The difficulty I have with this, is that some sort investment with your money is probably going on whether you want it to or not, if you have any savings or a pension. What changes is how much of the reward/risk you walk away with vs someone else. If you have a pension invested on your behalf, someone is creaming off a large chunk of your money for the effort of investing, probably in a mundane way that's easy to replicate for yourself, without paying fees. If you hold cash with fixed income, someone is using that money, making a profit and paying you the least they can get away with. Cash loses money vs inflation. There are other options - paying down a mortgage is well worthwhile and I'd certainly recommend that as a priority for most people with spare cash.
Sure savings, pensions and home owning are just lower risk gambling. Loses can occasionally be large... think failed banks, pension scandals, and the current cladding related disaster in many thousands of UK leasehold flats.
So...what?
I may well be wrong and crypto is new assests rising up to their natural value where nearly everyone is a winner but I personally think the crypo gains will come from others losing and it is in effect a giant pyramid scheme
Quote from: Bradders on April 01, 2021, 12:35:11 pmSo...what?Because if the risks are not clear from whoever is selling the financial product it's an issue of misselling. Looking back I was missold my first endowment mortgage (by someone who was incentivised by a sales bonus) but I was lucky and made a profit, too many others found their endowment didn't cover the basic house purchase.
Then simply don’t get involved in this thread Offwidth, it’s for investors. The people posting here don’t need you to save them.
But do you really think people are buying crypto now to protect against inflation from the printing of money. I think its a classic bubble and people are buying simply because they think its going to go up loads in value. Anyway as I said I may well be wrong and so best of luck to crypo owners. I suspect it will come down to whether it gets too big to fail before people realise the downsides. I can see why people take the gamble!
But the risks are never clear, even when not miss sold. The only risks you get to be informed about is that there is a risk of you losing money if the market turns against you. If you’re lucky you might get a choice between products that are ‘more risky’ and ‘less risky,’ but that’s essentially meaningless. The only difference is that someone else chooses the risk on your behalf and takes a cut of your money for doing so.
I do get the hedge argument put forward by bitcoin fans. I just dont think thats why 99% of people are buying bitcoin. Its also far from proven that it does act as an effective hedge. Its also not the same as the dotcom bubble and thats just a comparison of apples and pears. As I am sure you also know not all historical bubbles have ended as well as the dotcom one. Anyway your probably right that its not going anywhere for a long time and may well prove a good gamble.
Quote from: sdm on April 01, 2021, 12:06:53 pmAt the risk of going off on another tangent, poker is a very efficient game in the medium to long term for transferring money from lower skilled players to higher skilled players.Perhaps it was a better example than he realised.As an aside, did anyone ever meet the climber and professional poker player John Rosholt on trips to the US? https://rockandice.com/people/john-rosholt-climber-and-gambler-disappears-in-las-vegas/
At the risk of going off on another tangent, poker is a very efficient game in the medium to long term for transferring money from lower skilled players to higher skilled players.Perhaps it was a better example than he realised.
Ive not really given it that much thought JB.
My point was that pretty much every buyers primary motivation was it going up in value
QuoteMy point was that pretty much every buyers primary motivation was it going up in value Umm. Is there another reason for investing in anything?
Yeah that's apparent... ;-) Suggest taking some time to read this, you can't understand cryptos without first understanding money.
I am sure you agree that buying some obscure crypto would not be investing
Andy, yes of course but he did write primary motivation. As you said probably no one hopes to lose money.
Adam ive absolutely no problem with you disagreeing with me. Although the critique of my comments and the assumption that im wrong because I dont understand is really tiresome. Anyway hopefully the thread can be split so this can go and die somewhere. Please Simon!
Maybe the title needs changing to “UKB users’ list of stock picks”. No debate. No conversation.
Quote from: ali k on February 24, 2021, 09:57:53 amMaybe the title needs changing to “UKB users’ list of stock picks”. No debate. No conversation.I was just joking when I suggested this, but it genuinely seems like this is what you’re after Pete.And given that you’ve posted roughly 95% of those tips and want to police any other contributions, maybe a blog would be a better medium so you can vet comments before they’re made public? Just sayin’