Latest / The Curve / High Risk vs Low Risk Investments Explained
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.
- 0:57Hello and welcome to another vintage episode.
- 1:01This is the fourth Raising the Curve episode that we ever released.
- 1:05And this episode is talking about the fundamentals of risk, which you might be thinking, how boring can we not?
- 1:14But risk is just one of those words that you need to kind of understand but give a new meaning to.
- 1:19Okay.
- 1:20I don't know why I hate the word risk, but I've always hated it the entire time we've had this podcast.
- 1:27And I think it's because it's the very –
- 1:30word that sounds scary and misleading.
- 1:33Because I bet if I'd said to anyone that now understands investing before they understood it, how risky do you want to be with your money?
- 1:42Everyone would say not risky.
- 1:43I don't want to be risky.
- 1:44Are you joking?
- 1:45I don't want to lose money.
- 1:47But you kind of have to take on a bit of risk.
- 1:52to hopefully get the upside, which is getting more money.
- 1:57That is like the essential principle when it comes to risk.
- 2:00You can leave your money in very safe places.
- 2:02You could pull out every single dollar, pound, everything you have to your name.
- 2:07You could hold it in a wallet and hide it under your bed.
- 2:09You could argue that's the safest thing that you could do with your money because it can't go anywhere.
- 2:14But I would actually argue that is the least safe thing that you could do with your money.
- 2:17And that's only because now I understand risk.
- 2:19I understand that it's actually
- 2:21So much riskier to not put your money in places that it can grow.
- 2:26I think until I saw brilliant returns because I was quote unquote risky with my money, I then started to feel so much more comfortable with what the idea of risk was.
- 2:38So.
- 2:40When I finally got used to the idea of investing and I took the plunge, I'm quite a risky person generally.
- 2:45I mean, I would never jump off and do a bungee jump or probably ever jump out of a plane.
- 2:50But in terms of decisions I make with my career, with my personal life, with my money, I'm probably more risky than most people.
- 2:59But I think ultimately what everyone needs to understand, especially if you're new to
- 3:05Risk is not scary.
- 3:06You can't multiply your money.
- 3:08You can't generate revenue.
- 3:09You can't grow what you already have if you don't take on a little bit of risk.
- 3:14So if you are storing all of your money away under the bed, in the mattress, in your wallet, somewhere where you can't lose any, you actually could lose it through inflation.
- 3:24And I know we've mentioned that before.
- 3:25I think in last week's episode, we briefly touched on inflation and what
- 3:30what it means and why it's actually quite risky to not invest your money.
- 3:35Because it basically means that as the cost of living gets more and more expensive and inflation gets more and more expensive, by not investing your money and not keeping up with inflation, that's, I think, so much riskier.
- 3:49Yes, there's different levels of risk, and depending on how old you are and what types of things you want to invest in, it will change where you feel comfortable taking on more risk.
- 3:59For me, I'm 35, I was 30 when we first recorded this episode.
- 4:04I wish I could go back to my younger self and say, be risky immediately, because I'm
- 4:09Go and just like, don't freak out about this word risk.
- 4:13Don't freak out about the words volatility.
- 4:15Understand the idea that risk is reward.
- 4:18And that just basically means, yeah, maybe you're being kind of a little bit risky in finance terms.
- 4:25Yeah.
- 4:26But you're not really.
- 4:26And there's so many ways that you can be clever and take on risk to hopefully get more money back in the long term.
- 4:34But you can also like mitigate the risk so that you're being really clever and not just throwing caution to the wind.
- 4:40So we've done some like worked examples with numbers so that you can see how much of a return you could generate based on different asset classes that you invest in.
- 4:49We debunk the idea of gambling instantly.
- 4:52And is investing gambling.
- 4:54It's so funny when we first started the podcast.
- 4:57Vic would get, actually to be honest now, she still gets a bit worked up when people try and compare investing to gambling.
- 5:03Because it's just not gambling.
- 5:05You can be so measured and so researched and so clever in the way that you invest.
- 5:10It's just not the same as throwing $100 or £100 on black.
- 5:13It is...
- 5:16a way to invest in businesses to take part in the economy and to ensure that you are growing your money in the same way all the finance bros are.
- 5:27So we talk about a couple of examples in this episode, how the different years and time that you invest changes how you should be thinking about risk and investments.
- 5:38We talk about the risk of investing.
