mixed
board across across europe um i just wanted to kick off and um know your thoughts on that i know
forex you you have a lot of um you get involved in
data a lot that affects your currency if you want to yeah take it away big fundamental watcher um
yeah a little bit mixed um europe we saw sort of manufacturing black or going down or even some of
them improving um but a little bit of switcheroo between the services
and the manufacturing numbers.
For example, in Japan, Australia,
we saw a bit of improvement in manufacturing,
a bit softer in services.
But the UK as a whole, yeah, the jobs data,
we saw that unemployment rate tick up, wages remain sticky.
It was one of those data points that it could have been worse,
but nothing's falling off a cliff in terms of the
jobs market. It's just gradually weakening. And that's going to be obviously of note for the Bank
of England on Thursday, set to cut rates by 25 pips. And then we'll get to see whether they're
going to take a more dovish line based on the economy since the budget. And maybe they're going
to indicate further cuts to come. But to the smalling year, the pound reacted positively to that data.
In smalls, we've had cable up into the 134s, Euro sterling coming off from 88s.
Yeah, but this is a big old week, the last main trading week of the year
and there's going to be a lot of repositioning going on, I think.
Oh, great insight. thank you for that and with the repositioning how do you think what does that kind of usually look
like for your clients for your portfolios and where do you think people generally head towards
to do they sort of cash out this time of year or they're investing more maybe? No it tends to be a
lot of cashing out a lot of squaring up.
You get some big firms, pension funds and the like who sort of close off the books,
hedge funds, they want to put in the end of year reporting numbers.
So if they're in any sort of decent positions, they can take profit to produce those reports.
So we see a lot of flows and we'll probably start to see those from tomorrow around the
fixed times,
particularly the London fix four o'clock. And that's when you tend to see some of the bigger moves taking part. And yet no one really wants to get into anything fresh at this time of year,
because as I say, we've got this main trading week and then things will die a death. So no
one's going to be taking a position now that they think might play through
till March.
So we see liquidity drop.
You get this lower volatility.
Comments like Euro dollars that sit in a 20-pit range for hours.
And, yeah, I'm actually looking myself to close up some positions.
I'm long Euro sterling.
I've been since July on and off. And yeah,
I don't want to pay the cost for the next two weeks while it all just cost me money to sit
in a trade. So I might close it off, come back in the new year and re-establish the trade
and save myself a bit of money. I think that's how a lot of traders will be looking at this week.
Sounds like a solid plan. So maybe taking some profits and buying a few Christmas gifts for your loved ones.
Recouping all the Amazon buys that my wife's done. Yeah. So it's a never ending story.
Which is very interesting because with this unemployment data, then surely that would, you know, signify less spending in the economy overall not
just the uk but also i guess across europe is is looking a bit soft there too right
yeah very much so but i think you know particularly since the budget because it wasn't good news at
all um there was no growth measures in there and people thinking oh you know firms are thinking
well wages are going to have to be going up, higher national living wage.
And, you know, that puts a bit of pressure on. But you know what it's like in the UK.
You get that, I wouldn't call it never save die attitude, but, oh, it's going to be rubbish next year.
Let's have a blowout at Christmas and worry about it later. And I think that could be what we see.
So worry about the doom and gloom in the new year and let's enjoy Christmas.
Yeah, I think so.
I think us Brits has always had a, I would say, not as positive mindset as the US American
folks sometimes when it comes to that department.
But I would like to think that we are striving hopefully towards at least London or the major
cities with some businesses,
hopefully, you know, reinvesting into our towns and our countries.
I'd like to hand it over to Cashflow King.
You are definitely king of cashflow.
I know you have an incredible YouTube channel as well.
I'd love for you to introduce yourself a little bit, what you do, and what are your thoughts on the current economic situation with investing and where
do you see clients or people moving towards too?
Yeah, so my main focus is income, as you can tell by the name. So I mostly focus on the
US markets and the reason for that is I don't really think europe gets much coverage and there's kind of growth we see in us first
in pretty small so far so this is the reason why i tend to focus more on us
but i think lately we've seen an influx of people wanting to invest in the uk
i think it's been there's been a bit more coverage on WhatsApp
on what's happening lately.
So yeah, we've seen an influx on YouTube
and all these kinds of things.
So yeah, really happening.
I really happy for more coverage to happen
in the UK and Europe.
There's not been much options for income at the moment either.
So it's only since 2024 2024 we've had some decent products
actually come over to Europe.
So, yeah, really happy for these kind of things
that are happening for the UK.
Awesome. I'd love to hear that.
What kind of sort of, I guess, do you miss any at all
in the UK ETFs or whether that's not even, I guess, a real estate or even property?
I guess it's more sort of influenced heavily over here rather than actual investments in the market, but a slightly different perspective.
Yeah, I think in the UK, rental properties are a big part of the UK.
And I think in history that's what
we've seen so far so we've not really seen really high people becoming
financially free off the stock market let's say from passive income but I
think we've seen this happen lately in America since around 22 and new ETF are
coming over now making that possible since 24 so. So I think people are coming to aware
that it's possible to be financially free
without needing like 5 million pounds, for example.
