Hello everyone,
I’m completely new to investing and have just started my professional career. My goal is to invest for the long term (30–40 years), mainly to prepare for retirement. I’ve spent quite a bit of time researching, but I’m still unsure which broker would be best for my strategy. I’d love to get your opinions.
My investment strategy (~€500/month DCA):
- 50% iShares Core S&P 500 ETF USD Acc
- 25% iShares Core MSCI EM IMI Acc
- 15% iShares Physical Gold Acc
- 10% “other” (cryptocurrencies or individual stocks I believe in such as Engie, AMD for example)
I want a simple but diversified portfolio to reduce risk, mainly ETFs with very little active stock picking. My horizon is very long-term, so I’m focusing on growth and stability. I aim to keep the portfolio manageable (max 4 main positions).
Broker considerations:
Initially, I was thinking of opening a CTO with Trade Republic because of low fees, fractional shares, and a user-friendly app. But I came across some potential issues:
- Poor quality of customer service
- Spreads can be wide (not sure if this is an issue for long-term DCA)
- PFOF (still learning exactly how this affects my investments)
Other brokers I’ve considered: Bolero (Belgian, likely safe, but no fractional shares), Saxo Bank, Medirect, IBKR (none support fractional shares).
I’m not worried about managing taxes myself, so that’s not a key factor. My main goal is to find a broker that fits a long-term, ETF-focused DCA strategy.
Any thoughts on Trade Republic or other brokers you’d recommend for someone in my situation?
Thanks in advance!
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Trade Republic is fine if you value simplicity and fractional shares. Spreads and PFOF won’t matter much if you’re DCA’ing monthly and holding for decades.
IBKR is more robust and cheaper long-term, just without fractions — you’ll sometimes have a bit of cash left over.
If you want easy, do Trade Republic, and If you want best-in-class do IBKR.
Whatever you choose, consistency matters more than the broker. Track everything in one place (something like firenum.com works well, it’s basically a FIRE calculator for investment and retirement that also tracks your progress), automate your investing, and don’t overthink the rest.
You have to get a broker that is ROCK solid and gives you good commissions: IBKR
All others are a step down the quality ladder.
By picking four ETFs, you’re likely over-diversifying. As Warren Buffett famously said: “Diversification is protection against ignorance.”
Buffett has also been very explicit about what he believes works best for most investors. In his 2013 letter to shareholders, he gave investment instructions for the trustee of his wife’s inheritance: 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund and 10% in short-term government bonds. The idea is simple: capture long-term market growth while maintaining a basic level of safety. If you really feel the need to allocate further, you could split between something like the iShares Core S&P 500 ETF (Acc) and the iShares Core MSCI EM IMI (Acc). Beyond that, I’d drop gold and other “diversifiers.” They tend to dilute returns rather than improve them.
If you don’t know how to properly analyze individual businesses, it’s better not to go down that route. Mixing in assets you don’t fully understand often reduces the effectiveness of your ETF strategy and lowers long-term returns.
From a pure ETF-selection standpoint, I’d look at Saxo or MEXEM, mainly because low fees matter the most over time. That said, broker choice is still personal and depends on your own preferences and situation.
Also if you split the €500 in 4 different investments, your cost ratio will be sky high, again diluting returns.
Broker is a personal choice, looks like you've done your homework so just look at the pro's and cons.
If you're going with Saxo and you're interested in €100 free transaction fees, send me a DM and I'll give you my referral link.
Good luck with investing!
Engie OMG... stay away from that piece of junk!
Could you develop a little more hahaha?
Worked for that company for 12 years. Also held the shares, besides a mediocre dividend, not worth the investestment. Typical French management, they are aiming for status quo and take decisions based on hiearchy, not numbers. A lot of baronies and silo's.
If you are buying USD positions, you will need to exchange to dollars.
This is by far the cheapest on IBKR.
Thanks for your advice! My only concern is that IBKR seems more suited for experienced investors than for beginners like me. It also looks like it doesn’t really offer the possibility to buy fractional shares and an easy way to automate monthly investments. What do you think about it?
It is possible to buy fractional shares. You just have to enable it.
There is an easy way to automate recurring investments.
It has the best tooling, smallest spreads, best exchange rate.
The only disadvantage is tob. But you already said thats no problem for you.
Alright, I will do more research on this broker. Thanks for your help!
If you want to invest 500 euro every month, I would just choose the broker with the lowest fees. On TR, I've seen Redditors reporting problems if you ever want/need to change tax residency and I believe you need to file/pay the TOB yourself (which can become a real nuisance if you have to do this every month).
It is surprising that you do not have euro exposure in your portfolio. Keep in mind that you will need to spend in euros if you plan to retire in the euro area.
4 positions already require quite some maintenance/rebalancing and adding individual names might be a lot of work for not a lot of gain. If you like to spend time on these topics, it is fine of course to have many positions.
Thanks a lot for your advice! I hadn’t really considered currency risk, so maybe I could rebalance by dropping the individual stocks/crypto and adding something like the Bel20 or Amundi Core Stoxx Europe 600 ETF.
About the TOB, I thought it wouldn’t be too time-consuming once I know what to pay, but as I said, I have no real experience yet.
And as you said, lowest-fee brokers make the most sense so if you know any good alternatives to TR, I’d love to hear them.
Well then you’re almost starting to replicate an all world index and a 1 ETF solution could be more efficient?
TOB is easy but it’s just annoying if you have to calculate and pay it for every transaction, even though they made it a bit easier now via Myminfin.
TR is fine if you understand their service offering. MeDirect is free from what I hear here, but never used it myself.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that in my experience it is fun to play around in the beginning but after a while it became too much of a burden for me to rebelance etc. Looking back, it was not really worth the effort, esp considering the small amounts of my portfolio.