Financial Market: Fear & Awareness

Very often, people ask how and where to invest.

The most obvious answer, in most cases, is "in the financial market."

It might not seem so obvious, and indeed, it is not at all.

The good old real estate is still seen as the safest asset; we are bound to things and objects more than ever.

But not from a purely materialistic point of view: rather, we are a bit like St. Thomas, who doesn't believe unless he sees.

Investing in the financial market is often perceived as dangerous.

A friend of mine said the other night: "You know, I'm thinking of buying a second house because I have a good amount of money from my mother's severance pay, and my family doesn't know how to invest it. What do you think?" 

I tried to explain to him that 1) turning a house into income is comparable to a job, and 2) the expected return is even lower than that of the index market (but we'll talk about that in the future). 

I asked him why he hadn't considered the financial market. 

After 10 minutes, I understood that for him, investing in a house was not an option but the only way he had to invest that wasn't keeping the money under the mattress (yes, that's also investing). 

At one point, he even said: "We're not talking about 50k that you can entrust to someone but over 200k. In these cases, it's different..." 

As if investing more than a certain amount in the financial market is riskier, when in reality it's the opposite. 

One of the things I repeatedly hear (especially from financial gurus) is "invest only what you can afford to lose." 

Nothing could be more false! 

People are invested 100% of the time, often without realizing it. If you're not actively investing (I don't mean trading), it doesn't mean you're not doing it, but that you're doing it unconsciously... and probably poorly. 

See you!