So I think this is the major turnover point
over the next couple of years.
And me personally, I invest,
most of my portfolio is in growth
and then I have a smaller allocation to income.
So eventually I'm looking to build my wealth long term while being financially free off the income side of things.
Yeah, that sounds like a solid plan.
And for those obviously newer to investing or even just, you know, wondering, I guess we do have sometimes a lot of investors but what i don't think they realize
is sort of the percentage and ratio like growth versus stability versus cash like do you have
like a set framework or a breakdown that you generally sort of gear towards too and what does
that kind of look like yeah so for me because i'm wanting to become a multi-millionaire
um i'm only 31 so i've got plenty of time ahead of me.
But I want to be financially free off my portfolio at the same time while still building my wealth after that.
So my ratio tends to be 75% growth.
And then I use 25% section for income, whether that be income ETFs or that is also trading options to generate premium slash income.
Awesome. Sounds like a good balance. It's a very sort of more aggressive approach. And given that
you are younger as well, I guess like obviously for the older folks, they're generally having a
little bit more sort of safer ratio, less growth and a bit more cash or certainly more passive income avenue.
I'd like to hand it over to Trader Alex.
What are your thoughts on investing?
And do you have like, you know, a set percentage growth portfolio?
What are you aiming for?
No, I'm more like all eggs in one basket kind of guy.
I keep it pretty simple and just buy dips when it seems technically
interesting to kind of my system.
But Europe overall, I mean, we're lagging behind in productivity to America, which is
kind of a problem.
But on the bright side, we have some interesting sectors. And last time, or a few episodes ago,
we were talking about nuclear,
but we also, of course, have defense,
which is really interesting.
Europe unleashed around like 800 billion euro investment
towards defense. And the main focus is going to be AI, quantum, and space.
Around 80% of Nordic defense tech investments
have gone to space and quantum since 2019.
with space and quantum since 2019.
And well, then I also started thinking about silver, of course,
how that ties in.
We also seen interesting posts from Musk recently
about how he's a big believer in solar.
And solar has been using more and more silver over the last decades.
An interesting thing about silver is only about 20% of silver comes from mining.
The rest is actually from scrap and recycling of old parts and so on.
So we will see, especially with potentially getting
a pretty growth-oriented Fed share in America,
how that will spill over.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to the next year.
And yeah, that's kind of where I'm at right now.
Awesome. I love that with the sort of defense you said you're all in one basket are you specifically just focusing on like
silver and the defense only or do you have like a mixed bag and maybe in the smp as well or how
does that look no i have a few long-term holdings that I've been holding for over a decade.
And then I will go into medals and hold out for a year or two or swing trade out.
So, yeah, I'm pretty flexible in that regard.
Awesome. Just to give you guys a little bit of data.
Surprisingly, as we did speak on having defense as being a big sort of investment last
on our last show EUAD or the Select Stocks Europe Aerospace and Defense ETF over here
that's grown significantly approximately year to date as of well this month about 70 to 87 percent
which is insane and then in Spain we have also the EWP as well.
If you were looking into growth, that's also growing about 58%,
which is heavier in financials and utilities.
So it's more general.
And then strong earnings are in growth.
And then coming in at top number three, we have EUFN,
the iShares, MSCI Europe Financials ETF.
So European financial banks, and that's grown about 50% as well year to date, benefiting
from higher fiscal, obviously, expansion and improving margins.
And then in Poland, coming in at number four, EPOL, which is also from iShares, MSCI Poland,
which is also from iShares MSCI Poland they've grown about 44 to 65 percent and this is heavily
focused on infrastructure and energy projects boosting growth and outlook so those are sort of
the more sort of top performing four if you like and if you just want a more sort of Europe broad
based and that's the IEUR which is also about iShares. So iShares is quite popular over here as the ETF
provider and they've grown about 33 to 34 percent year to date as well and that tracks about roughly
about thousand stocks so that's all in one basket. So an ETF is containing multiples you probably
might be familiar with the S&P 500 which is your top 500 companies they're just held in a fund and that's simply what the
ETFs are and over here in Europe they might be sometimes called ETNs as well or ETPs. I know
Cashflow you know a bit more about the differentiations about that I'm not sure if you want to share about that.
About what sorry can you just repeat that? Oh just the difference is that how in europe we have
etfs etns and etps and sort of the slight variances of differences between them
yeah there's a lot of different kind of etfs in europe so we have etp which is exchange traded product which generally would hold something like a single stock
um and then we have an etc generally will be something that would wrap a us version
like we've seen in america we've got micro strategy um etf by by a company for example what runs
income product that would be wrapped as
an ETC but you have to understand there is with all the tax situations on
differences as well so for example you can have a usage version which has 0%
withholding tax and then generally an ETC would have 30% withholding tax if
it's from the US.
Yeah, so I believe in, and of course, none of this is professional financial advice,
and make sure you do your due diligence as well.
And of course, please do give our speakers all a follow.
They have incredible information.
Some of them have shows as well.
