Financial education

Why investing is so important?

A short introduction to investing.

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Let’s analyze the main reasons you should consider investing right now, whether you’re young or old, rich or have limited resources, investing in your future is always a good idea.

Wealth building

One of the main reasons and the most logical one to consider when you want to start investing is how to maximise your profits and guarantee yourself many years of smooth sailing. Investing means that you’ll be able to enjoy the option of seeing your wealth grow over time. If you decide to start investing, you can do so by putting your money into assets like stocks, bonds, real estate, crypto, or mutual funds. Choosing to invest your money will give you the opportunity to potentially generate returns over time, which can compound over time. If you make the right choices you might triple your initial investment in a limited amount of time.

Beat inflation

High inflation has been plaguing the Western markets and won’t get better any time soon. It slowly yet surely erodes the purchasing power of your money over time. Investing in assets can help you put a limit on how much money you’ll lose to inflation. Safe assets that historically outpace inflation can help you preserve and increase your purchasing power and can save you thousands of euros a year.

Financial goals

Investing is also a way of learning and building lifelong knowledge. It will allow you to work towards specific financial and personal goals, such as retirement, buying a house, travel, leisure or funding your or your children’s education. If you stay long enough in the world of finance you’ll learn and grow how to build the perfect portfolio that aligns with your objectives and your time horizon and timeline.

Diversification

If you start investing as early as possible you can work on your assets and learn how to spread the risk as much as possible. There are many different classes of assets and they all perform in different ways under different market conditions. Diversifying your assets as much as possible will help you mitigate your losses in one area with the gains you might achieve in another. What are the most common types of asset classes?

Cash
Cash in hands and other equivalents are a type of investment that is considered low risk as there is little to no chance of losing your money. The returns will be way lower than for other asset classes, but this might work for you if you’re looking for a type of investment that will give you some peace of mind.

Fixed income

It’s a type of investment that pays a fixed income. You pay someone a fixed amount of money as a loan, and in return, they’ll pay you a fixed amount until the maturity date. These types of products are most commonly government and corporate bonds. The government will pay you an interest for the life of the loan, with rates varying depending on inflation. It’s a very safe and old-school way of investing, the chances of a state failing and defaulting is very unlikely, so don’t expect huge interest.

Equities

Equities usually refer to owning, buying, or selling, shares in a company. If companies want to expand and meet their objectives, they’ll sooner or later have to resort to selling parts, or slices, of the ownership of their company in exchange for cash to the general public and individual investors. If a company is successful buying these shares will be a great way to profit from the success of an enterprise.

Commodities

Commodities are basic goods that can be used and transformed into goods and services. For example metals, energy sources, and other goods. The return you can expect is based on supply and demand rather than their profitability per se. If you don’t want to deal with the expenses of buying and stocking whatever material you can, you can also try to invest and buy shares in companies that produce these goods themselves.

Passive income

There are some investments called “passive income”, that like dividend-paying stocks and bonds, will provide you with a steady stream of income through the year and over time. If you play your cards right these options will provide you with enough security and flexibility to dedicate your time to other businesses and hobbies.

Retirement planning

If you’re working towards early retirement then investing is essential for building your future. Starting early and investing slowly yet consistently while contributing to your retirement account or pension plan will allow you to make the power of compound interest work for you, securing your financial future.

Taking advantage of compounding

The power of compounding and compound interest will allow you to grow your interests exponentially over time. If you decide to reinvest slowly and steadily you’ll be able to let your money grow and generate additional returns, accelerating the growth of your portfolio.

Financial security

When you decide to start investing you start giving yourself a safety net that will be useful for unexpected expenses or other emergencies. Building a diversified and well-thought-out portfolio will offer you stability and can help you build the resilience you’ll need to make it through financial shocks.

Laura Ghiretti
June 2024