Latest / The Curve / Cash, bonds, property, stocks: ranked by risk
Transcript
- 0:00Hi, I'm Sophie.
- 0:01I'm one of the founders of The Curve, and I went from being in 50K of debt, not understanding investing, knowing how to budget, save.
- 0:10I was a total financial disaster.
- 0:12Now I have two investment properties, over 100K in the stock market, and I'm in no debt.
- 0:17But I did not always used to be this group of money and investing.
- 0:21And it all started from the very beginning of this podcast.
- 0:24We're currently on a podcast break.
- 0:26So we're having two weeks off new episodes.
- 0:29And we wanted to do some throwbacks to the vintage OG episodes that were released originally five years ago when I knew nothing about investing.
- 0:38If you don't need to go back to these throwback episodes, enjoy two weeks without us in your ears.
- 0:43But if you know anyone who's felt left out of the conversation when it comes to money, investing, or just really don't know where to start, please send them this podcast.
- 0:52We will be back for regular programming at the start of October.
- 0:57Okay, this is the third episode that we ever released for the Curve podcast.
- 1:01It was all about the different asset classes.
- 1:05It's really, it's so funny to reflect on this because I remember when Vic would talk about asset classes and she would say, Yeah.
- 1:14there's different types of assets.
- 1:16And all of these words were so foreign to me when we first started the podcast.
- 1:22And I remember thinking, can you please just use different language?
- 1:25And so these early episodes, I definitely ask a lot of questions.
- 1:31So if you're new here or you're new to investing, hopefully it'll be really helpful to hear me ask a million questions, just so that it feels super easy and these concepts land.
- 1:41But
- 1:41In this episode, we're talking about the four main asset classes.
- 1:45So that is cash, so just having money in the bank or in your wallet.
- 1:49Bonds, which is essentially like an IOU.
- 1:52We will explain that in this episode.
- 1:54Property, which is obviously an amazing asset class because you can borrow money and kind of amplify returns via leverage.
- 2:01can also be quite dangerous if you are amplifying losses should the property market go backwards.
- 2:07Then you have stocks, which is obviously the main focus of this beginner series.
- 2:11So stocks being buying a little piece of companies that are public.
- 2:16So the idea of this episode is to explain the different types or the different places that you can put money where you can get a return.
- 2:27A lot of us grew up thinking money in the bank is safe and clever and I can see it and I can use it if I need it.
- 2:34The problem with that is that the money is not really growing.
- 2:38And if you're in an environment where inflation is running quite high, which in the past five years you've probably heard inflation thrown around a lot,
- 2:45It means that you're kind of going backwards.
- 2:47So if your money is not creating a return that keeps up at least at the rate of inflation, so say inflation is at 3%, that means that say you have $5 and you can buy a coffee with it.
- 3:00I actually don't even think you can buy a coffee for $5 anymore.
- 3:04In the UK, it's like 450 pounds.
- 3:06So anyway, the point is, what you can buy with that amount of money will change because the next year,
- 3:14it will be 3% more expensive because of inflation.
- 3:18So your money just doesn't go as far, you don't have the same like purchasing power.
- 3:22And so the idea with keeping your money in the bank when inflation is high, just means that you're kind of losing money.
- 3:30The concept is just inflation is like eating away at the value of your money.
- 3:34Deciding where you put your money or where you invest in the different asset classes means a different return because some of those are safer options than others.
- 3:43And that's really what we dive into in this episode.
- 3:46So this will be a great episode just to lay the foundations of what are the different places that you can put your money where you can generate different types of returns.
- 3:55Again, if you are new here, welcome.
- 3:58I hope that these episodes are really helpful and give you the confidence to know that investing is so easy.
- 4:04Anyone can learn the stuff you just haven't been taught.
- 4:07So enjoy this episode.
- 4:08If you aren't new here and you already understand these basics, please send them to someone that is new to investing, that needs to learn, has perhaps put it off because they feel intimidated by these conversations.
- 4:19Okay, enough chat from me.
- 4:21Let's get into the episode.
- 4:28So today we're going to talk about the different asset classes.
- 4:31I love that I'm introducing it like I'm going to be telling everyone.
- 4:37I've got a vague idea.
- 4:38I know that there's four.
- 4:40Yeah.
- 4:41And I feel like I know one is cash and one is stocks, but I don't.
- 4:46Do you want it?
- 4:46You can leave this episode.
- 4:47So today we're going to be talking about it.
- 4:50But yeah, if we can kind of start from the beginning and have that broken down, that would be awesome.
- 4:54There's kind of four main asset classes.
- 4:57We've kind of touched on a few.
- 4:59So there's stocks, which is like shares, equities.