I'd like to say that in the UK, to my knowledge at least, for you to be sort of more tax efficient, so instead of paying full-on capital gains, when you buy and sell a share,
you'd have to obviously pay tax on that. But in the UK, you can invest those shares or stocks or
funds into an ISA or a SIP, which is more of a pension focus. So by doing that, you obviously save a little bit more,
you save about 15 to 30% versus buying direct. And of course, there are obviously cash limits. And I
believe new regulations are coming out on what those caps might be. And hopefully that
they increase it instead of decreasing it. So in your respective countries, I don't know, Alex,
do you guys also have something similar
in Sweden as well, where you have like a tax wrapper
and what those accounts kind of look like?
Yeah, so we have something called like Investering Spar Konto
and it's essentially a wrapper and you pay essentially a tax
on the total value of the portfolio and not on the performance, which is a little bit different.
Yeah, as long as you make over 3% a year, that's pretty good.
So we can get away with really low taxes on those.
That is super interesting.
It's very different from the UK,
like where we actually can't even write losses in the ISAs, just so you know. So if you do have
losses, it can't be written off again. So that's, I guess, the major difference. And yeah,
ours is completely sort of tax-free, depending, certain tax ban regulation, you know, where you are in the
income level. Just a little fun fact for Europe, ETF market has actually grown significantly,
as cash flow and Forex has mentioned, over $2 trillion in assets under management. That's a
10x growth in 10 years since in 2025. There's a record 337 billion,
beating last year's high of 40%,
which is a huge number.
So hopefully we're seeing a little bit more,
you know, investments coming back into Europe,
which is nice to see.
And of course, that defense and the medals
and I think tech as well is making a comeback.
And even JP Morgan is investing back into the cities and you know
offices that would then drive finance and growth hopefully and with that are there any sort of fan
favorites of these ETFs you guys have not for me personally one question if i may for cash flow or anyone else um
yeah it's really how far behind is the uk in in the etf investing market i mean it it's not
well advertised um we do seem to be behind the government you know making those changes in the
budget um are we that far behind everyone else even europe
in in getting people to invest in these sort of vehicles yeah i think we are way behind if i'm
being honest um if you look at if you look at america a good example would be in the income
space um i mean they first come about in 2022 and if we look at etfs in general they've been a 25
every single year since they've been about and gp alone has got 40 billion
assets under management and that is just one etf and i forget the actual number but i think
income etfs have got something like 200 billion alone just in these kind of
products and in the uk we've got about 200 million right now um in the new products that have come
over the last year or so so i think that's a quite big gap so far but i do think europe is going to
catch up and there's more people in europe and i think if this does actually do what it's supposed to do
within the next five to ten years,
I think we're going to see major growth in Europe to come.
Cool, thank you.
Sorry to jump over here.
Yeah, no, that's actually a great question.
We do encourage all of our listeners to drop in questions.
Of course, if you're new or you're wanting a bit more advanced, you know, investing, do feel free to drop in your questions below.
More than happy to try and answer that for you guys.
With obviously we are far behind.
I think ETFs, I mean, they've only just really come out not so long ago over here, really.
I think, you know, we're also trying to diversify with, I think, the recent crypto ETFs, as I've heard.
And I think they've been battling with regulations.
It's been kind of on and off, so I'm not 200% sure what the state of that is.
I think with Europe, they've always been, you know, with the prospectuses, which is like the document you get before you invest, it needs to be sort of diversified,
which is why we cannot buy singular ETFs like QQQ or SPY.
And why do you think you guys, you know,
we are so behind on this ETF game?
Like the US seems to have had it forever, it seems like.
I could give you my honest opinion on that yeah go ahead it basically the government don't want people financially free they want you to pay your tax and have a normal job and
not be a millionaire not be financially free they don't want that for people otherwise
people want to pay the tax every year super interesting perspective there jj i'd love to invite you up on the stage here what are your
thoughts on you know european etfs and investing generally versus i know such a huge draft
difference to the europe to the americans and we're so behind, I feel like. We're very slow.
Only.
Yeah.
Oh, I'm not.
Breaking up there.
For.
Great.
Their.
Financial. Their. Is he breaking up or is it just me? I agree that they're financially...
Is he breaking up or is it just me?
Yeah, he's breaking up a bit.
Yeah, you're sounding a little bit...
It's like in and out right now.
I'm not sure.
Is that any...
If you are on desktop, use your mobile.
I had this issue before. Yeah, it keeps cutting in and out. And I was wondering, is that any if you are on desktop use your mobile uh i had this issue before
yeah it keeps cutting in and out and i was wondering is that any better better here now
better this is much better now yeah go ahead sir i i i have a i don't know i look at
you know i i look at things from a completely different perspective because I was on the other side. And so I kind of understand the agenda of the smart money.
And, you know, what the gentleman said before was right.
They don't want people to have financial control here.
That's so obvious because everything that's legal and everything that's encouraged
are things like spread betting, gambling, just
ways to just soak people out of their money. You just see it, CFDs, all of this stuff,
it's great. But what about for people who want to build wealth in their ISA and those
kinds of things? Those options are limited. And the companies, when you move stuff around, they
ding people with fees like crazy. So, you know, you're right. The financial freedom aspect here
is very, very different. You know, and, you know, I'm a visitor here, so I don't want to speak out
of turn, but I really do see that they do have their thumb on people. And it's,
it's hopefully that changes.
