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Comment by sunshine-o | Hacker News Reader

Yes go most banks in Europe and ask to invest anywhere from 1000 to 1M euros they will sell you mainly two things: European govs debt and bluship US tech stocks. It might be wrapped in all kind product but it is often most of it (MS, Apple, Google, Nvidia, etc.).

I once asked what could be the alternative they literally couldn't answer me. Virtually every EU citizen with a bit of money has part of their savings invested in the same 5 US big tech companies. And I am sure it is the same in many parts of the world.

We are very very far from initial role of a bank and you might wonder why Europe has its own banking system in the end. It also explains why the price of those stocks are so high.

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> Virtually every EU citizen with a bit of money has part of their savings invested in the same 5 US big tech companies. And I am sure it is the same in many parts of the world.

Consolidation of power means that’s just what happens when you chuck money into an index fund, even a global one.

Actually you must be thinking of the most reputable banks.

Because most of them will absolutely try to fleece their older customer demographic by trying to make them invest in high expense funds that perform terribly. For them to advice you to put them into a decent index tracking fund is already a good sign.

That’s idiotic really. I mean I’m not sure why you’d go to a European bank for investment advice other than “bank do money, ug”. There’s a whole advisory market out there which gives you better options based on your attitude to risk profile and goals. Not the usual put it all in a TSLA/NVDA/MSFT ETF and to the moon shit.

I made more out of the tech market in the last 5 years than I would have in it by having sensible advice and a half decent financial model.

I agree with you that tech stocks are overvalued. However, there is no free cake that I can think of. You can invest in bonds but in the short to medium term they under perform compared to equities by a lot. And most industries have their own risk profiles that if anything are more tangible than the notion that someday, the tech bubble will pop.

The older generations (Boomers, Gen X) who have most of the money still invest through well known banks and often get advise from the local branch. Their money will either disappear one day or stay there until their death.

Looks like we found our bag holders.

Gen X here btw. Some of my age-peers have low financial sense so that figures.

My guess is as older generations die out and their children (traumatized by 2008) inherit their money, we are gonna see the most incredible migration away from the financial institutions we know.

It has already started. I am sure most gen Z who inherited something from their grand parents who passed away in the last 5 years, invested some in crypto (after putting a roof over their head hopefully). It is visceral for that generation, for better or worst they do not understand or trust our current financial system.

So now it is just a race between the boomers dying out and the collapse.

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