- 5:01It's all the same thing.
- 5:03And that's basically owning a part of a company, right?
- 5:05Yes.
- 5:05Yeah.
- 5:06So we'll get into that in a bit.
- 5:07There's stocks, bonds, cash, and property.
- 5:11Those would be kind of the four different ones.
- 5:14And when we talk about different asset classes...
- 5:17They're different because they move in different ways.
- 5:20They have different drivers.
- 5:21They have different return and risk profiles.
- 5:23So you lump them into four different buckets.
- 5:25And so does that mean that some of them are less volatile and some are more volatile?
- 5:29Yes.
- 5:30Yeah.
- 5:30So what can we go in order then of the least volatile to the most?
- 5:34Yes.
- 5:34Okay.
- 5:35So the least is cash and it's probably the easiest because everyone kind of knows what cash is.
- 5:39Cold, hard cash, the lowest risk, also the lowest return.
- 5:43When we talk about cash, we kind of talk about term deposits as well, because effectively, that's just cash in the bank.
- 5:48So investing in cash is good for people with a very low risk appetite.
- 5:52So like granny, like we mentioned before.
- 5:54Yeah.
- 5:54And it's just, it's considered the safest investment, really.
- 5:57The risk is low, but the return's low.
- 5:58And that's why you're only getting 1% return.
- 6:01What's another example of a cash investment then?
- 6:03There's obviously term deposit.
- 6:04What else is that?
- 6:06Or is it just term deposit?
- 6:07No, there's term deposit.
- 6:08It's like anything, like cash investment can be cash under your bed, under your mattress.
- 6:13You know, investing, you're just putting $100 of your salary away every month under your mattress.
- 6:18Right.
- 6:19That's investing in cash.
- 6:21Holding cold hard cash.
- 6:22But I guess with the lack of cash used now, it's cash in the bank, cash in your savings account, your checking account.
- 6:31So it's essentially holding on to what you have without really growing it at all.
- 6:35Yeah.
- 6:35It's the simplest holding on to something.
- 6:36It's the simplest holding on to something.
- 6:38Yeah.
- 6:39Okay.
- 6:39And something that you can access instantly.
- 6:42True.
- 6:42Yeah.
- 6:43I mean, a term deposit, you're sometimes, actually, you are usually locked in for a period of three months, six months, 12 months.
- 6:50But with a checking account, for example, I mean, I wouldn't even say that's investing because it's not.
- 6:54You know, it's 50 cents a month or something.
- 6:56Yeah.
- 6:56It's so low.
- 6:57It's not investing.
- 6:58You're just putting your money there and that's...
- 6:59you're not making it work.
- 7:00Well, I guess if we're talking about like an asset though, like, you know, if you own a stock or you own a house or whatever, you still own that money.
- 7:07It's just not growing in terms of any kind of return, right?
- 7:11And you have earned that cash and you own that cash.
- 7:14And when you see $1,000 in your bank account, that is the value of your asset.
- 7:19Okay, this is making sense.
- 7:21So cash is the least volatile and also the least return.
- 7:25Yes.
- 7:25Yeah, correct.
- 7:26So what would be the second?
- 7:28The second one would probably be bonds.
- 7:30And when I say a bond's a bit tricky to understand, when I talk about a bond, these can also be called, the same asset class can be called fixed income or fixed income.
- 7:40or fixed interest.
- 7:42And a bond is you're effectively loaning money to a company to use, to grow, or to use however they please.
- 7:52Give me an example of that.
- 7:53So usually it is, you know, massive corporations.
- 7:57They're pretty safe.
- 7:58Would this be like Apple, for example?
- 8:00Yeah.
- 8:00Apple, like US government, the New Zealand government, Auckland Council, you know, maybe some of our utility companies in New Zealand.
- 8:07So very reputable companies.
- 8:09Reputable companies that have been around for a long time, what we kind of call blue chip companies, corporations.
- 8:14They would issue a bond.
- 8:18And with that...
- 8:21Let's say it's a million dollar bond.
- 8:23They need a million dollars from investors, really.
- 8:26So you would say, look, I'll give you a portion of that.
- 8:29And in return, because I'm lending you that money, I want to be compensated for that risk that I'm taking.
- 8:35So therefore, they will pay me a fixed amount.
- 8:38amount, which is why we come back to it being called fixed income, which may be 2%, 3%, 4%.
- 8:46It's usually pretty low, particularly in today's world.
- 8:49Not much higher than the likes of a term deposit.
- 8:51And it's for a fixed period of time.
- 8:53So you know, if I'm lending this company $1,000 and I'm going to get a 2% return, I'm going to get that 2% return either paid monthly or monthly.
