Tag: investing

If you are a new investor entering the stock market, you might get overwhelmed with all the investing terminology. Don’t let that intimidate you, remember that everyone was a beginner at some point. But to help you find your way on the stock market I’ll explain some of the most common investing jargon for you. Investing terminology explained Before we dive in, let’s have a look at what investing actually is: Investing The act of putting money towards assets with the goal to generate income or profit and build wealth. Do you want to learn how to invest? Then I have the perfect course for you! Ok, that’s clear. Now let’s proceed with some much used investing terminology. 1. Bear market What we call a longer period of time where there is a decline in prices. The drop is usually around 20% or more compared to recent heights. Mentioning the words “bear market” and “near” in one sentence can cause nausea with a lot of investors. It means that the market is expected to go down and that stocks will decline in value. Of course that also means prices are cheaper, and depending on your strategy it might be a good opportunity to buy. 2. Broker A broker is someone who facilitates transactions on the stock market. Stock exchanges only accept orders from people or firms who are a member of the exchange. That means that investors like you and I need an intermediary to put through our orders. The broker provides that service and receives money in the form of fees. 3. Brokerage account An account that allows you to buy, sell and hold investments. I always compare a brokerage account with an internet browser: it is your gateway. Usually a brokerage account consists of two elements. The first one is a cash balance that serves as a checking account for orders on the stock market. You need to transfer money to the cash balance in order to make a purchase. The second part is your actual brokerage account, the place where you store your investments. Whenever you sell a stock, ETF, fund… the money will become available on the cash balance. 4. Bull market The opposite of a bear market. In a bull market, the prices rise and investors are optimistic about the economy and they are confident that the good results will keep on coming in. Bull and bear markets are often intertwined with the general situation in the world. An example of a bull market is the period after the financial crisis – and bear market – in 2008. 5. Dividend A company can decide to share part of their earnings with their stock holders. That pay-out is called a dividend. Dividends can be paid out in cash or in new stocks. The board decides how much the dividend will be, and in what form the investors will receive it. Dividend investing is a strategy where an investor opts for mostly stocks that pay dividend, to build a passive income. You can either live off those dividends or you can re-invest them in other products. Mind you, to have a significant dividend you need to invest a significant sum. 6. Horizon The amount of time you are planning to hold an investment before selling it. If you are still young and you start investing to save for retirement, your horizon is really long. But for short term goals it will obviously be shorter. Rule of thumb: the longer the horizon, the more results. 7. Index An index measures the performance of a specific market or list of stocks. It was created in order to see at once how a whole economy was doing, instead of looking at every stock individually. The performance of an index is measured in points. Famous indices are the Dow Jones (oldest US index that contains 30 stocks) and the S&P 500 (500 large listed companies in the US). 8. Stock exchange A stock exchange is a platform where financial products are traded. To get access to a stock exchange you need a broker. The exchange used to be a physical place where buyers and sellers got together. They would make transactions by yelling instructions and making hand signals (‘open outcry’). Nowadays everything has gone digital, making the stock exchange much more accessible to everyone with a computer or smartphone. 9. Ticker A ticker is a symbol that identifies a stock. It is a unique code that you can enter in your broker app to search for and buy a particular product. The ticker usually consists of letters and numbers. Examples: MMM – 3M AAPL – Apple WOOF – Petco 10. Volatility Volatility measures how much the price of a financial product goes up and down. If the price goes up and down a lot – with a large difference between the highs and lows – the product is very volatile. Stocks are more volatile than diversified products like ETF’s or mutual funds. Volatility is an important indicator to see if a product suits your strategy or not.

This is a message to all the lazy people out there: did you know that you have what it takes to be a great investor? No? Well, you do! Being lazy is actually the best thing you can do on the stock market. “I just wait until there is money lying in the corner, and all I have to do is go over there and pick it up.” James Rogers (American investor) Passive investing with ETF’s As I said, being lazy on the stock market is a great quality. But in finance we don’t call it being lazy, we call it passive investing. Passive investing is a strategy where you interfere as little as possible and you just let your portfolio grow. It’s also called the buy-and-hold strategy: you buy investments with the goal of keeping them long term, instead of aiming for the short term profits. While there are many ways to shape your own passive investment strategy, there is one product that is absolutely perfect for this approach, and that product is an ETF. Learn everything there is to know about passive investing with the ETF crash course. Subscribe to the waiting list and get a 20% discount! First of all: what is an ETF? An ETF – or exchange traded fund – is a type of passively managed investment fund that is traded on an exchange, just like a stock. It is a basket of securities that allows investors to diversify their portfolio. But what is a stock again? A stock is a fraction of a company. It provides the owner with a certain amount of rights, and the company gets money in return. How it works What an ETF does is gather financial products – most commonly stocks – and put them all into one basket. Investors can then buy units of the fund (yes, an ETF is a fund) through which they own fractions of all the underlying assets. What types of ETF’s are there? Index funds An index measures the performance of a range of listed companies in a specific economy or industry. For example: the S&P 500 is a collection of the 500 largest listed American companies. An index fund will track that index and replicate its returns. Because of this, index ETF’s are also called trackers. Industry ETF’s An industry ETF focuses on a range of stocks within a certain industry. For example: an ETF that focuses on the pharmaceutical industry will invest in a collection of stocks issued by pharmaceutical companies. This way investors don’t have to buy all of those stocks individually. Bonds ETF’s A bond represents a loan between a borrower and an investor. Some ETF’s collect various bonds into one basket and offer them to investors as a package deal. Bond ETF’s are a way to reduce the risk in your portfolio as bonds are relatively secure investments. I discuss more types in my ETF crash course. Join the waiting list now. Why would you invest in an ETF? Diversification A diversified portfolio reduces the risk and optimizes returns. You can diversify by hand picking individual stocks, or you could just buy one or more ETF’s that are spread out across industries, products… ETF’s allow you to diversify with very little effort. Low fees Contrary to mutual funds, most ETF’s are passively managed. This results in lower fees, because there are no fund managers whose expertise needs to be paid for. The lower the fees, the higher your possible returns. Passive investing Aka: being lazy! The only thing you need to do is set up automatic regular payments, and the ETF will do the hard work for you. There is no short term trading required. Just let the fund work its magic and let your money work for you instead of the other way around. Ready to receive free tips about money and investing? Subscribe!

