I dumped my US stocks, and it has already paid off
While everyone in Europe is moving their digital life away from the US, I am equally concerned about my money.
⚠️ DISCLAIMER: Nothing here is financial advice. Don’t invest all your money into individual stocks. Don’t invest money you need in the short term. Don’t invest if you are in debt and it would make more sense to pay of that debt instead (e.g. if you are paying more than 10% yearly interest)
The American market was always crazier and more lucrative when it came to investments. Equally my knowledge is and was always deepest in technological topics.
Thus my investment portfolio was always heavily skewed towards US Big Tech.
But things are changing…
Why am I moving?
There are a few reasons for my move:
Moral choice
De-risking
New arising opportunities
Lately, after some of the US actions, internally and externally, I am not sure they can get away with their “hyper-growth” forever. The erratic moves of the current government are a risk to the world order, free trade, and other partnerships.
The US is just not a reliable partner anymore. This means in turn the businesses in the US will suffer.
People and companies in the EU started cutting their ties and reducing their reliance on US Tech. At the same time, European governments and the EU have realized that we need to invest into our own technological infrastructure and defense. (Can you see the opportunity here?)
From a moral standpoint, I don’t want to have my money with companies that supported the current people in power.
And also I am tired of the enshitification that continues to happen on every US platform of a certain size. Although it also happens to non-US companies (see Spotify etc).
My Previous US Investments
Here are the individual US stocks I was holding and why:
AI and Tech
📈 NVIDIA—The biggest beneficiary (and benefactor) of AI growth. Creates the graphics cards that most people work with. (Also benefits whenever crypto is making a resurgence)
💽 Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)—Similar to Nvidia. Doesn’t have the same crazy growth, but potential whenever new big AI deals were made.
🟦 META (Facebook)—Holds all our personal data, communication, and attention hostage. Somehow makes money. Ads yay. VR, AR, XR—I like. Also Mark seems like a great dude. I mean his story arc, from unrelatable alien to cool Jiu-Jitsu bro. We all love that revenge of the nerds thing comeback story, no?
🔍 Alphabet—Same, but also has our deepest insecurities and medical concerns in their database, as well as all our emails. Great treasure trove to drive ads based on our fears! Also great AI capabilities!
🛍️ AMAZON—Know exactly what we want to order next. Most importantly, all our tech infrastructure runs there. Also some AI capabilities.
🖥️ MICROSOFT—The Gates to my Bills. I guess, also for some AI capabilities, through partnership with OpenAI. They also have all of our code in Github. And I’m a PC guy 😂 I say as I’m writing this from my Mac.
Downstream Effects of AI
Kulicke & Sofa—They build things, that go into graphics cards. High demand. High growth from downstream effects of the AI boom. Someone has to supply Nvidia, and AMD, and TSMC…
CAMTEC Ltd—Same as above. They do something that is needed for graphics cards. Or semiconductors in general.
⚡ GE Vernova—ENERGY!!! We need lots of it. Thanks to AI. They make things to make energy. And they do it successfully. They had enormous growth in 2025.
Other Bets
💊 KEROS Therapeutics—Risky bet. They research new treatments for disorders linked to… things I don’t really understand. Good year in 2025!
Where to move them?
It’s not easy to find substitutes for all of these technologies. The US is market leading in “Tech” overall.
But the battle for Europe’s digital independence has begun. Many European countries agree and changed their digital strategies already in 2025 and started to invest in independent national or EU solutions.
But I am also not rushing my money into anything. I do believe European tech will grow as a result, and much faster than it did before.
Here are my current bets and investments (the ones that have 🆕 emoji are investments I made after the shift, and ⬆️ is where I increased my investment):
EU Tech Stocks
⬆️ 🇩🇪 🚀 OHB SE—German space & technology company (building satellites, space systems, aerospace components) > just got heavy investment and contract with the German military to build a European Starlink (catapulted the stock to over 300% growth since October 2025).
🇨🇭/🇸🇪 ⚡ABB Ltd—Industrial tech giant. They do lots of things. Including building things to build factories. Many factories are being build, and many more need to be build.
🆕 🇳🇱 ASML Holding—Is a world-wide leader in building stuff for computer chips. Intel, TSMC, Samsung all rely on them. Heavily benefiting from AI. Super high growth over last year.
