The markets, stock and financial, used to be driven by hedge funds, banks and governments. But there is a huge change in money and investing right now. It’s a move from control of stocks and markets from hedge funds to individual investors. Where social media can push a market in a particular direction, or boost a stock.
Smaller investors using platforms like eToro, where in the UK you can invest for just $50/£37 or so at a time mean that anyone can build a portfolio. The 18-year-old who works in a supermarket can build up their funds for the future.
Will pensions become a thing of the past? Pensions, here in
the UK are compulsory, but they lock you in to badly performing funds. Of course, there is now the “Self Invested Pension Plan” or SIPP where you can invest your funds yourself, but the fees on these can be quite high, whereas you could have invested without fees on some brokerage platforms. Plus, you can withdraw your money at any time, whereas here in the UK you have to wait till you are 55 years old before accessing your pension funds.
Is this new self-investment better than the pension funds? I think it depends on the investor, but the main thing they offer is control of your own destiny.
Personally, I like a collection of stocks, cryptocurrency plus I have a forex robot that trades the forex markets. I use eToro as my broker for the stocks and crypto having moved away from Coinbase as their fees are way too high for my liking. Vantage FX is my chosen broker for forex trading because my robot runs on the Metatrader 4 platform.
What we’ve seen with things like r/Wallstreetbets is that the little guy, when gathered with others can make a difference. The age of the hedge fund will soon come to an end and the retail investor managing their own portfolio will take over.
When I see young people on Tiktok saying how they skipped a takeaway and invested in the stock market, I’m encouraged. Go for it. Build your future now and don’t struggle.
Is it ever too late to get started?
For me, I think not, I think redirecting funds that would have been wasted on other things is never a bad thing — don’t forget, every now and then a share or device will rally fast, when you catch it and take the profits there is a tidy sum to be made. It’s not difficult to do either as long as you pay attention to your trades. I check mine at least twice a day. If there are fast moves in something I put my stop up by checking the charts. You can do that on TradingView or eToro have their own charting platform. I add the MACD indicator and work from the 4-hour chart to tell what is going on and which direction the market is going — it can be quite difficult to tell especially in slow-moving markets.
So the future? Less money in the control of hedge funds and more in the control of the individual investor. With people voting with their stocks on what they like and don’t like. More in this guide.