- 5:41checking your investments all the time.
- 5:44It's human nature when you're learning something new to want to engage in it and feel like you need to know absolutely everything.
- 5:50You want to check your investments all the time.
- 5:51I was exactly like this when I first started investing.
- 5:55I kept wanting to see what they were doing.
- 5:57But you need to start getting familiar with the idea that
- 6:01it might feel a little bit uncomfortable when you first start investing and seeing money technically on screen go down a bit.
- 6:08So say you invest in something and then you check the next day and it's gone down 5%.
- 6:14You know, it hasn't actually gone down 5% in real time.
- 6:18You only actually have like lost money when you pull the money out of an investment.
- 6:24And when you're new to investing, the inclination is to lean in and want to check all your investments.
- 6:29But actually,
- 6:31just like not ideal for the mental health to be seeing things go up and down.
- 6:34Because I know for me that really sent me in a spiral in my early days of investing.
- 6:39So this episode really is just another reminder of how risk and the stock market works and how you can generate amazing returns for yourself
- 6:50while also looking after your mental health and not checking your investments every five seconds.
- 6:54There is a lot more emotion in investing than you may realize.
- 6:58So as you go through these vintage episodes, I'm sure you'll be reminded of that.
- 7:01Or if you're new here, you'll start to see how intertwined your brain and your mind and your emotions are with investing and money.
- 7:08And then hopefully you can start separating the two.
- 7:10But I'm going to stop yabbering.
- 7:12Sorry, the point of these intros was to not speak too much and get to the episode.
- 7:16But I'm getting very excited.
- 7:17So...
- 7:18I'm going to shut up, enjoy the episode, send it to someone that's new to investing or needs to get into it.
- 7:24We want as many women investing and understanding how to grow their wealth as possible.
- 7:29So, okay, enough from me.
- 7:31Enjoy the episode.
- 7:36Welcome back.
- 7:37How exciting.
- 7:37Yeah.
- 7:38Hi, everyone.
- 7:39Everyone, I hope there's people listening.
- 7:41I know.
- 7:42Hi, one person that's here listening.
- 7:44So optimistic.
- 7:44Yeah.
- 7:46No, but I must say it does make me feel kind of good to think about there being lots of other people in the classroom learning with me.
- 7:52Yeah.
- 7:53Today we – I love that I'm trying to lead this.
- 7:56What are we talking about today?
- 7:58The last episode we talked about kind of risk and return and compound interest.
- 8:02But I think those are really fundamental, important things when it comes to investing in finance.
- 8:06I think we should maybe dig a bit deeper into those and, yeah, kind of talk about what is risk.
- 8:13We talk about, oh, risk and return.
- 8:15And what's your risk appetite?
- 8:16And it's like, but what is risk?
- 8:19Can I put a figure on it?
- 8:20Can I quantify it?
- 8:22Is there too much risk?
- 8:23Is there too little risk?
- 8:24And I think the most difficult thing is that it's so subjective and it's so dependent on your situation that there isn't a quantifiable figure for risk.
- 8:35It's not 10 or 20 or 1% or 2%.
- 8:38You know, it's very much...
- 8:40It's fluid, isn't it?
- 8:41Yeah, and it's a combination of a number of things.
- 8:44It would be so awesome if you could do everything you can to minimise the risk to the point where there isn't any, but that's just not the reality of investing, is it?
- 8:53No, and I guess that what everyone's looking for is the investment that is low risk and high return.
- 8:59That's what everyone wants.
- 9:00And in reality, you want to be compensated for the risk that you're taking, and that compensation comes as the return of the investment.
- 9:08Right.
- 9:08So if you're taking a low-risk approach to investing, say you're investing in term deposits.
- 9:15Cash, which is our cash asset class.
- 9:17Exactly.
- 9:17You're only getting kind of 1%, 2% because you're not taking the risk.
- 9:20It's kind of like, why should we reward you if you're not going to take the risk?
- 9:24It's kind of like...
- 9:26Your view of risk might be like, oh, I'm going to cross that bridge because I'm so scared of heights.
- 9:30Whereas for me, I might be like, I do that every day.
- 9:32That's not risky for me.
- 9:34So it's kind of...
- 9:35I want to jump today.
- 9:35Like a bungee jump.
- 9:36You might love bungee jumping and that's not risky for you.