- 9:04or annually, and then at the end of that loan period, You get that money back.
- 9:09the end of that period for that bond, what we call a maturity date, you get that $1,000 back.
- 9:15So the return that you've made on that $1,000 is the fixed income amount of 2%, 3%, 4% or whatever.
- 9:20Absolutely.
- 9:21And why is that?
- 9:22Because it sounds quite similar to what I thought a stock was.
- 9:25Is there no risk that that company could not give you your money back?
- 9:28There is a risk.
- 9:29I guess it's because this is kind of going into a bit of a deeper topic, but it's because it's lower risk for...
- 9:37for the likes of me and you, because if a business is going to go under, it's going to pay its debt holders, which is its bond holders, the likes of you and me first before it pays its equity holders.
- 9:49Okay.
- 9:49So you get priority if the business is going to fail.
- 9:52You get paid first before the equity or the stockholders.
- 9:56So it's kind of, it's, yeah, it's just a different way for a company to get money to fuel growth or whatever.
- 10:03There's just lots of different ways out there, one of them being on the stock market and having investors buy shares.
- 10:09Another one is through a bond.
- 10:11And so obviously with a share, the reason that it's more volatile and therefore the return could be greater is because it's not fixed.
- 10:17It could go up, it could go down.
- 10:19And usually they're not investing in high-risk things.
- 10:22So for example, with the Auckland Council, like if you're lending their money, they're not making huge risky investments with that money.
- 10:29And so therefore...
- 10:32The bond that you're buying or the fixed income investment that you're making is low risk.
- 10:37Low risk.
- 10:38Yeah.
- 10:38Okay.
- 10:38All right, cool.
- 10:39So cash, bond, is stock next or is property?
- 10:42I would say property would be next.
- 10:44With us living in New Zealand, property is pretty well understood in terms of investment.
- 10:48It's talked about all the time.
- 10:50We have this weird fascination with everyone having to own their own home.
- 10:54Right.
- 10:55It's like, oh, I'm engaged now.
- 10:56It's time to buy my house.
- 10:57It's so right of passage.
- 10:59Why don't they own a property?
- 11:00Why don't they own a house?
- 11:01It's a much more conversational topic.
- 11:04So I feel like people kind of understand it more, but it's still good to kind of put it in perspective of cash, bonds, stock, property.
- 11:10It's definitely more risky than a bond in cash.
- 11:12Oh, interesting.
- 11:13Yeah.
- 11:13So we're going from the bottom up.
- 11:15I totally would have thought that property was pretty safe because things are...
- 11:19It's hard because I feel like we've got this warped perception that property is safe because of New Zealand.
- 11:24And we've been and had a fantastic property market that has only gone down like twice in the last 50 years.
- 11:29So we... And that's why it's talked about so much because everyone has such a good story to tell.
- 11:35of their property portfolios.
- 11:37You know, there's kind of, it's talked about a lot, everyone gets this warped perception that property isn't a risky investment.
- 11:41But I'll run through some of the benefits and some of the downfalls.
- 11:45Running through the benefits is that you get a capital gain, which effectively is just a change in the price from when you buy it to when you sell it.
- 11:52So you buy it for a million, you sell it for 1.2.
- 11:53Totally.
- 11:55And that's where we've got this understanding that property is always going to go up, particularly in my lifetime.
- 11:59It kind of has.
- 12:00Yeah.
- 12:00It feels less risky because so many people want to buy houses and it's constantly kind of pretty stable.
- 12:05And we live in a country where everyone wants to come live here.
- 12:07You know, we've got through COVID, touch wood.
- 12:09We, you know, we've got a politically safe environment and country where people want to raise their kids.
- 12:14We've got, you know, net migration.
- 12:16People want to live here.
- 12:17So there's all these drivers that are driving demand for property, which are driving up house prices.
- 12:22That capital gain, that change in...
- 12:25prices has historically, on average, always been positive.
- 12:29But that can be a capital loss, and that's when your value of your property goes down.
- 12:34The benefits is that the return consists of two things.
- 12:37It consists of your capital gain, but also your rental income.
- 12:41So if you get tenants in there and they pay you rental income, that's also a return on your investment.
- 12:48So you've got that kind of double whammy.
- 12:50Yeah, of course, because if you're getting people that are paying more,
- 12:53than what you would pay for your mortgage, then you're getting money on top of that as well.
- 12:56Totally.
- 12:57And that should be calculated in your return when you're kind of considering buying property.
- 13:00Another benefit is leverage.
- 13:02So leverage is effectively just debt or a mortgage.
- 13:05Bear with me.
