About a year ago, Draghi released this report on European Competitiveness (https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/draghi-r...). In it he says "A key reason for less efficient financial intermediation in Europe is that capital markets remain fragmented and flows of savings into capital markets are lower."
I don't have data readily to hand (and Draghi probably mentions this in the report, I can't remember), but anecdotally based on what I hear from many of my European friends, Europeans basically keep their savings in bank savings accounts. That means that there is less investment capital floating around, which in turn means that the tiny fraction that finds its way into innovation is in turn greatly diminished. Europeans are dependent on bank loans for funding, and banks want to see assets as security for their loans.
Policies like this would further disincentivize Europeans to invest in their own stock markets, further damaging the ability of Europeans to innovate.
> Europeans basically keep their savings in bank savings accounts.
USA is not much different. The wealthiest 10% of the U.S. population holds the vast majority of stock market wealth. Recent data shows this group owns around 90-93% of all stocks, with the top 1% controlling about half of the total household equity.
Many people hold cash in savings to prepare buying a house, paying for a child's college and more. IMHO, there is also less short-term need to invest your money as an adult.
If you're happy with your job and don't need the extra money (or risk), then why invest in the stock market?
> If you're happy with your job and don't need the extra money (or risk), then why invest in the stock market?
Because parking money in a savings account essentially erodes its value over time due to inflation. It’s safer, sure, but it’s a safe way to be guaranteed to lose money over time.
Equity investing is essentially the only way for savings to outpace inflation.
If your money stays worth exactly the same in net present dollars, it’s effectively eroding in value compared to what you could be earning. 10-15 years is quite the long time horizon. You could easily be earning 7% real/10% actual in equity investing. Most recommendations I’ve seen discuss short term savings such as HYSAs for a house being more in the 5 year or sooner timeframe.
Frankly, investing in equities in your 20s and 30s is easily the best time to do it. You let the compounding of growth happen over the decades, not so much later in life.
I get it... but im just explaining why people are doing what they do: choosing to hold cash over higher risk investments.
Lack of education IMHO is a huge part. Crypto has way more education around how to invest than equities investment. If people are investing, many are choosing crypto.
> Frankly, investing in equities in your 20s and 30s is easily the best time to do it. You let the compounding of growth happen over the decades, not so much later in life.
I agree, but for many people in their 20s and 30s, there just isn't much cash left over to invest, especially in Europe with high taxes and mandatory social security funds and pensions.
> Lack of education IMHO is a huge part. Crypto has way more education around how to invest than equities investment. If people are investing, many are choosing crypto.
More education around investing in crypto? I think we must be exposed to some very different parts of the internet. Investing in boring index funds are very widely spread around these days. Might not be exciting, and I guess there isn’t really something to sell (unlike crypto), so perhaps that’s part of the reason.
At the end of the day, investing in an ETF for 10 years isn't going to move the needle much. but catching the right crypto wave will have a larger impact on their life.
Investing in the S&P 500 for 10 years will on-average double your money, and that’s inflation adjusted. Over 40 years, you 10x on average, again inflation adjusted.
yeah. that is my point: for many people, "double [your spare] money" means going from $1 to $2...
Tech (and finance) workers have always had a surplus of wages enabling a comfortable life and plenty left over for investment. Personally, my 'worst' year investing my wages is when I only saved 50%. Currently, I save 70% of my after-tax income. As a result, "double your money" is a very meaningful number.
But if your wages are closer to the average stagnating wage-growth that doesn't keep up with inflation, double $0 or double $1 isn't meaningful.
Yep that's pretty much it.
And in France (I believe most of rich Europe as well), there are mandatory "social contribution" on capital gains which are collected directly by the banks.
So if you don't have much money "working" for you, they will take a good part of whatever small gains you made.
So it doesn't go down, but the gains are so small it's kinda pointless.
Of course, those who can save a lot every year get compounding benefits quite fast, but is a class that is becoming more rare every year passing.
> At the end of the day, investing in an ETF for 10 years isn't going to move the needle much. but catching the right crypto wave will have a larger impact on their life.
Buying the right lotto tickets will have a larger impact too, but that’s called gambling, not investing. As someone who has just invested in ETFs, 10 years has been plenty to more than double my investment. It moves the needle substantially.
Tech (and finance) workers have always had a surplus of wages enabling a comfortable life and plenty left over for investment. Personally, my 'worst' year investing my wages is when I only saved 50%. Currently, I save 70% of my after-tax income. As a result, "double your money" is a very meaningful number.
If your income is closer to average (and stagnating inflation), there isn't much money to double.
That’s exactly the issue, there’s so many taxes and frictions that people don’t think it is worth it, and that’s one of the reasons why Europe is stagnating. Investment in business creates strong economies.
I don't have data readily to hand (and Draghi probably mentions this in the report, I can't remember), but anecdotally based on what I hear from many of my European friends, Europeans basically keep their savings in bank savings accounts. That means that there is less investment capital floating around, which in turn means that the tiny fraction that finds its way into innovation is in turn greatly diminished. Europeans are dependent on bank loans for funding, and banks want to see assets as security for their loans.
Policies like this would further disincentivize Europeans to invest in their own stock markets, further damaging the ability of Europeans to innovate.