- 9:40You get the thrill out of it.
- 9:41Whereas for me, like, oh my gosh, I hate bungee jumping.
- 9:43The thought of even standing on the bridge.
- 9:44You know, that kind of...
- 9:46The definition of risk is different for both of us.
- 9:48Right.
- 9:49So it's finding and understanding where is your safe zone, what you can afford, how much risk you're willing to take, and that that's going to be different for everyone.
- 9:58Exactly.
- 9:58Exactly.
- 9:59And when we talk about risk with investments, it's...
- 10:03It's the volatility.
- 10:04It's the movement up and down of the sheer price.
- 10:06It's the, or the asset class, if you're investing in property, it's the move up and down of house prices.
- 10:12It's the uncertainty.
- 10:14It's sitting there going, okay, I'm investing in this investment and I think it's going to generate...
- 10:2210% return in 12 months, and it doesn't.
- 10:26At the end of 12 months, it's down 10%, for example.
- 10:30Can you stomach that?
- 10:32It's the unexpected return, I guess, is what risk is.
- 10:36And risk can be positive.
- 10:37You can, by the end of 12 months, that investment could be up 20%.
- 10:41So it's risk.
- 10:42It's kind of either side of what you expect.
- 10:45So do you think then a good way to figure out what your risk appetite is would be to think about what's the worst case scenario and would you be okay with that?
- 10:54Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it.
- 10:56But it's hard though because you say it could be 10% up or 10% down, but the reality is it could be 100% down, right?
- 11:02Exactly.
- 11:02And that's the risk associated with investing in shares and
- 11:07Yeah, it's kind of the risk you take for the return.
- 11:10I mean, you could sit on cash and get 1% in the bank and be quite happy with that.
- 11:16It's kind of like with an entrepreneur.
- 11:18They take a lot of risk.
- 11:20They put themselves on the line when they start businesses.
- 11:22Yeah.
- 11:23And I can't remember the stats off the top of my head, but it's like 25% of startups actually survive.
- 11:29And it's kind of... Is that how small it is?
- 11:32You see these people time and time again, they'll start a business, doesn't succeed.
- 11:35Start a business, doesn't succeed.
- 11:36And then it's like the fourth or fifth one that does well and the payoff is like...
- 11:40at times can be significant.
- 11:42They take risk after risk after risk.
- 11:45And, you know, they might be living kind of the bones of their ass for a good couple of years just to get that one idea.
- 11:53Those people are very high risk.
- 11:54And then there's other people that are like, hey, I'm very comfortable in my job, getting my salary.
- 11:58Getting that every month and just living paycheck to paycheck.
- 12:02Being a bit more comfortable in my lifestyle.
- 12:04Some people like the thrill and want to take a bit more risk, even though the payoff might be negative 10, negative 20, negative 30.
- 12:11It also could be plus 10, plus 20, plus 10.
- 12:14It could be quite significant.
- 12:16It's frustrating when people say that investing is like gambling because I don't think it is.
- 12:20You're researching.
- 12:21It's an educated decision.
- 12:22It is.
- 12:23And you're looking at the current situation, the current environment and...
- 12:28Yeah, okay, there's a lot of investors out there that take a punt or do treat investing like gambling.
- 12:32But I think if you do your research and you find a good business and you want to invest in it, then that's not gambling.
- 12:38You're actually taking the time and energy to make a decision that you think will benefit you in the long term.
- 12:42I love the way that you explain that in terms of different people's lifestyles because it's like a continuum, isn't it?
- 12:48There's some people who will be the riskiest investors and then there's some people that will be the safest investors and it's just figuring out...
- 12:55And we do say if you've got a longer time horizon, collectively, that those people can take more risk.
- 13:01But some of those people might not want to.
- 13:03People like our age in their 30s who aren't retiring until or maybe don't need the investment for 10, 20 years, they can take more risk, but they might not want to.
- 13:13And that's fine.
- 13:14It's totally...
- 13:15up to them.
- 13:16But the age old saying is, if you're younger, you've got a longer time horizon.
- 13:21If you need your money in the next 12 months, or even two years, I would say would be considered short term, in my opinion, then maybe the share market's not for you.
- 13:31Or maybe you should look at an alternative asset class that's a bit lower risk if you need those funds within the short term.
- 13:39So I'm nearly 30, don't have any kids, house, etc.