- 13:05I'll just give an example.
- 13:07So say, for argument's sake, you could buy a house for $1,000.
- 13:10You had that full $1,000.
- 13:12I wish that was the case.
- 13:13Awkward house prices, million dollars.
- 13:15You could buy a tent for $1,000.
- 13:18So say you wanted to buy a house for $1,000.
- 13:22You had $1,000 that you could just pay for outright.
- 13:25You didn't have to get leverage or a mortgage or debt, whatever you want to call it.
- 13:29Fast forward 12 months, that house is worth $1,200.
- 13:33It's gone up 20%.
- 13:33You've made 20%.
- 13:38What's that back?
- 13:39Which is $200.
- 13:40Okay, got you.
- 13:41Now let's do a scenario where you've used leverage.
- 13:44You want to buy the same house for $1,000, but you only have $200 of savings.
- 13:50So you need to go to the bank and borrow that $800.
- 13:54So you're leveraging that purchase.
- 13:56You're getting debt to fund that purchase.
- 13:58You're borrowing $800.
- 14:00Fast forward 12 months, that house has gone up 20%, same as the previous scenario.
- 14:05So that house is now worth $1,200.
- 14:08But the bank still just wants its $800 back.
- 14:11It doesn't really care about the return that you've made.
- 14:13It's a fixed amount.
- 14:14It's a fixed loan amount.
- 14:15We won't get into details of mortgage repayments and all that.
- 14:18But for argument's sake, your $200, you've actually made 50%.
- 14:21Your $200 has now gone to $400.
- 14:22Why?
- 14:22Because the difference, if you go $1,200 minus $800, is $400.
- 14:32because it's almost over-indexed the amount that you have generated in terms of return, because the bank doesn't want any of that 20% of the total house price.
- 14:41You've effectively been able to pocket all that gain.
- 14:45You've been able to pocket that whole $200 gain by only putting down $200.
- 14:49Whereas in the previous example, you put down $1,000, you still pocketed that whole gain of $200.
- 14:55But it was on $1,000.
- 14:57So the percentage-wise, it's a lot smaller.
- 14:59One of the benefits is the leverage.
- 15:01That just means that it exacerbates your return that you can get.
- 15:04It makes your return you can get a lot greater.
- 15:07But also, one of the pitfalls or the downfalls is that that can work in reverse.
- 15:12If the market falls, you cop the whole loss.
- 15:15Yeah.
- 15:16The bank that gave you the leverage or that gave you the mortgage, they still want their money back.
- 15:21So it works on the upside and also on the downside.
- 15:24Just one more thing.
- 15:25The benefit of property is that people just love being able to see what they own and the tangibility of that asset and being able to live in their house and touch the walls.
- 15:34Exactly.
- 15:34Sit on the ground, sit on the chairs and table.
- 15:36Whereas when you buy a stock or a bond or...
- 15:40Or even cash in the bank.
- 15:41It's like it's not actually a tangible thing and it's just a number on a screen or whatever.
- 15:46And it's kind of this – It's quite elusive.
- 15:49Yeah, it's very elusive.
- 15:51So, yeah, people just like having that tangibility.
- 15:54The flip side and one of the downfalls also of property is liquidity.
- 15:58So that just means being able to get in and out –
- 16:00Yeah, with a stock, you can sell it instantly.
- 16:03It's priced daily.
- 16:04Whereas if you needed the money from your property and you needed to sell it really quickly, on average, it takes like 90 days, you know, three months to get that money.
- 16:12And that's if the sale goes well, right?
- 16:13Totally.
- 16:14So just having your money tied up in property can be also quite risky.
- 16:18But in terms of the risk return spectrum that we're kind of talking about with these asset classes, you've got cash on the left, then you've got bonds, then you've got property, and then you've got shares on the right-hand side.
- 16:30I mean, we could talk for hours on this part.
- 16:32The most risky, but the highest return out of these four different asset classes would be stocks.
- 16:38And when I say stocks, I mean shares, stocks, equities, whatever you want to call it.
- 16:42People talk about all these different terms, but they just mean the same thing.
- 16:46So a stock, a share, an equity...
- 16:48Owning a tiny part of a company, right?
- 16:50It's all the same thing.
- 16:51It's a different name.
- 16:52And it effectively means you're a tiny shareholder in a company.
- 16:57So you share in the growth of those profits.
- 17:00You're part owner of a company, which may seem weird.
- 17:05You're like, I'm buying shares in Apple.
- 17:06But does that make me, do I own Apple?
- 17:08Well, you do.
- 17:09Like you are part, you and a billion other people, but you own a part share of Apple.
- 17:15Yeah.
