First, let's look at how to define "risk". In the view that the rate of return is closely related to risk, the understanding of risk is mainly whether the principal can be guaranteed. If the principal is guaranteed to be safe and there are certain benefits, it can be regarded as low risk or even zero risk. For example, bank deposits and national debt, unless there is a black swan with a very low probability of bank failure, the principal is absolutely safe, but the income is particularly low. But if you can't guarantee the safety of the principal, such as stock trading and futures, you may make a lot of money, or you may lose a lot of principal. This is a high risk.
For example, some people are afraid to invest in P2P, because they always see the news that the platform has closed down and run away. Essentially, they are also worried about the safety of their principal. As long as they have this concern, they will think that P2P is a high-risk investment.
Therefore, for conservative and prudent financial managers, they are more willing to choose low-risk investment of "capital preservation", but is there really no risk in "capital preservation"?
I think the definition of risk depends not only on the degree of principal security reflected by the rate of return, but also on the comprehensive judgment based on the different investment projects and individual risk tolerance. In other words, the risks vary from person to person. Some people may think that 7% yield is high risk, but others think that 20% yield is not high risk. Just like many people who invest in angels often lose their money, it doesn't matter to them, at least not so much, because they have invested in many projects and can balance the risks.
Another example is a trust with an initial investment of 3 million, an expected annualized income of 7.5% and an investment period of 24 months; The other is P2P, with an initial investment of 100 yuan, a fixed annualized income of 12% and an investment period of 3 months. Which of these two investment projects is more risky?
I think most people may think that trust is more reliable because the risk corresponding to the rate of return is lower. Although the income is far less than P2P, it can guarantee the security of the principal, so if there is 3 million, it is still an investment trust. It should be said that there is nothing wrong with this choice, as long as it suits us, but it still depends on whether investing 3 million in a low-risk trust is really low-risk.
According to the above example, the investment trust of 3 million yuan is expected to get a return of 450,000 yuan after two years (only expected), and the return of 720,000 yuan after two years of investment in P2P (usually fixed income), so the opportunity to get more than 60% of the income is directly given up. Is this risky? Of course, you may say, but I have guaranteed the principal. But since it is a risk, it may or may not happen. Then you guarantee something that may not happen by losing 60% of the income, which is also a risk in my opinion.
Secondly, the time taken by the trust fund is 24 months, that is, once invested, it is impossible to take it out within two years, so there will be an opportunity cost involved here. If there are better projects, such as high-quality real estate, after you invest in the trust for three months, you will make a down payment of 3 million yuan to get a property with a value of100000, and then this property will appreciate by 20% after one year, so you can earn 2 million yuan. Then you will miss such an opportunity, which is also a risk.
Therefore, it is not enough to simply consider the safety of the principal and judge the level of risk. It also depends on the loss of higher income if this fund is invested in other projects, and the waste of opportunities caused by long-term occupation of funds, which can be said to be a potential loss with high probability. Since it is a loss, it means that your own interests are likely to be damaged, so do you think this is a risk?
Some people may think that the trust threshold of 3 million yuan is too high. In fact, a high threshold is also a risk, which means that before reaching the investment threshold, there may be funds to stand guard and cause losses. Even bank deposits, bank wealth management, bonds and other low-threshold wealth management. Through the above analysis, we still have to bear the risk of losing potential high returns.
I personally have personal experience. Once I gave out a year-end bonus, I used some current deposits for five years, totaling 80 thousand. Because there was no concept of financial management at that time, I felt that the five-year time deposit had the highest interest rate and the bank was safe. You can get quite good interest after five years, which is quite cost-effective. But I didn't expect that after a year, the company distributed shares to me, and I needed to buy them myself, which required tens of thousands of pieces, but I didn't have spare money to buy them. At that time, I didn't expect that the 80,000 yuan fixed for five years could be converted into a current account. Instead, I lost some interest and gave up buying the company's shares directly. As a result, in the third year, the company's stock return rate reached 25%.
In fact, at that time, I instinctively equated low income with low risk, but I didn't consider the risk that funds were occupied for a long time and I couldn't invest in better projects. The end result is that the so-called low-risk investment has cost me a lot of potential benefits.
Another potential risk of low-yield investment is that it may not be able to beat inflation. For example, many people now put idle funds in some low-yield money funds such as Yu 'ebao and WeChat Wealth Management. It seems that there is no risk, but it is actually taking the risk of asset depreciation. For example, 6,543,800,000 yuan is put in the balance treasure, and it becomes 6,543,803,000 yuan after one year, which means that 3% of annualized income earned 3,000 yuan of interest, but the purchasing power of 6,543,800 yuan after one year may only be equivalent to 97,000 yuan a year ago, so it can actually be regarded as a loss of 3,000 yuan of principal. The so-called low-risk rate of return of 3% is actually a high-risk negative interest rate, because your principal has actually suffered losses.
To sum up, we usually think that low-risk investment will make you lose the possibility of obtaining potential high returns, occupy funds for a long time, and make you lose the opportunity to invest in better projects. Moreover, because the rate of return is too low to win, inflation becomes a real negative interest rate, which devalues your principal. So if you think so, there is really no low-risk investment in the world.
Manage your finances while you are young-I hope you can live the life you want. WeChat official account: Mucheng Free Life (ID: mucheng-life)