- 13:44How would I figure out where I fit on that continuum?
- 13:47How would I know or try and figure out what level of risk I'm comfortable with?
- 13:53Yeah, it's frustrating because, like I said, there's no definitive answer and it's totally subjective.
- 13:57But I kind of come back to, I guess, three points that I would think about when it comes to risk.
- 14:04Firstly, know what you can afford to lose.
- 14:10What would happen if you lost some or all of the money that you're putting into these investments?
- 14:14Would you still be able to have the lifestyle you have?
- 14:16Would you be comfortable with that?
- 14:17And it's just finding out what you can afford to lose.
- 14:21The second one would be, what are your goals and your timings?
- 14:25Do you need this money in 12 months, in two years, or in 10, 20 years?
- 14:30What dollar amount does that look like to you?
- 14:32And be realistic here.
- 14:33Don't be like, I want a million dollars in five years' time.
- 14:36Hey, but if you do, you're going to have to take a lot of risk to do that.
- 14:39So it's kind of that time horizon and what that goal looks like for you.
- 14:45For example, say you wanted to buy a house in five years' time.
- 14:49and you needed a $100,000 deposit and you wanted to put in $50,000 now as an investment and you wanted to get that to $100,000 in five years time.
- 14:58So you want to double your money.
- 15:00Then you're kind of looking at around 15% return per annum on average over that five year period.
- 15:06So you might have years where that's up 20 and you might have years where it's down 10.
- 15:11But overall, the average of doubling your money in five years is 15% return per year.
- 15:15Is that even realistic?
- 15:16I have no idea.
- 15:17Well, that's the thing.
- 15:18In order to get that 15%, you'd need to take a bit of risk.
- 15:21And so it's just kind of understanding what your goals and your timings are.
- 15:26And then the third point I would say is what we touched on with the bungee jumping analogy is...
- 15:31You need to understand what your personal risk attitude is.
- 15:34So knowing what you can afford to lose, knowing what your goals and your timings are, and then also what your personal risk attitude is.
- 15:42So are you a risk seeker or do you not like risk at all?
- 15:46Then that's, I guess, the best way to think about your risk.
- 15:49So can we go back to that example you said of, say, a couple has $100,000 and they've got $50,000 that they're willing to invest to try and double that, as you said, in five years' time.
- 16:00Yeah.
- 16:00Is there a way that they can calculate the amount of risk they need to be taking to...
- 16:06to achieve that?
- 16:07If you're going to invest in a fund, then a lot of the fund managers out there have a risk calculator and it asks you a whole lot of questions and will lump you into a category of which fund to invest in, whether it's a high growth, aggressive fund, or if it's a cash or low risk conservative fund.
- 16:26But no returns are guaranteed either.
- 16:29So it's not like you can say,
- 16:35There's no investment that can guarantee you that.
- 16:38It's the non-guarantee that creates the risk, if that makes sense.
- 16:43If everyone knew what the market was going to do for the next five years, then all those returns would be eaten away because everyone would be investing.
- 16:49So it's difficult and it's frustrating that I can't give you the definitive answer.
- 16:54But the risk is the volatility or the uncertainty of the investment that you're making.
- 17:00That's the thing with the market.
- 17:02It's so fluid and there's always uncertainties out there.
- 17:05So you never know what you're going to get in terms of the outcome.
- 17:09Nobody knows what the market's going to do tomorrow.
- 17:11Even some people say they do, but they don't.
- 17:13So it's...
- 17:14It's risky business out there, isn't it?
- 17:16Yeah.
- 17:16And it's, I guess, another way to look at it is don't just look at return.
- 17:21Look at the risk associated with that return and...
- 17:24If someone comes up to you and they're like, oh my gosh, I just made 100% on this investment in the last two days.
- 17:30It's like, okay, well done you, but the risk associated with that is so high.
- 17:34And personally, I think that is more luck than skill.
- 17:38You've invested in something, you've had a quick win.
- 17:41That's not investing and that's not sustainable.
- 17:43Investing in a quality company like Microsoft, for example.
- 17:47I love Microsoft.
- 17:50Is that a hot tip, if you're investing in Microsoft?
- 17:52Yeah.
- 17:52No, we don't give advice on this podcast.
- 17:55Microsoft, for example, that business has generated about 35% return per year for the last five years.
- 18:02Wow.
- 18:03So that is more than doubled.