- 17:16And so you want to make sure that when you're investing in shares, you're investing in a company that's going to grow.
- 17:21Something you believe in, whether it's...
- 17:23Totally.
- 17:24Yeah.
- 17:24Something that you can see those profits are going to grow because that's what you're going to be...
- 17:28Sharing in the success of.
- 17:29Exactly.
- 17:30Yeah.
- 17:31I love the way you explained that, that you're sharing in the profits of something.
- 17:35It kind of makes sense why you own it and therefore you're sharing in the money that they also make.
- 17:39Yeah.
- 17:40And something maybe a bit closer to home.
- 17:41It's like if you invested in your friend's fashion label, you were investing in them because you could see the success it's going to have.
- 17:50You believe in that success and the profits that are going to come from that.
- 17:53And you want to be a part of that story.
- 17:54And that's
- 17:55effectively what everyone's doing every day in the stock market.
- 17:59They're investing in companies they believe will grow and that they can share in those profits.
- 18:03You can also start investing with nothing.
- 18:04Like you don't need... You could do $5 towards something, right?
- 18:07Totally.
- 18:08Whereas investing in property, you need like $200,000.
- 18:10Which is crazy.
- 18:12That's like pretty unobtainable for a lot of people.
- 18:14So the fact that you can invest, you can be a shareholder for as little as $5, $10, $50 is pretty cool.
- 18:22And...
- 18:23But then I guess you're right in terms of the vitality that you can also lose all of that immediately.
- 18:27So that's why it's the riskiest, right?
- 18:29That's why it's the riskiest is because coming back to that liquidity argument with shares that they're priced daily, that they move up and down, sometimes a lot.
- 18:38Like if we looked at what happened at COVID when the market fell 30%, that's a huge loss for a lot of people.
- 18:44And that's...
- 18:46The risk you're kind of taking when you're investing in stocks is that you can lose kind of 100%.
- 18:51Obviously, different companies have different levels of risk.
- 18:54Like we came back to the biotech example and the supermarket example.
- 18:58But at the end of the day, yeah, there is a lot of volatility and a lot of risk and a lot of uncertainty when it comes to investing in stocks.
- 19:05But you, on average...
- 19:07But we're the surgeon, right?
- 19:08You're the surgeon in that scenario.
- 19:09On average, you're compensated...
- 19:11for that return in the long run.
- 19:13And that return comes in the form of similar property.
- 19:16You get the change of the price, which is the growth.
- 19:20So, i.e.
- 19:20you bought a stock for a dollar and then by the time you sell it, it's a dollar 20 or something.
- 19:24Exactly.
- 19:24Yeah.
- 19:25But with a lot of companies, you can also get a dividend, which is like, which is kind of like rental income.
- 19:30I didn't even realize that.
- 19:31Yeah.
- 19:31So, they can pay you on top of that price difference.
- 19:34So,
- 19:35Yeah, so you can get dividends and you can get the price gain.
- 19:39So income and growth is kind of what we call it.
- 19:42We'll go into more detail with this in another podcast, right?
- 19:45Yeah, exactly.
- 19:45Because my brain's starting to hurt.
- 19:47Yeah, so you've got cash, then bonds, then property, then stocks.
- 19:52Okay, so those are asset classes.
- 19:54And the reason that they're in different buckets or sections is because some are less risky and then some are more risky.
- 19:59And they're kind of clumped together, right?
- 20:01And the supply and demand drivers that move each of those asset classes is different.
- 20:06We're going to come into another discussion on diversification.
- 20:09But that's why you should, if you can, invest in different asset classes to spread your risk even further.
- 20:15In terms of what we're going to go into next episode, are we basically going to focus quite a lot on diversification?
- 20:21Yeah.
- 20:21So we're going to talk about why investing for the long term is so important and also diversification.
- 20:27Kind of one of my favorite topics of finance.
- 20:30You talk about this a lot.
- 20:31Yeah.
- 20:31Yeah.
- 20:32It's just so important and it's a natural flow on business.
- 20:35after talking about the different asset classes.
- 20:37I guess when you understand the different asset classes, it makes sense to then think about different places to put your money rather than the one thing that makes sense to you.
- 20:46Exactly, and why we should be investing in the different asset classes.
- 20:49It's kind of about why we shouldn't have all our eggs in one basket.
- 20:54If you drop all the eggs, you've got nothing for breakfast.
- 20:56Exactly, you'll go hungry.
- 20:58Thank you so much for listening to Raising the Curve.
- 21:01These conversations are designed to teach you everything you need to know to be better with your money, from saving to investing to talking with your friends about your salaries, all of that stuff.
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- 21:22Bye.
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