🇳🇱 BE Semiconductors—Also does stuff for semiconductor (microchips) assembly. Equally benefitting from AI and graphics card orders.
Those stocks are performing quite well, and there is a lot happening across the EU, I just haven’t found good substitutes for everything yet.
Now I’m looking to invest also more into other infrastructure companies. Who will be the AWS, or the Googles, the Cloudflares, and METAs of Europe?
💬 Do you have any guess? Write a response I’d be happy to know.
Asia Tech / Semiconductors Stocks
🇹🇼 TSMC—Larges semiconductor manufacturer in the world. Pretty much everyone relies on them. (But slighly risky in region, and already very high valuation)
🆕 🇯🇵 Advantest Corp.—Global leader in semconductor test equipment.
🆕 🇯🇵 Disco Corp.—they like to party! And process wafers. No idea… something with semiconductors too. Much value, very AI.
🆕 🇯🇵 Ibiden Co. Ltd.—They package things for…Can you guess? Semiconductors
You might notice, a lot of my investment has shifted towards Semiconductors supply chain.
In general, individual stocks are always higher risk, but potentially higher reward.
To divesify, I have also moved many investments into ETFs.
ETFs / Funds
Now it is MUCH harder to find good ETFs in technology that exclude US American companies. Sometimes that’s the whole point of ETFs. It’s spreading your risk. But some industries are heavily overrepresented in the US (like the entire tech sector).
That’s why I still have ETFs that do have US companies represented in them:
🌎 iShares Core MSCI World ETF—…dang, that one is owned by BlackRock 😈 and is US managed. I need to get rid of it. World Index ETF.
♻️ Amundi MSCI New Energy ESG-Screened ETF—Renewable clean energies ETF. Managed in France.
BGF World Technology Fund—BGF stands for, BlackRock global fund. Dang, okok. Also need to replace that one. It also consists 50% of the stocks that I got rid off (Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Meta…)
Amundi Stoxx Europe 600 Technology ETF—European technolog ETF, yay. Let’s grow!
Vaneck Semiconductor ETF—The meaning is in its name. But this one is also US-managed.
Xtrackers MSCI Europe Info Tech Scrn ETF—Luxembourg managed. Only holds 8 Big Euro Tech ETFs. I probably want something more diversified in the future.
IShares Automation and Robotics ETF—I guess it’s about automation and robotics. But looking into it, I already have some of the stocks.
Wisdomtree Europe Defence ETF—I believe, Europe does need capabilities to defend itself. Because even here we cannot rely on the US anymore. I’m usually against weapons stocks, because it creates a conflict of interest. Don’t want to benefit from the instability. But if shit hits the fan…
Closing words
Now if I had more “play” money, like lets say 500.000€, I could already live handsomely of my investment shift away from the US.
My investments are much more modest unfortunately, but I have more peace of mind having them diversified a little bit and moved to tech I actually believe in, in the near term future.
I am not worried about the lack of some alternatives.
I think the Zeitgeist is shifting.
Alternatives will come.
Many Europeans realized, we need our own sovereign infrastructure here in Europe.
Thus we will have our own Amazons, AWS, Google Cloud etc. We have them already on a small scale, we just need to build up capabilities.
PS: Stock and Market Research
I will probably post an update sometime this year about what happened to those investments and talk about new opportunities I find.
My stock and market research was always sparked pretty spontaneously, by news, or by feeling the atmosphere. What’s in the air, where are people moving their attention.
I often create financial theses, but it takes a long time to validate them, to research, to connect the dots, so often it just stayed in my mind.
Now I’m working on a financial research app that will make this easier. (The graphs you saw were made with it).
It will allow to research stocks with the help of AI agents and make your own predictions and monitor your predictions before or after you buy. Connect it with relevant news and implications of those on your portfolio.
Currently it’s a private research tool. But with enough interest, I’d love to build a full product out of it.
FinLogos → https://finlogos.justgoscha.com
Did you enjoy this article?
I don’t always write about finance. I also write about art, technology and possibly its ethics.
If you’re interested. Subscribe!
PS: All emoji’s and words typed with my own fingers—no AI here. Even the em-dashes (“—”) are mine.
I use AI for coding, but for writing I prefer to keep my own mind sharp.