Hopefully that changes.
And I think that's why crypto has been a big,
a really big challenge for the regulator.
And,
you know,
elite because that allows person to come in,
honey,
get free.
It's not what you want.
People working, right?
You're breaking up again.
Yeah.
Sorry, am I going to do that again?
Yeah, a little bit.
Sorry about that.
I have some investing companies, and we'll talk about that next time.
I don't want to by talking do you want to
try and drop down and come back up again i think it's really cutting out sorry about
on the next time thank you so much all good thank you jj yeah if you want to just drop down and come up and see if there's any better. Yeah, I agree there with JJ. I think crypto has been that new edge where it's sort of, you know, the new driver for growth.
I guess more on the extreme and higher volatility level versus something that's a little bit more stable.
versus something that's a little bit more stable.
Generally, ETFs or funds are seen a bit more,
as long as you're consistently investing,
and the growth and the chart is, you know, is looking healthy.
And I think, you know, that always has been a winner for me personally.
Just some fun facts around, you know, investing generally.
UK, at least, around 26% of UK adults directly invest in the stocks and shares. That's equating to about
14 million people in 2025, which is up significantly from previous years,
including broader investments. So that's funds, index trackers and pensions. 54% of adults have
some form of investment exposure, which is actually really nice to see,
considering we're on the slower end scale to invest.
And only 4% specifically hold ETFs, which is very interesting.
So it just tells me that the risk appetite is far higher.
Forex, do you kind of see that on your side?
Do you feel like more people are trading versus even investing i guess or that aspect yeah i think so
i mean obviously with the stocks and shares uptake you know it's it's a much easier playground now
you know there's various apps you can go and buy a coffee and the change left over from a tenner
not that there's much these days can can go and invest into you know a portfolio or something so
you know technology has definitely
opened the door up, which is probably why we've seen that increase. But going back to the point
that financial education is very lacking overall in this country. So that's probably why we're not
seeing such a great expansion. People think if I want to trade the market, I go out and buy stocks
and shares or I go and do spread betting, as flow said. So I think while while there's only those two avenues, then we are going to have see
things restrained and not get the uptake that firms would like and that maybe people deserve.
But it is it is a it's a government issue as well.
I agree. It's the fact of, of you know that people don't want to
they don't want to see people getting rich and not paying tax um but that's detrimental because
if you're earning exponentially more you're spending more in the country which goes into
the economy um so it's sort of a you can shoot yourself in the foot um if the government sort
of takes that attitude but yeah i think it's an age thing as
well. You know, kids coming out these days, I've got boys who are 16, they're coming into the world,
into crypto world, into an AI world. And it's ever changing. And I think that the doors are
going to be more open for the younger age to get involved in investing and that should kick things up a bit.
That is very insightful. I never thought about also, yeah, young children, families as well.
I know this might be a bit personal, like how do you feel raising kids in today's day and age,
especially in an AI changing world, how do you think we could help them sort of get a better like head start or you know i guess
it would be down to education um yeah there was also another sort of question does everyone on
the panel here think um over regulation in uk and eu may derail income funds maturing over here as
well that's another great question with sort of time and age.
Yeah, well, we could spend an hour talking about how we bring our kids up. But yeah,
it's encouragement from parents. I think there's a lot that can be done in education. I mean,
people, kids still come through school. I don't know how mortgage works. I don't know simple things like that. Certainly when I came through school, we didn't have that sort of learning. So just general economic education is a bit lacking, even in things like business studies and the like. But, you know, it's down to the parents as well to educate kids.
world I'm waiting for that time when my kids are telling me how I can work my phone rather than
because I'm too old to get on with it so technology you know the last 20 years it's moved so fast
and I think if if the kids of today grasp it and have the opportunities to grasp it then
they can have a better crack at it than perhaps us oldies. Absolutely. I totally agree with you on that.
And Cashflow, I know you saw your hand up.
We'd love to get your thoughts on that.
Yeah, no problem.
I can just share a bit of info because my son is actually seven
and I'm actually doing this right now with him.
So the financial education is just non-existent right now.
That's exactly what I've seen from my following in the UK over the last year.
They just don't want you to be financially free.
That's a be-all and end-all.
It's a great point talking about spread betting and gambling.
You can spend £10,000 on Bet365 on the website
and lose it instantly,
but you can't buy 10 000 pounds worth of bitcoin
because your bank will just cancel it um that to me says everything um about what the government
want to do and if they are not showing the financial education it's got to be up to us to
do it so like with my son at the minute he's got his own ISA he can put seven or eight thousand pound a year in but what I do with him for example is if he comes to work with me for a day I give him
50 pounds he would put 25 pound in his ISA then he could spend 25 pound I think these are the kind
of things that we start need to start teaching to his own kids if the education isn't being shown
by the UK government. Amen. Yeah, I absolutely preach.
