There has always been a great deal of talk about investments - what to invest in, what to stay away from, what company is good for the long haul, what makes a recession proof portfolio. There are day traders, crypto currency miners, HODLers, FOMOs, charts, white papers, graphs, valleys, mountains, triangles, and enough experts dedicated to predicting the next big break out or the next tanking market to sink the Titanic fifty times over.
Through it all are screaming headlines. Get In, Get Out, Buy Gold, Jump on This One, The Sky Is Falling, The Next Global Recession is Coming. It's little wonder that many would be investors throw their hands up in frustration and disgust and feel they will never understand the word of financial investment well enough to jump into the waters.
But what if all those metrics that "forecast"the winners and losers of an investment don't really matter? What if you looked at the factors that affect every company whether they're listed on a stock exchange or not and at the same time had your investment goals firmly in place? Wouldn't it be easier to cut through the reams of paper and the screaming voices giving conflicting "advice" and make your own decisions?
Stocks are like cryptocurrency or fiat money. They are worth what people THINK they are worth. Public perception drives much of the investment market. You'll hear phrases like "consumer confidence" that directly translate to how people FEEL about the state of the world. When confidence is high, investments often climb in value and money tends to flow into the markets, raising those prices even higher. When confidence begins to fall, people tend to put their extra money into "safe" instruments like gold and precious metals, or government backed securities.
Let's look at investing from a woman's perspective. Like it or not guys, women make or influence most buying decisions. We hold our purse strings tight, because we have to feed a family, take care of a household, and make smart buying decisions that stretch the dollars in our wallets. It only takes a trip to the grocery store for a woman to get feel for how the economy is REALLY doing. When the $100 spent last month only fills 3 bags instead of 4, we know things are heading south no matter what pretty words a politician may spew forth, or what blue and red and green graphs Cramer may put in front of a TV camera. Women tend to bring other tools to the table than those the investment brokers rely on.
If we're going to invest our money as a hedge against the bad times that inevitably come around, or as a retirement nest egg, we are going to look at factors that go beyond fancy white papers and FOMO pushes and the latest advice from a self-appointed investment guru. We know that news cycles and politicians and regulatory agencies and climate catastrophes and a huge range of events and people outside of the charts and graphs affect the performance of an investment instrument.
All investments are based on trust. It starts (or should) with trust of the people actually running the company or organization we are looking to invest in. Do we trust them to run the company in a way that will sell more products and services and strengthen the bottom line? If they're a startup (as all of the blockchain companies and crypto exchanges are) that can be a little more difficult to determine as there is no history. If you look at who they have surrounded themselves with- the board of directors, the advisory board, the department heads, that can give a pretty good indication of their ability to guide the company through the rough waters ahead.
But if you want to go for an entity the has been around a while, there is no guarantee that the management will be able to keep an eye on the future and react correctly to changes in the sector. You don't have to look far to see the results of this "same old same old" management style. Sears Roebuck or J.C. Penny anyone? If the management team is made up of stuffed shirt old men and has few if any women or young people, they likely aren't going to be around in 20 years. Likewise, if the management team has only young t-shirt clad men, and no older, experienced bodies in at least an advisory capacity, they will probably make costly, avoidable mistakes.
Diversity in the boardroom tends to make for a strong, well run company that can answer the challenges the modern world tosses out.
News headlines have a tremendous impact on trust and confidence. If the headlines are screaming "GLOBAL RECESSION IS AROUND THE CORNER" odds are pretty good the markets will drop. It begs the question whether the recession that does arrive (they always do - they're cyclical) was made worse by the coverage predicting that arrival. My golden rule has always been to count headlines. If I read 5 news outlets a day, and I see 6 or more headlines predicting an economic downturn, I start carefully watching my favorite investment targets and grab them when they hit a low number I am happy with. They may fall further, they often do. But I will still have grabbed those at a decent discount from their previous high.
World events, especially political events need to be understood from the standpoint of how they will affect the markets. The recent US government shutdown had an effect on the crypto market. Because the shutdown delayed new Bitcoing ETF filings, Cointelegraph Bitcoin may struggle to climb out of the trench it's in.
World events can also help with decisions of what to invest in. Electric cars are becoming an incredible market around the world, in part due to climate change and countries trying to cut down smog in heavily trafficked areas. But don't invest in the car maker - look for the company that makes the battery. The car maker only sells the end product - the battery maker sells to ALL the auto manufacturers so their bottom line is diversified and won't tank if one of those auto companies hits a bad patch.
Rapidly selling and buying investments is also something most women don't do. When we've found an investment to back, we tend to stick with it. This isn't lack of knowledge or risk aversion or fear. We don't generally buy into the FOMO hypes - if the company behind the investment is sound, it will prosper. If it is not, it will tank. But we also look at the investment like this - if the price hasn't dipped below what we paid for it, and stayed below that benchmark for a period of time - it will go back up. We're patient. We'll wait.
We're more interested in building legacies, rather than dreaming of empires. Legacies take time, and patience to build. It takes time to grow a kid into an adult. It takes time to grow an investment portfolio into a solid legacy. If we've looked at the "people factors" behind that investment - the management team, the government policies and politics that may come into play, the outside events that can affect that investment, we'll end up meeting our investment goals.