Investing

The verb to invest comes from the Latin (through the Italian investire) and means 'to cover with clothing, drape, to surround'. Hence the idea that we give our savings a new appearance when we 'invest' them in securities or other financial instruments.

How many people in Italy miss out on making a profit for fear of losing money?

According to a survey carried out during lockdown (late April 2020), risk aversion is growing among Italians who now tend to prefer safer financial instruments.

NOTE: The data refer to the first semester of each year and to households which hold over €25,000 in financial assets.

There are more options than just current accounts

Current accounts are for managing your money on a daily basis, not for yielding returns on your savings. If you have any savings, you can get returns on them by investing wisely and carefully in other financial instruments (such as time deposit accounts, bonds, investment funds and so on).

What you should ALWAYS CONSIDER before investing

  1. The aim of your investing: why am I investing?
  2. The relationship between risk and return: What level of return can I expect? What level of risk can I tolerate?
  3. The time horizon: What is the maturity date of my investment? How much will I lose if I need to liquidate my investment before maturity?

Beware of the RISKS

Economic decisions are about the future and are made under conditions of UNCERTAINTY. This means that we need to make certain predictions and take on some degree of RISK.

A SECURITY that yields HIGHER RETURNS is also MORE RISKY.

A SECURITY'S RETURN is proportional to its degree of risk.

The Golden Rule: DIVERSIFY

In order to minimize risk, you need to DIVERSIFY. For instance, you could invest in financial instruments from companies that operate in different sectors and show opposite trends. This allows you to compensate for one company's losses with another's profits.

How to choose among financial instruments

There are options that allow you to invest your savings based on your individual needs and time horizon. If you don't know how, or if you have any doubts, you can speak to an advisor at your own bank, or ask a qualified independent financial advisor (https://www.organismo-am.it/).

How Italians made their investments in 2020

Autonomously 29%, based on informal recommendations 49%, through a professional advisor 41%.

For more information

Please see our dedicated section.

SOURCES

  • Rapporto Consob sulle scelte di investimento delle famiglie italiane (2020)
  • Rapporto Prometeia/Ipsos Wealth Insights (aprile 2020).