I mean, you know, I'm getting into my late 30s
and generally there was absolutely zero education in school
about any of this in terms of like,
we were always taught in the UK at least,
I'm not sure in Sweden or the rest of Europe
and perhaps some of you guys listeners
from different parts of the world can also drop your comments down below um we were never sort
of exposed and we were just sort of taught you must save your cash save your cash but no one
was educated of what to do with that cash and it's like some people just leave it in the bank accounts
but they were not even aware that you could put it into something called an interest rate savings where you could earn interest on the cash or even put it in stocks, especially very lacking on that end for us in school.
I don't know about you guys. Alex, how does that look like over in Sweden?
Well, for me, it was always kind of surprising because in Sweden, we were actually pretty
forward with all the topics regarding investing and saving and so on from a pretty, pretty
young age.
And thankfully, we had platforms which made it really easy and straightforward to just open up an account and you know you didn't really need to
fill a bunch of documents and it just becomes easier and easier here like we can just
you know kids can just open account log in with their digital bank ID, which some people may think is a good thing.
Some people may think it's a bad thing.
I mean, I can say in some cases, of course, it makes things much smoother.
So then when I traveled around and met some of my friends,
maybe in Greece, in Spain or wherever,
and they started talking about topics like investing and so on.
It was like, you know, they were completely like,
they didn't have a really good concept of it, same in Italy.
Well, most didn't.
They thought it was dangerous and so on.
was dangerous and so on.
I think Europe has a problem when it comes to saving.
So I think too many people here in Europe are saving in cash just because, well, a big
part of Europe is probably a little skeptical still about the risks revolving the market. But when it comes to Gen Z,
we have at least seen them be pretty active
in the crypto market.
So I think the big shift will come with the tokenization.
So it's kind of how I look at it.
Yeah, I absolutely agree.
Actually, there's a statistic data under 30s in the Gen Z and millennials.
The overall participation is fastest growing is actually in high interest in crypto.
So they're looking for crypto assets with high interest rates and not even cash
across all kinds of digital platforms and any anyone aged between 25
to 34 and then the 30 and 45 are driving the ETF boom so that's like 30 percent up so more young
adults are investing since 2022 at least motive obviously by sort of FOMO or you know as they
coin it and control and simplicity so just the speed to get wealthy.
And anyone sort of over the 45s are looking at highest in pensions,
obviously, and less active in trading and ETF investing itself.
I want to bring up an audience member here.
Lumi, you have some thoughts on this?
We love you.
Yeah, thank you.
I'm in America,
but I used to live a lot of my life in Europe and especially in the UK. And I think you got that right because young people want a lot of volatility so they can actually like make money and they're
attracted to that. It doesn't matter what it's in, but generally they're looking for volatility
nine times out of 10. and as you get older you
want more safety in your pensions so it's going to be more bonds and more like safe assets you
might not even know you're buying it your financial advisor will be buying it for you
but what's really weird about the uk is that banking in the uk all of your um like checking
accounts you're just your regular account is free You don't really generally pay for the privilege of banking.
In America, you pay $12 a month just for a bank account.
For every transaction you do, take money out, you pay $2, $3, right?
In the UK, you don't pay for any transactions of cash coming in or out of your account, right?
And there's a reason for this.
The banking model, when they like literally set it
up for the city of london uh they literally said to their people we're going to give you free banking
and we're going to give you free commerce and see where this goes in america they didn't want you
to even have um a pin they wanted it's a very different model and they wanted to charge you
for everything you do and it's very strange how those two models are virtually identical, but from a banking point of view, they did something slightly different.
They made sure that in the UK it was free.
And then what's really strange with the UK, they don't teach you in school, like you said, about finance and food.
And it really does kind of like kick in the mouth the uk people
lay down the track because they pull their money into their property and then they inflate the
value of their property away for inflation and taxation so um yeah that's the game they play
in my opinion not not an expert that's super interesting and and i do appreciate your opinion and i i actually
um when i was also living in north america they the banking is actually very backwards for me
i think it's because i'm so used to a uk banking where it's it's uh obviously a given and um we
take it for granted it's actually free we we don't pay sort of account fees unless you're obviously opening a very specific type of account. So if you're under a certain balance, I know in
the US and Canada, when I was living there, you know, if it's under a $1,500 balance, you'd get
fined $12 fee as a sort of standard across the board, which I never understood. So I think it's a different mindset.
Obviously, you guys have been exposed to more where in America, it's sort of almost encouraged
to be a business or entrepreneur or to make more money. Rather here, it's sort of, as JJ said
earlier, I know he had some reception issues. It mind blows me that you can simply open a gambling account and have
10 000 pounds and just waste it all down the drain and yet when trying to invest and be more
responsible with that money we're we're sort of like put in jail almost or like punished for that
the uk is the only place i've ever known where they did these things with gambling which are kind of unique to the
UK when they started off
and it doesn't sound like much but
look into it you'll blow your mind
and I don't recommend this
this is something which I highly recommend
everyone never touches this in their life
however it destroyed families
so it's called spread betting
and it's where you say you
think you know
something about the swiss rank against the pound there's teachers uh who put these bets on for
every point it moved they'd make money but what happened like 10 years ago was the swiss bank
overnight changed their interest rate and caught everyone off guard and overnight because of
slippage which basically means how it can move against you um this teachers and family
members own like owed to the banks and to these gambling like casinos essentially hundreds of
thousands of dollars like houses um houses because of slippage and um and that is one thing i've
never seen anywhere else and i think it's kind of really disgusting and um i'd say between payday
loans and that,
those are the two things I've never seen anywhere else
and they prey on the British people and Europeans in the whole.