- 18:05Yeah, you've kind of got to look at what quality businesses are out there that you think can double in the next five years.
- 18:12And therefore, you'd invest in that and hopefully your $50,000 would turn into $100,000.
- 18:17But how is that risky if you can already see that that's what's happening?
- 18:20Yeah.
- 18:21Do you know what I mean?
- 18:21But you can't.
- 18:22Right.
- 18:23That's the thing.
- 18:23It's all a prediction and what you think.
- 18:26Based on what they've done, but not necessarily guaranteeing.
- 18:29Yeah.
- 18:29And I mean, we'll touch on it maybe in a few episodes time around how to find these ideas and then how to pick a winning investment to almost reduce your risk in order to invest in something that will grow over the long term.
- 18:43It's so hard because I wish I could just draw your brain and put it in mine for a moment because I think all this stuff seems so natural to you.
- 18:51If you just threw a dart at a dartboard, the likelihood of you hitting the bullseye, it depends how good you are at darts, which I'm terrible.
- 18:58So terrible.
- 19:00is pretty low.
- 19:01If you could practice and practice and practice and practice, then the likelihood you get closer to that bullseye.
- 19:09So that kind of comes back to investing in, I'm not saying investing is like throwing darts at a dartboard.
- 19:14Yeah.
- 19:15I'm saying that if you put your time and effort into something, into a skill, the more you do it and the more practice you have, you start to reduce the mistakes that you're going to make and reduce the, hopefully, the poor investment decisions.
- 19:30So you stop hitting the wall.
- 19:33Yeah, you stop hitting the wall and you get closer to the bullseye.
- 19:36And I think with investing, it's very much about doing things.
- 19:40and learning by doing which when you first start out could mean losing money but hopefully in the end you'll start to realize okay why has that investment done well and why has that one not and and you'll start to eventually kind of move up the curve in terms of investing in what works what succeeds and therefore what gets you a good return it gets you to that doubling of your money in five years
- 20:03Yeah, it's kind of frustrating because risk is never an easy thing to understand or an easy thing to define.
- 20:11But it's just really important to look at when you're looking at the return.
- 20:15Back in the global financial crisis, and we had a lot of finance companies collapsing in New Zealand.
- 20:20And I watched Wolf of Wall Street last night.
- 20:22And...
- 20:24They get these stockbrokers that are on the phone saying, back in the cowboy days, and they would be like, you're going to get this huge return on your investment.
- 20:32And it's just knowing, okay, but what risk am I taking with that?
- 20:36But when you say, what risk am I taking with that?
- 20:38Is that you saying, okay, but what's the worst case scenario?
- 20:41Yes.
- 20:42It's also knowing what questions to ask.
- 20:45I guess if you're investing in the likes of a term deposit, it's pretty much a guaranteed return.
- 20:53The banks said they're going to deliver kind of say 1.2% over that six month, 12 month period, whatever it is.
- 20:59So that's low risk because there's low uncertainty.
- 21:03There's low volatility.
- 21:04Because you're told what you're getting.
- 21:05You're told what you're going to get.
- 21:06Exactly.
- 21:07And similar to a bond.
- 21:08A little bit more risk, but it's a set period of time.
- 21:11The bond you're buying off that company has told you you're going to get 2%, 3% for a fixed period of time.
- 21:16And it's a reputable company.
- 21:18It's somewhere where it's low risk because it's already successful.
- 21:20They're not going to use that money in a crazy way.
- 21:24Exactly.
- 21:24So if you look at your time horizon, coming back to the term deposit example, you look at your time horizon, you know, okay, in 12 months' time, I'm going to get 1.2%.
- 21:33for example, at the end of that 12-month period.
- 21:36When it comes to investing in shares, though, there's more uncertainty because you don't know what that end share price is going to be.
- 21:43Because you don't know and because there's a much more uncertainty and possibly volatility in the share price, your expected return is unknown.
- 21:53You might look at previously what the share price has done, but that doesn't give you an indication of what it's going to do in the future.
- 21:58Yeah.
- 21:59You're buying that share on the premise that it might do 10%, but it might do negative 10%.
- 22:07And I think that movement away from what you expect is risk.
- 22:11So if I could draw a graph, for example, I'd have in the corner zero, and then your term deposit would be a very low but straight line over a time period.
- 22:23And so we have time on the horizontal axis and return on the horizontal.
