When we have to buy a car, we carefully inform ourselves, ask friends and acquaintances for advice; we rely on a trusted mechanic for a general check.
In short, we do everything that is necessary to choose well and avoid nasty surprises.
On the other hand, when we talk about savings and money management, we rely on the cashier’s first proposal in the Bank without asking too much and without understanding in detail which investment we are choosing.
The truth about safe investments
Let’s clarify one thing right away: there are no safe investments.
Yes, it is a truth that you will hardly have heard from consultants or financial promoters.
So what’s the point of writing an article about safe investments?
The crucial factor that makes an investment suitable or not is the time horizon.
Miracles do not exist, at least in the financial and insurance fields.
Therefore, since return and risk go together (there is no return without risk), at a time when the interest rates of traditional investments (government bonds and postal bills to be clear) are close to zero, the best way to invest your own money is dealing with the time you have available to achieve a certain goal.
The longer the time, the greater the chances of obtaining excellent results without surprises.
The soundness of the bank or insurance company that proposes the investment must then be verified.
Finally, always keep an eye on the performance of your investments, diversifying the investment and savings solutions that make up your portfolio.
Here are the golden rules for investing without the risk
- Know the types of investments: shares are riskier than bonds, as they are financial instruments that we participate in the share capital of a company. Bonds are instruments with which whoever subscribes them becomes the creditor of whoever issues them, state, company, or bank, for a period of time defined in a contract. Mutual funds, on the other hand, collect the savings of multiple investors to use them in multiple financial instruments.
- Knowing how to establish the value of security: its price with respect to inflation, its trend, and its ability to be easily traded on the market must be taken into consideration.
- Decide the investment horizon: if the investment has a short time dimension, it is better to make low-risk investments because you will have less time to recover losses with other investments. If the times are longer, part of our money can be invested with a higher degree of risk.
- Check your investments: constantly inquire about the performance of our investments, also compare with operators other than your trusted Bank, and do not delay in case of need for intervention.
- Check the soundness of the issuer: it is not certain that an investment solution proposed by a historical company, or in any case known, is necessarily safe. Getting advice from multiple sources is imperative for the saver and the investor, who must always compare the different information.
- Receive the necessary information from the Bank: for each type of investment, the Bank must communicate in a simple and transparent manner the type of instrument, the entity that issued it, the listing and trading market, if there are potential conflicts of interest and what is the risk class of the financial instrument.
- Evaluating risks and rewards: is the game worth the candle? The higher the risk, the higher the possible gain, which does not mean certain or probable. There is no such thing as big, zero-risk gains.
- Splitting and diversifying investments: it is good practice because the more the types of investments are diversified, between more and less risky securities, the lower the risk of capital loss.
Conclusion
There are no safe investments regardless, but choices appropriate to the time profile available.
The longer the time to invest, the better the final result will be.
Have you made an investment and want some advice?
Mack Allen