There is so much existing material on this topic so I’ll do my best to keep this somewhat entertaining and concise. Plus, I’ll add some links for further reading at the end.
Basically, two types of investing exists, passive and active.
Passive Investing
In its simplest form, passive investing is ETF investing. An ETF (exchange traded fund), a basket of stocks which you can invest in.
With one single purchase, your money will be spread across all of the companies within the basket. For example, the S&P 500 is a very popular ETF. It contains the largest 500 companies in the US (see below).
So, if you were to invest in an S&P 500 ETF, you’d own a tiny piece of all 500 companies.
Yes, you read that correctly.
It’s possible for everyday yachties like you or me to invest, with very little money, and own a tiny sliver of Facebook, Microsoft, Paypal, Starbucks and 496 other huge companies.
Cool, right?
Look up again, over 500 companies. This, my friends, is diversification and although you’re putting your eggs into one basket, its a big basket.
Your investing portfolio does not rely on one stock, it relies on 500. This is just one example, other ETFs, like this one, contain thousands of companies.
This diversification protects you against the downsides of one stock shitting the bed, as you have 499 other to pick up the slack.
You nor me nor your financial advisor can consistently pick a winning stock, so why not just buy them all?
Even better, the fees are so low (as little as 0.05%) due to the physical absence of an advisor moving your money around for you. It’s all done through complicated algorithms and computers yet research has shown passive investing actually outperforms active investing, strange huh.
Well, not really, here’s why.
Passive investing has revolutionized the investing industry allowing everyday people to invest without the need for financial advisors or expert level knowledge.
It’s a set & forget strategy and designed for long term investing (5 years minimum) in an effort to allow compound interest and time to work in your favor. The longer you keep it in, the better.
Active Investing
I have a similar article on the site already which you can read here.
But, I’ll do a quick overview.
Active investing involves hiring a financial professional to manage your money for you.
If you have an investment with a financial service then you most likely have an active financial advisor playing with your cash and trying to predict market movements.
He or she is buying and selling stocks which ultimately costs you more money.
Successful stock picking is very difficult to do consistently and it’s unlikely a financial advisor has the ability to reliably predict the stock market.
Active investing has been shown to underperform against passive investing over the long term which is demonstrated by Warren Buffet demonstrates this here.
In fact, Warren Buffet is such a fan of passive investing that he’s allocated 90% of his fortune to be invested into ETFs upon his death. Read that article here.
Other Considerations
Like anything, there are pros and cons to both strategies. Naturally, there are may factors to consider before making your final decision such as:
- Your net worth
- Your future goals
- Your risk tolerance
- Your interest in money
- Your financial education
The outcomes of each style differs greatly from each other so it’s important to undertake further reading and to fully understand which approach is best suited to your situation.
If you’re keen to learn more check out these articles…
- CNBC Article
- A great YouTube video
- Investopedia Article
- Vanguard Article (Vanguard is a large ETF provider)
- Australia Investor Hub
- The Financial Balance Article
Or, just shoot me a message and I can help ya out!
