Straight talking from the Editor;
In case you were in any doubt that history repeats itself, we are seeing a re-run of the roaring 20s, where lower income people are gambling everything they have on various investments. Could be cryptocurrency, classic cars, gold-linked securities or the ever-volatile stock market.
TradingView, which provides non-professional ‘everyday’ people with the information, insight, trading and investing journey all in one place, has today reported a record-breaking 550 million unique users, signalling that the global ‘retail investor revolution’ is only just beginning.
Individual, non-professional people, or ‘retail investors’, in virtually every country in the world (over 180 countries) are now using TradingView to help inform their investment choices and to take control of their own personal financial decisions.
Fuelled by the recent global lockdowns, the worldwide influx of Gen-Z traders and rapidly-growing interest in stocks, markets and cryptocurrency, retail investors, who are forecast to spend $1 trillion on stocks and shares by end of 2021, have become a critical force in financial markets, says Trading View.
It has to be a bad sign when `kidults’ who live at home with their parents – who pay the bills in the real world – are essentially gambling online as their main source of income, instead of actually getting a job.
In the late 1920s one NYC stockbroker said he knew it was time to sell when his shoeshine boy was giving him stock market tips. In the same way today, you see botox-filled wannabe celebs faking a millionaire lifestyle on Instagram and TikTok, feeding little coin hashtag titbits to their gullible followers. Not everyone can get rich from an encoded pyramid scheme. Do the math, as they say in NYC…
EMPEROR’S NEW TOKENS
The FCA has warned repeatedly that all token and crypto investments are high risk, no assets underpin them and regulation is challenging because of the global nature of trade online. Transactions are also instant via smartphone, it really is Betfred for coin-hustlers out there.
Brokers would be wise to avoid promoting crypto and token investments, because if – or when – things go spectacularly wrong, people will seek compensation for the bad advice they were offered. The PPI debacle of the 1990s demonstrates that point.
There is no doubt that the collapse of Equitable Life made many UK savers re-think the nature of pensions. Instead of trusting others, maybe it would be better to manage your own SIPP for example? That may well be the case, but keeping tabs on fluctuating markets and company mergers can be a full-time occupation. Not easy to guess which companies will still be around in 20-30 years’ time either, would you have predicted Nokia and Blackberry would be pretty much out of the mobile phone game back in 2000?
GREEN GRAVY TRAIN
What is certain this decade is that vast sums of taxpayers cash, and borrowed government money, will be pumped into every green and sustainable project, company or charitable foundation like there is no tomorrow. In that scenario, a so-called ethical fund SIPP may prove to be a winner by 2035. Brokers can probably recommend those investments as being `socially good,’ rather than the more high risk crypto coins, which ultimately are nothing more than code on a screen somewhere in Uzbekistan.
Crypto also burns electricity like a halogen lit, 1990s Magnet kitchen and one day the green activist lobby may turn its anger towards everyone in that power-hungry supply chain.
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