It still comes as a surprise, even after all these years of HindeSight to get chatting in the pub and hear that people don’t invest in shares or have share portfolios. From friends & acquaintances that are currently unemployed to directors of companies to stay at home mums and everything in between, anecdotally at least, most people in the UK would seemingly know more people that don’t own a share than do, unless they’re friends with ‘rich’ people. By that we mean people who have £100K available if needed, and that type of person has a circle around them that very much invests in everything mainly because there’s limited places to put it.
There’s no secret as to why the people we talk to don’t invest in shares, 90% return the same response, no money/time/knowledge or a combination of these replies. They don’t have any ‘spare’ money or they think shares are gambling, or they have never owned a share and wouldn’t know where to start as they have no knowledge of the markets whatsoever.
Some don’t specifically have shares but have a pension they put money into and leave well alone. Some ‘invest’ in property, some in their businesses and others even invest in Art or… trainers (getting in on releases early, then flipping for cash) and each thinks they know more about their selected investment vehicle than they do about shares and the stock market. Incidentally, most of them know there’s a gambling element to what they put their money into. Your house could lose money, as could the art, trainers or anything else you invest in.
So how did Crypto break the investing trend? Those very same people that wouldn’t own a share, have Binance or similar on their phone, but not Robinhood or Freetrade. Why? When challenged about their knowledge of crypto investing many get tied up and stuck explaining the actuals of why they’re comfy putting £thousands into Crypto and not shares. Every crypto investor we talk to has an ‘oh shit’ moment when they lose what they consider is a lot of their investment. But they still believe they’ll get it back or do better. The time and effort they have spent on crypto would deliver the same knowledge on shares if they read our monthly letter.
The time an effort expended on house, art or trainer investing is similar, again it might even be more, than if you used the education in HindeSight Letters so they find time/money/knowledge when it’s something else, but not shares. We get that Crypto *has brought people very visible riches, as have houses and art investing, if fact you could imagine anything as an investment vehicle and there will always be someone that has done well from it. Does this mean you will do well from it? Nothing is for certain, even our newsletter.
One train of thought we’re exploring is that shares seem to have an image problem. Companies and corporations are consumerism, they’re Wall St greed, they’re stigmatised as being owned by the filthy rich and profits are dirty cash from the sweat of hard workers. You don’t deserve the profits from shares because what did you do to earn them?
Crypto is sticking it to ‘the man’ and anti consumerism (yeah right), house investing is clean money that’s earned through upgrades and smart purchasing. Shares are thought of as dumb money that supports trustafarians on their journey to Nepal on a gap year to find themselves. It’s the Ferrari’s the banking pigs drive as newspaper decry bonuses from trading desks that fuel all the world’s ills and the always accompanying cries of how easily they earned the money by having no discernible skill or talent. Never mind that no one has ever thought to run a socialist fund, because it’s so easy to make money this way, then distribute the easy billions to kill the system they hate so much.
To a large degree, money is money, ESG or not. Why not run a bit of everything? Making money is hard work and spending it is very easy, so diversification is the name of the game. Run your trainer flipping, but put a little into shares as well. Build the house of your dreams, but squirrel away something in an ISA that’ll hedge the house prices crashing.
Stick it to the man by using the very well set up system of share buying, in a tax free ISA to fund your next anti consumerism drive, helping to bring down the system from within. Or just diversify to have more options in life. Who gives a shit but just get over the fact people make money from shares (and lose it) it’s just a way of investing among many options, and we’ll teach you how to do it. Shares are just a vehicle to better understand money, hopefully earning a bit on the journey, and any knowledge you gain on that ride isn’t a waste of time or energy. Promise.