I've never seen it.
Yeah, JJ did mention spread betting.
So yeah, spread betting here is basically gambling
and under UK log gambling,
any wins you make is not taxable at all for now unless a new regulation
step in um cash flow do you see sort of any other vehicles that could be seen as a risk or danger
as well i think the biggest risk is not doing anything um just saving cash, I think that is the biggest risk.
And I think a lot of people don't really understand this
because we've never been taught in the UK any of this.
I think the mentality is, as someone previously mentioned, is save.
And they think it's risky investing.
A lot of people, I speak to newcomers in the community,
they think everything's risky but
what about the risk and i like i always said the biggest risk is doing nothing do you want to die
with nothing and not give anything down to your kids i mean i think that's the biggest risk for me
you know what's really interesting as well is that they put a 20 tax on silver so one of the
biggest reasons why i left the uk was because I was a young man
trying to save for my life, right? And I was buying a lot of silver at the time for $5,
five pounds an ounce. But the UK government thought it was a great idea to put 20% sales tax
on silver, which basically means that if you were trying to save for like a better life
and putting money away and just trying to avoid inflation, they made it so that for five years, pretty much four or five years,
you would make no money on that investment. Um, and then it would become probably one of the
best investments you ever made in your life. Right. And this is the thing with the UK government
to put 20% sales tax on silver, uh, and to even think about it, which they would think about it
with gold, I think just tells you what they were thinking about it with gold I think just
tells you what they're trying to do with the people which is to keep them poor keep them in
the dark and basically take away all of their wealth through inflation and taxation I think it's
a disaster so I guess that's where the kids cartoon Robin Hood comes from. For those of you who watched that,
I think it seems to be the movies are all playing out very scarily
and then more in the adult world,
all this Star Trek stuff and all the AI stuff,
which next Thursday, sorry, this Thursday coming up,
we will be covering a bit more tech investing in the EU
because that's a whole different discussion in itself as well um yeah
Forex I know your hand is up yeah I just wanted to to address uh Lumi um just on the spread betting
thing it's it's something I deal with a lot um and I deal with people who use it it's it's the
same as everything if if people aren't educated enough to use it um then they're going to go wrong with
things like that um and it's it's down to education you know again this is one of those things
i've been i've been in markets for over 30 years i started off in in the city um i understand how
things work it's a profession okay it's not a get rich quick scheme. People think they can take a thousand pounds, five thousand pounds, put it in a trader account and call themselves a trader.
You can't do that no more than you can buy a pair of football boots from Sports Direct and be a Premier League footballer or buy a law book off of Amazon and be a lawyer.
Amazon and be a lawyer. It's all about, again, education, teaching people how to trade. And I'm
in a chat room and I deal with inexperienced traders daily and they all make the same mistakes.
They all do the same things. Trading isn't about, I think, it's about understanding how economies
work and understanding how central banks work and things like that. So yes, spread betting on itself is not the problem.
It's people learning how to use it properly.
That's the problem.
I would disagree.
The biggest problem between spread betting and owning a stock is this.
So with spread betting, you're leveraged to the tilt and you don't own anything.
And what happens is that you may be right or wrong it
doesn't make a difference but over a long period of time the casino will always take your money
if not more and with slippage you run the risk of losing everything whereas if you own the stock so
i would go in the uk to barclays i used that there's my broker young kid and i'd be buying
literally yellow pages stock right I went from having like
two thousand pounds in my account to like eighty thousand pounds because I didn't know that yellow
pages was going to go out of business but what happens is when the company goes out of business
sometimes it gets short squeezed it went from 20 pence to like a hundred uh one dollar like 80 or
one pound 80 or something like that the point was is that I didn't know what the business was
going to do it's going out of business but the price action was incredible i owned the stock
which meant i was never going to lose my money but the biggest problem as a trader i had when
i was younger is i didn't want to take a profit and this is something which is important own the
thing that you're trying to trade in not financial advice but be willing to take a profit and
understand what you're trading which you said as
well is one of the most important things is knowing what you're buying and selling but the
difference with spread betting and a brokerage is you own it and owning something is powerful
whereas being leveraged is very unpowerful it means you're at the mercy of the markets essentially
yeah but then you're talking about something which is, you know, buying a share is investing.
That's different to speculative trading.
You don't need to own it if you've got a view on the market.
That's the problem.
Most people have a page of the press view of the market and they don't really understand
And that's what catches people out
I mean I teach people how to trade properly and it's not what to buy what to sell it's how to
manage your psychology it's how to manage your trades it's being wrong it's learning this is a
the fundamental lesson I learned when I was a trader in the city. Trading is not about learning how to win. It's about
learning how not to lose. And that's the mindset that people don't have. They think,
put five grand in an account, I can trade my way out and turn it into a million. It's not going to
happen. And yes, you're quite right about leverage. You don't need leverage. But anyway, we could probably... Yes, we could certainly do a trading Europe space for sure,
the trading versus sort of betting, if you like.
