Is investing instead of saving worth the risk?

This is Money Podcast

This is Money

Business News, Business, Investing, News

4.1 • 650 Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2020

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Should you save cash and accept low interest rates, or invest and take the risk that you could lose money?

This is the perennial dilemma for those with some money to set aside, who are looking to build their wealth. And it’s not been made easier by a rollercoaster 20 years.

Since the turn of the millennium, we’ve had three hefty stock market crashes, but we’ve also had the past decade of historically low interest rates.

In response to paltry savings rates, more people have been encouraged to invest in shares for a better return, but the coronavirus crash has left the UK’s flagship stock market index, the FTSE 100, below its level on 31 December 1999, and burnt the fingers of many recent investors.

So, is it worth investing, or should you just stick with the relative stability of cash?

On this episode of the This is Money podcast, Simon Lambert, Lee Boyce and Georgie Frost look at our exclusive statistics on who is investing, who is bowing out of the market, and what the new generation of younger investors are doing.

They also dive back into the question asked last week: how long do you need to invest for to avoid losing money?

With some charts and data sent through to the team by Duncan Lamont, head of research and analytics at Schroders, they compare how putting money into either cash or the stockmarket fared over the past 150 years against inflation – and what the likelihood was of losing money over varying time periods.

The team also look at what might happen next to house prices after the coronavirus lockdown put the property market into a deep freeze. Simon dives into the varying predictions of how much property prices could fall – and the bullish suggestion of one estate agent that it’ll all be fine.

And finally, we discuss the businesses that we spoke to this week who are fighting veteran insurer Hiscox, because they believed they should be covered against coronavirus with policies that cite infectious or contagious disease… but it says they are not.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to This Is Money. I'm Georgie Frost and alongside me and editor Simon Lambert.
0:04.5	Today is Assistant Editor Lee Boyce.
0:07.3	And with all the recent market turmoil, are young novice investors spook taking their money and running for the cash hills?
0:14.8	Or are they staying calm and carrying on Lee investigates?
0:19.6	Well, if you are a little bit nervous, we take a look at the DIY platforms offering ready-made ISO portfolios.
0:25.2	Also, say, what the hell is happening to the price of oil?
0:27.7	It tanked this week.
0:28.9	Why and what happens next?
0:31.0	Can anyone make even a close to accurate prediction right now about that?
0:36.3	And as Simon asks house prices.
0:39.1	Don't worry, people are, as always.
0:42.2	Meanwhile, we take a look at some simple ways to spruce up your home for those looking for a quick post-lockdown sale.
0:48.4	And Hiscox is threatened with legal action from businesses who say they should be covered for coronavirus.
0:53.9	Don't forget you stay up to date.
0:54.8	With all the latest breaking money news, just go to this ismoney.com.uk, or download the app.
1:01.1	But first, remember on last week's episode, so I'm and I discussed the idea, well, it was mainly
1:06.0	Simon, that if this recent episode has given minor investors a lesson, it is that five years is not long enough.
1:13.4	Well, Lee, in his weekly consumer column, has been looking at stocks and shares, Isis,
1:19.0	which suffered their biggest losses in a tax year since the financial crisis in 2019-20.
1:24.5	Now, this is money, did a spot of research and found that not an insignificant number of
1:29.8	people are selling a significant amount of their investments since all this started, and over
1:36.2	half regret investing so much. So who are these people? Should they keep calm and carry on?
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from This is Money, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of This is Money and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.