Wondering Why Your money Isn’t Growing? Here Are 6 Risks That
Can Explain Why
The possibility that your money might not grow and could
actually reduce is the way most people define risk. While we agree that this is
a good working definition of risk, this particular definition does not take
time into account. What risk really means is the possibility that you may not
meet your goals. Money is simply a means to meet your goals.
You could fail to achieve your money goals for various reasons.
These reasons are risks. You should, therefore, know what these reasons could
be and prepare for them.
Risk
#1. Underestimating your money goals.
You underestimate goals when you don’t cater for inflation, or
the annual increase in prices of various goods and services. A lakh is seen as
a small amount today. 20 years ago it was a huge sum of money. 20 years from
now a crore might be what a lakh is today.
As your goals increase, make sure to consider inflation.
Risk
#2. The corpus not growing to the goal amount.
You might have calculated your goal amount correctly, catered
for risks, and you also took into account inflation but you still couldn’t
reach your goal amount. This is the third risk. Let’s understand why this might
happen.
Reaching a goal amount depends on 3 things:
1. how much you invest
2. the actual return the investment generates
3. how long you stay invested
The final amount depends on a combination of the above factors.
If you generate higher returns you might need a smaller time period or smaller
starting amount. If you expect lower returns then you might need a longer time
period.
Rs. 100 is not going to become Rs. 200 in a year if the
investment is going to generate 8% net return. So you need to balance all 3
factors to reach your target goal – time, starting amount, and actual returns.
Risk
#3. Returns not matching expectations
Expected returns refer to the long term average returns that an
investment avenue gives. There are two reasons (which mostly apply to marked
linked assets) why returns don’t meet expectations:
a. Right investment avenue but wrong tool:
You might have chosen the right asset class such as equity but
the exact instrument you invested in might underperform (such as a bad mutual
fund or stock).
Solution: periodic review of the instrument to check how it is
performing compared to peers or a benchmark index.
b. The market underperforms right when you plan to
withdraw:
You have stuck to the long term investment timeline but right
when you want to withdraw, the market tanks. This is of course unpredictable.
Solution: withdraw investments from equity and transfer them to
debt as and when your investments are near their target sum. This should be
done carefully and only when you have specific requirements for the money.
Risk
#4: The risk of losing money
This risk varies across investments and the loss can be
invisible (inflation) or very visible (Value goes down). Let's take a look at
how this applies to various common investments options:
As we can conclude from above
• No investment is "absolutely
safe"
• Each investment has its own unique
set of conditions which could cause you to lose money
• Safety of principal is no safety
because inflation reduces the value of money
Why not fraud?
Fraud is the one threat that both the government and financial
institutions have regulations and guards against. If you are realistic about
the returns you expect, fraudsters will find it hard to cheat you.
Risk
#5: The risk of not being able to save long enough
This risk is that you couldn’t save for the expected duration or
save enough. This may happen due to loss of job, accident, illness, unexpected
expenses or death.
This is where insurance comes in. Insurance fills the shortfall
in your goals when you are unable to. Health and accident insurance for disease
and injury; household insurance for loss of property and life insurance in case
of death. As of now, we do not have layoff/redundancy insurance in India
to cover job loss.
Remember though, that insurance is not an investment. It is
exactly what the name implies, an insurance against your loss of ability to
earn, or the loss of your assets. How much insurance you need is driven by what
stage of life you are at and what your financial plan is.
Risk
#6. Not understanding the true risk associated with a decision
This is essentially a summary of the above points. Risk
basically takes two forms.
Short term risk is what we see in the form of changes in the
value of what we own – stock prices go down, your home is worth less than what
you paid for it, etc.
Long term risk is inflation which reduces the value of your
money over time. It’s a “certain risk”. Overcoming inflation is the main reason
for investing and why your investment returns should beat inflation. But often,
we get scared by the short term “uncertain risk” and instead choose long term
“certain risk”.
Remember
these 6 tips to make sure you are ready to face risk:
#1.
Know your financial goals before starting to invest, do not underestimate them.
#2.
Know how much to invest to reach your goals, the rate of return you need to
reach them, and finally how long you will need.
#3.
Don’t just select the right asset class – merely equity is not enough – you
need to select the right mutual fund and rebalance periodically.
#4.
Know that no investment is absolutely safe, Bank FDs look safe but you lose
money thanks to inflation and bank FDs may not return inflation beating
returns.
#5.
Buy insurance for unforeseen circumstances (if you have dependents).
#6.
Take into account both long term and short term factors when investing.
Happy investing
Source;Scripbox