And, of course, now with today's technology advancing,
we now have prediction markets that we could go on forever,
which is a whole other bag bag of ones uh we don't
have time to cover today but i definitely love everyone's perspective um please do give all of
our followers um you know a follow they have great information some of these guys have even
an incredible youtube educational channel and i do think like I'm a huge advocate for, you know, correct education,
you know, trading, I would say versus investing. Obviously, investing is a far more, you know,
safer or stable route, which is why we invest in sort of more ETFs. I think there's one in four
Brits own stocks versus over half have some market exposure in ETFs. And certainly the niche in
ETFs have grown with these stats. And in the European or EU, around 33 to 34% of EU households
actually have some sort of exposure to stocks or investment funds, certainly in capital.
And then direct stock holdings itself are much lower, which is 6% to 15%
across countries. So I think coming back to what cash flow was saying with the ratio,
what does your portfolio look like? It depends on your risk appetite as well. I would say if
you're younger or if you certainly have more cash flow, if you you know blessed to have that coming in to take a
higher risk you certainly can go for more aggressive sort of 70 percent or more growth versus sort of
you know other avenues as well um and obviously this goes with your pension as well um your
portfolio and iso is so different to a pension portfolio, but essentially you're buying almost the same ETFs or products, but they're just housed in a different wrapper, if you like, because of tax
purposes, respective in your country. In the US, 62% of US adults own stocks, which is huge.
And it's directly or via ETF funds and retirement accounts. So they're very huge on ETFs because
they don't want to think about picking,
oh my God, Apple, NVIDIA,
or all these, you know,
having not just said that we strictly to buy EU ETFs.
So it's not just, you know, defense
or the boring energy stuff.
You can buy US American stocks through the fund.
So have a look at some of the iShares or the Vanguard's
but the main things we'll watch out for is the fees as well sometimes it costs to have a fee
and it's I think it's the TEL it's usually like zero point something so if you can keep it under
like a one percent I think you're usually good on that. So it doesn't outgrow, the fee doesn't outgrow the actual growth itself.
So that's what you want.
I think the other talking points we had was EU households
are holding about 12 to 14 trillion in cash.
So coming back to, you know, Europe not being stable
with all these regulations, we are heavier in cash as well.
So again, it's a balance.
It's like, do you want more cash or do you want more growth?
And it comes down to your personal choice.
Funny enough, Alex, the Nordics, like Sweden, Denmark, Norway,
and Netherlands are often 40% to 50% in pensions,
which is apparently mandatory in your country or by law or the
government is encouraged um but the swedes are stand you know definitely stand out with the high
equity allocations what are your thoughts on this and we'd love to hear more about
what the sort of government says about uh sort of encouragement is so different to the UK. Yeah, exactly. About 80% of Swedes have money invested in funds,
and that's due to regulations regarding to work and so on.
And about 26% to 27% of the population own shares directly.
And I think it's basically because we had,
it's basically
because we had
from a very
young age
education about
it, talks about it.
I don't
know. It was just always kind of
a thing in the air
that, I mean,
I think I took my first
stock trade at like 16 or something
or 15 even.
So yeah, it was sort of always in the zeitgeist, so to speak.
I don't know.
Everybody, all my Swedish friends are invested no matter sort of where they are.
If they are doing construction or if they're in medical field
doesn't matter they're all interested they're all talking and you know it's sort of a community over
here interesting so in school did you guys get like a finance or education or to what kind of
level or detail because we certainly did not over here.
Yeah, I remember there were people like humming and doing presentations,
talking about it.
I remember we also,
like I think it was in middle school,
we even started with,
we had some course where we all
could like sim trade or whatever.
So yeah, and I think we had a trading competition as well, had some cores where we all could like sim trade or whatever.
So yeah. And I think we had a trading competition as well,
if I remember right.
But yeah, it's just, I guess Sweden is just a country
that has sort of high taxes,
but except for when it comes to investing.
but except for when it comes to investing.
So a lot of people see that a way to gain financial freedom
is through investing.
And I just think it was a big government push 20 years ago
or something for young people to get into the field.
I remember I was part of a group called Young Stock Savers or Young Actions Partners.
I think it was a government program or something like that, where we could learn everything from fundamentals to technical analysis,
like straight up trading.
Yeah, it was always around.
Absolutely. Love that.
Such a different and refreshing perspective from the UK, at least.
I'm not sure in other countries, to be really honest.
So if there's anyone in the audience, you know,
who have questions or would love to drop your comments
of what kind of education level you guys got in school
or even if it existed at all.
Or I guess for us, we definitely had more push
on the business aspect.
So sort of business classes we had.
And what's really interesting, funny enough, the lowest sort of
countries that are more heavy in cash and not so much investments, definitely not the UK,
is more in the south, the southern parts of Europe. So we're looking at Greece, Portugal,
Italy, and some parts of Eastern Europe as well, which is, you know, heavy cash, like
less than 30 percent basically in exposure to the markets.