- 22:28Vick's doing it with her hands and we're just assuming everyone knows what she's still feeling about.
- 22:31So you've got return on the vertical, time on the horizontal.
- 22:36Term deposit would be a very low but straight and steady line.
- 22:41And shares, for example, or equities, investing in the stock market, whatever you want to call it, would be kind of an up and down, up and down, up and down.
- 22:50But at the end of the same time period, you'd be at a much higher rate.
- 22:53Mm-hmm.
- 22:54But not necessarily, though, right?
- 22:55Not necessarily, but that's why we say long term.
- 22:58Because markets move up and down.
- 23:01And generally, over the long term, say, plus five years, because you're taking more risk, you will hopefully, and don't hold me to this, but hopefully, because you're taking more risk, you're going to get a higher overall return in the long run.
- 23:17Yeah.
- 23:18It's a really good way to explain it.
- 23:20Cool.
- 23:20Yeah, thank you.
- 23:21I'm finally sort of on the same page.
- 23:23If I can show you a graph, that'd be a lot easier to explain.
- 23:25So when you say in terms of a long term, I know you've just used five years as an example, but are we talking 20 years, two years?
- 23:35Like what is a long term perspective?
- 23:37In my opinion, short term is anything less than two years.
- 23:41Medium term would be two to five-ish, maybe two to ten.
- 23:45Long term would be five plus.
- 23:47I mean, even that's a bit too short, to be honest.
- 23:49Five years in the scheme of things is pretty short.
- 23:51So anything kind of beyond five years would be mid to long term investment.
- 23:57And, you know, when you talk to fund managers in the market, they always say five years is kind of an industry stock standard of an investment time horizon.
- 24:06And that's just because the market moves up and down.
- 24:08A risk is a movement away of your expectation.
- 24:11The term deposit, you know what you're expected to get.
- 24:13With a share, you don't.
- 24:15It's a movement away from your expected return.
- 24:17Yeah.
- 24:17It's also, I think, it so goes against everything that you learn when you're growing up in terms of you're stepping into the unknown.
- 24:24And that is what's scary.
- 24:25And that is what is the risk, right?
- 24:27And that's why some people just hate investing in shares.
- 24:30Too much anxiety, not having a known answer.
- 24:33Yeah, and that's fine as well.
- 24:34It also comes back to that argument of what is your level of fear or what is your fear factor and what is your kind of risk appetite.
- 24:41Where can you sit without biting all your nails off?
- 24:44Exactly.
- 24:45And being just like an anxious mess and where's like a comfortable level of risk.
- 24:49Also realising, I mean I keep coming back to COVID because it's such a relevant example, is if you'd invested, say, at the beginning of last year, beginning of 2020,
- 25:01at say $100 and then the market fell at 30%.
- 25:04And the ability to sit there and go, hey, that's fine.
- 25:08I'm taking a long-term view.
- 25:10I'm not going to freak out and take my money out because when the market falls 30% and say your investments fall on 30%, that's only on the screen.
- 25:18It's only on the paper.
- 25:19As soon as you actually cash out and sell that, that's when you have crystallized that loss and now you've only got $70.
- 25:28so it's the ability to sit there and go hey I've only just started my investing journey I said I'd give it five years and you know now the market's kind of way above levels of the beginning of last year so if you had taken out your money you'd be in much worse financial position than if you just sat there and gone hey that's fine yeah I gave myself five years it's only been 12 months and yeah hopefully another four years time your investment will be a lot higher than a hundred dollars.
- 25:57It's actually kind of cool to think about it like that because, you know, when you're in a shit time in your life or something's not going very well and everyone's like, hang in there, it's going to get better.
- 26:06You know, whether it's a breakup or it's your job or anything, there's that fear of the uncomfortable stage of anything, right?
- 26:15And also then not knowing how things are going to work out.
- 26:17But it comes back to that patience.
- 26:20Patience is a big one.
- 26:21Yeah, patience is a big one.
- 26:23And it can work in the other way.
- 26:23Like if you have that $100 investment and it doubles and, you know, the number of people that sit there and go, yeah, I've made 100%.
- 26:31Yeah, it's like that's just on paper.
- 26:33You haven't actually cashed out and crystallized and solidified that gain.
- 26:38You could wake up tomorrow and it's down $100.
- 26:39to $70 a year.
