Too often we talk about investing in terms of numbers and charts and gains – here is what you get if you invest: cold, hard, cash.
Hardly ever do we talk about what we can give by investing, about how it can make you feel about your own life, about your family’s lives, about your prospects.
About how the world sees you and how you see and feel about yourself.
But investing is ALL about feelings. Yes, numbers matter, but what matters a lot more is how markets feel about the numbers.
Consider the word itself: I am really invested in the success of this sour dough, because I have nurtured that sodding starter and practised more than 30 times since lockdown started.
What I mean is: I care if it rises and isn’t another rock cake destined for the dustbin. I care.
Empowering: Investing isn’t just about getting money for yourself; it’s about giving yourself and those you care about a life you want
Why do we so rarely apply this to the world of investing our money?
We may choose to pay school fees or nursery fees for our children – why? Because we care that they are looked after and educated and have the best possible chance in life.
How is this any different from investing some of your savings into a new healthcare company that is trying to develop better care in hospitals for babies? One day, that might be me benefitting from the technology that my money helped to develop.
Investing has long been a male-dominated environment and long have women been reluctant to take the plunge.
The latest Office for National Statistics figures show that between 2017 and 2018, more women opened Isa accounts than men – 11,439 to men’s 10,594 new accounts.
But women opted for cash accounts, just 9 per cent of that year’s Isas were investing accounts held by women. Some 12 per cent of the men who opened an Isa opted for a stocks and shares account.
Bear in mind, that is 33 per cent MORE men investing than women.
I know I am put off the world of investing because to get advice, I assume I’ll need to go to a man in a suit, who is my father’s age and who will tell me to go home because I don’t have £50,000 in the bank for him to play with. I’d rather ask my Dad.
I also look at the array of funds, the charts, the percentages, the forecasts, ratios, moving averages – frankly, I feel a bit seasick.
How are school fees different from investing some of your savings into a new healthcare company that is trying to develop better care in hospitals for babies?
But equally, because I am lucky enough to have written about this subject for more than a decade, I know it’s about a lot more than that stuff.
Markets are made of people – something we forget to remember all too often.
Things happen in the world and people react based on their feelings, and sometimes on their rational assessment of how their position has changed.
More of the time, your gut tells you what to do.
Even the professional investors suffer from that – it’s why markets can fall off a cliff on the news of lockdown and then bounce back just as rapidly: the people making the trades realise that they overreacted and calm down.
That’s what is meant by market confidence. It’s just a feeling.
That’s what is meant by market confidence. It’s just a feeling.
Markets are also made for people – something we forget even more often.
This is even more fundamental for me.
Money makes the world go around, right? It also is the thing which makes stuff grow. It is literally the water, sunshine, air, food, energy we all need to survive.
Investing gives individuals the power to influence how we treat those things.
Do you care about clean water for everyone? Go invest £50 in a company that is helping to deliver that.
Do you care about global warming? Go invest £50 in a company that is helping to reduce carbon emissions.
You care about the environment and quality of the air we all breathe? Invest in a company that is providing alternative fuels so we can stop relying on diesel, oil and petrol.
If food is your thing, invest in a company that makes it, delivers it, grows it, sells it or prepares it in a way that you care about being the norm.
If food is your thing, invest in a company that makes it, delivers it, grows it, sells it or prepares it in a way that you care about being the norm
It is so easy to look at our £50 each month and think – it can’t make a difference.
But it can. Especially when it’s invested, because then you are putting your money where your mouth is and funding the change you want to see in the world.
Last month the government-backed pension fund Nest vowed to put £5.5billion, nearly half of its 9million members’ money, into a climate-friendly investment strategy.
Its goal is to halve carbon emissions generated by its investments by 2030 and reach ‘net zero’ by 2050. It will also ditch companies involved in thermal coal, oil sands and Arctic drilling within five years, unless they plan to phase out such activity.
That is an action that matters for our futures and it’s making it real because it is investing in that outcome.
Investing isn’t just about getting money for yourself; it’s about giving yourself and those you care about a life you want.
Investing isn’t just about getting money for yourself; it’s about giving yourself and those you care about a life you want.
Choosing to back businesses you care about is rewarding. It’s the most empowering feeling you can achieve over your own life and choices.
And it’s helping to give something tangible towards a future you want to see become reality.
If you keep that money invested, it’s also not a bad bet you might see a little something for yourself too over the long term. That’s even truer when it’s your pension.
Alexandra Jackson, manager of the Rathbone UK Opportunities Fund
In this episode of the Women & Money podcast, Sarah Davidson, knowledge and product editor at This is Money, and Maike Currie, investment director at Fidelity International, talk to Alexandra Jackson, manager of the Rathbone UK Opportunities Fund.
We cover this idea of investing being about so much more than just money, and look at how to give yourself confidence if you want to get started.
Listen now, for Alexandra’s views on her own personal approach to her finances and where she sees opportunities for growth.
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