And again, I think education, hopefully there's going to be more and more of us European
creators to pave the way.
I certainly would love to start posting more on my account as well.
And hopefully we can provide that here for you at Wolf Europe.
Let us know also what you would like to see.
Is there anything else you guys would like to sort of see more in Europe
on the education side or even sort of mindset-wise as well?
What are we lacking?
I think one thing that is the main difference,
because I went to America to the NASDAQ headquarters this year,
and when I went to America, every single person I talked to,
even if it were just someone random on the street,
their mindset was, I need to invest, I need to get money for later on,
I need to do this, I need to become financially free
Whereas if we had that mindset in the UK
Where if the government took that mindset and said right every every business in the UK
Every job you had you had to self-direct and invest a certain amount of money
Like what would that do for just the mindset in general of the UK?
People and the UK government and the amount of money that would actually be pumped into the system,
even just into UK stocks?
I mean, we've got UK businesses that are IPO-ing in America
because they don't even want to come to the UK markets.
I mean, that says everything for me, if you think right about that.
Yeah, it's such a vast, drastic difference.
I think recently also some of our businesses here,
like Revolut, I'm sure most of you guys know in Europe, massive fintech bank, and that's another
conversation for another day as well we can definitely cover. I think he recently left the
UK as residence and moved to Dubai. A lot of entrepreneurs going over to Dubai because of the
tax benefits. And then, yeah, I think I don't have the exact data for the London Stock Exchange or the
FTSE.
We certainly have seen less growth there and less companies IPO-ing over here and even
some packed up and are IPO-ing over to America.
I'd love to invite Evan up on the stage.
Good morning to you.
Are you there, Evan?
Or are you just waking up? We're just talking about investing and the different mindsets.
Yeah, go ahead.
With the IPOs in the UK, what's very interesting is watching Tesla when they were trying to
build a factory in the UK. I'm a big fan of Tesla. I have family who
are very much in Tesla. And it was interesting because Elon was no way going to put his factory
in the UK because of the regulation, I'd say the high level corruption of the UK and the lack of
entrepreneurial spirit. That's the best way to put it. And those three
factors basically said that, you know what, we're not going to build there. I thought that was
fascinating. And they wouldn't even build in India because of very similar reasons. And I thought
that's kind of crazy how the UK has managed to create a business environment so anti-business
that Tesla can't go to the UK
or to India. So it was fascinating. But I think that that could be turned around pretty quickly
because young generation, they're very smart, very, very smart. And the internet has changed
things massively. So that just might be temporary, but I hope it changes i certainly agree with you there i think all these
i think over regulation as someone did say also in the audience and you know shout out to dogness
for that um and thank you florex for showing up here today as well give all of our listeners a
follow absolutely you know amazing perspective um with the jobs data, you know, today in the UK,
I think that just says it all with the unemployment,
high taxes over here, driving businesses out of the country.
So obviously there's going to be less job opportunities over here
and we've increased in unemployment rate.
I think it's looking a bit dire over here.
I would love for the country to turn around certainly
and I think the only thing to do is changing governments, changing regulation for sure,
if we're not changing governments, at least have the encouragement for businesses to come
back or an incentive.
I remember back in the day when I used to be in the film industry for like Hollywood
and visual effects, you know, there's countries like Singapore or Vancouver who would encourage these,
you know, big studios to go and open up shop there, you know, Disney and, you know, all these
ILM, they would just go over there and open up shop because the governments would incentivize
and that would obviously drive growth and employment and therefore, you know, a flourish in
hopefully investments and that will come down back to the kids in the school system.
And yeah, I think I'm going to leave it there for today. There's nothing more. I absolutely want to
thank everyone on the panel. You've been all incredible here today. Thank you, Cashflow.
Thank you, Alex. Thank you, Lumi, for coming up. Evan, are you here with us today?
Are you here with us today?
Hey, Eva.
Yeah, I appreciate you guys.
Yeah, I got to listen to part of this.
Shout out to everyone for coming in.
We're obviously trying to do more of this EU, UK stuff.
So, yeah, I appreciate you guys for coming in and hanging out.
And if there's anyone down below who thinks you guys would be a good speaker on this for the next one,
you guys should DM that Wolf account.
We'd love to get you guys to join in, but I really do appreciate all of you.
Great way to start the day.
Shout out to you, Ben.
Absolutely.
Thank you, guys.
Yeah, absolutely.
So for Thursday is our next show.
We are here Tuesday and Thursday,
and obviously next week is the sort of Christmas holidays.
We're going to have a show on Tuesday, but not on Christmas Day. So next,
on Thursday, we're going to cover a bit more about tech and AI using sort of AI tools and investing
in Europe and what that kind of looks like. So certainly if you guys have any, you know,
interesting people you look up to, do comment down below. And if you'd like to come and replay this,
do go and retweet and
share this so you can come back and listen to this appreciate everyone today listening and tuning in
love you all and we will see you later guys as the whole team is out traveling um tonight we have at
3 p.m eastern our stock market analysis on stocks and shares um on so do have a look at our schedule if
you just pinned in our profile here and see you guys later have a great day
Insights
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