- 26:40That's why I always tell people, don't look at your investment every day because A, it'd be super distracting and B, you give yourself that goal and that time horizon for a reason.
- 26:50Stick to it and make sure that you're not checking your investment every day.
- 26:54But also on the flip side of that, it's not a countdown to that period of time.
- 26:58Coming back to the previous example, say we've started investing at the beginning of 2020, we're now 12 months in and
- 27:05We've now got four years.
- 27:06So maybe do we kind of change to a lower risk investment?
- 27:10That might be moving between asset classes.
- 27:12It might be allocating a bit more to cash than I had in my shares.
- 27:16So it's a rolling countdown.
- 27:17So say we've got 12 months left of our investment time horizon.
- 27:21Maybe we move into a little bit more of a lower risk investment because we've only got 12 months now, not five years.
- 27:27So it's kind of assessing your own risk appetite and your goals and your timings.
- 27:32And so looking at it as kind of a countdown, not as a fixed period of time.
- 27:37It's a moving goalpost.
- 27:38Yeah, it is.
- 27:39But it's also not taking your money out, say, every year.
- 27:43It's more saying if you're going to invest more, okay, now I've only got 12 months, maybe I'll invest in a lower risk.
- 27:49It's not taking your money out every year and reassessing.
- 27:51It's more just saying...
- 27:53If I'm going to invest now and my time horizon is now less.
- 27:56It's now only 12 months, whereas four years ago I was doing much higher risk because I've got a longer time horizon.
- 28:01Every time I try and talk to what you've said, I feel like I sound stupid.
- 28:05But this is what I'm picking up on.
- 28:07It's like you don't celebrate or cry over the losses or the wins as you're going along.
- 28:11So until you cash out, that's where you end up.
- 28:14It's not that along the way you need to be like, woo, we've gone 5% here and oh my God, I've lost 10%.
- 28:19It's actually just knowing that it's just a waste of time and energy to be.
- 28:23And so emotional.
- 28:24Like imagine checking investment, I don't know, say every couple of months and you're like, oh my God, I'm up 10, I'm down 10.
- 28:29Emotional rollercoaster.
- 28:31Yeah, that's exhausting.
- 28:32It's kind of putting it away, checking it periodically, which could be every six months, for example, or,
- 28:40Or if something changes in your situation.
- 28:42That's a really hard thing that I've had to learn in my job because I do look at investments every single day.
- 28:47And there's days when things I invest in for clients are down 10, 20 percent.
- 28:52And you kind of have to look at it objectively and go, OK, don't get caught up in the emotion.
- 28:57Today's a new day I'm investing.
- 28:58Everyone always makes mistakes.
- 29:00And...
- 29:01Sounds like a cliche, but that's when you learn the most about yourself and about your investing strategy.
- 29:06And you say, okay, what did I miss?
- 29:09Why did that investment not go the way I thought it would?
- 29:12And that's when you incrementally become a better investor because you start to learn what works, what doesn't.
- 29:20And what am I missing?
- 29:21And what should I be considering for the next investment?
- 29:24taking a positive view but also yeah like you said not celebrating your own it hurts though doesn't it oh totally it's a hard way to learn it's taken me it's taken me a while definitely to learn and especially when it's clients money and you're kind of sitting there going oh my gosh but as long as you've got more winners than losers then you'll be fine okay so when when you're investing your time horizon is so crucial and yeah if you want a quick win go to the casino not the
- 29:49I hate the casino.
- 29:50You'll never see me at a casino.
- 29:52The long nails freak me out.
- 29:53And if you have the capacity to hold your investment for kind of five or ten years, then what happens next week or next month doesn't really matter in the scheme of things.
- 30:01And don't get too hung up on it.
- 30:03I think we might have to talk about diversification in the next episode.
- 30:06Yes, I think diversification is a whole nother can of worms.
- 30:10We should save that for an episode itself because it's really important to understand why diversification when it comes to your investing life and your investing journey is so, so important.
- 30:20And this is the eggs in one basket, isn't it?
- 30:22Yeah.
- 30:23All right, cool.
- 30:24Diversification, it's quite a funky word.
- 30:27I'm hoping I can use it more actually knowing what it means.
- 30:29So diversification next time.
- 30:31Cool, thanks everyone for listening.
- 30:33Thank you so much for listening to Raising the Curb.
- 30:35These 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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