People often ask me if I can invest their money for them, but I’m not a financial planner. I don’t give financial advice either, because I believe in the power of doing it yourself. If you want something done right, do it yourself. If you want something done right, do it yourself. That’s what I was told as a kid, and I stand by it. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise when I tell you that you really should learn how to invest yourself, instead of letting someone else do it for you. Not all things require experts I know, I know, you cannot do everything yourself. Some things are just too hard or not your cup of tea. For example: when my toilet decides to start a second career as a fountain I’m not gonna try and fix it myself. For that I’ll happily call a plumber. When it comes to finance a lot of people are eager to delegate it. The stock market often triggers images of boring financial newspapers and complicated charts and numbers. I totally get why you would ask a broker or bank to advise you. Take back control But I like to be in control of my own money. I don’t love the idea of handing over the management over something I worked so hard for. “Sure, but I don’t know how to invest myself Valerie.“ If you don’t understand the stock market, isn’t it better to let an expert handle it? Yes and no: ➡️ Yes, because investing without knowledge is the worst thing you can do. ➡️ No, because if you don’t have the knowledge yourself, how will you know if the expert is good at what they do? Learn how to invest yourself: the benefits It’s a tough call, because they don’t teach us money management in school. It all starts with educating yourself. Even the very basics will get you further ahead, trust me. >>> If you want to learn more, in this blog post I talk about the 4 pillars of financial knowledge. Why should you learn to invest yourself, and not have someone else do it for you? You have the power to change your life for the better, and seizing the reigns to steer your cash in the right direction is a heck of a way to do it. 1. You have control over your own money Work work work. Whether it’s for yourself or for an employer: money requires an effort. And after that you’re just going to surrender the control over it? Let someone else be in charge? I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t sit right with me. It’s your money, so you deserve to be its manager. 2. It’s really empowering Confidence, we all crave it. There are many different ways to build confidence, but if you ask me I’ll definitely put managing your own money on top of the list. I personally get a buzz from realizing that I was a really bad at economics once, and now I’m an investing expert. You have the power to change your life for the better, and seizing the reigns to steer your cash in the right direction is a heck of a way to do it. 3. You stay in touch with what happens in the world The stock market reflects what happens in the world. Crisis? Economic decline. Covid? Stock market panic. Revolutionary new medicine? Optimism in the pharmaceutical side of the market. And so on, and so on. Once you learn how to invest, you automatically develop an interest for how everything is connected in the world economy. You realize that what you see on the news and social media also happens in your portfolio. I think it’s fascinating, and it sure helped me to get a better understanding of how the world works. 4. You’ll know when someone is trying to scam you If you know how the stock market works you can still decide to delegate your portfolio management. The difference is that with a decent financial education you will be able to recognize the scammers. You’ll know what to pay attention to. A good financial planner/advisor will for example happily discuss your investment strategy with you. If they are reluctant to keep you in the loop: run. 5. You maintain a healthy relationship with finance Happy relationships aren’t built on avoidance. They need proper engagement. Let’s say you have a friend. You tell them you only like staying in touch because you need someone to support you in bad times, someone to call when you’ve been dumped. If you act like this, do you expect your friend to be happy to see you or to reach out to you? Of course not! The same thing is true for finance. If you state that you hate money but you need it to pay the bills, money won’t flow towards you. So please invest in your relationship with money by managing it yourself. (Book tip: “You’re a badass at making money” by Jen Sincero levels up your money mindset.)

A decent financial education is super important when you want to start building wealth. So here are the 4 pillars financial knowledge is all about. Memorize them, recite them to your dog, write them in your diary but most importantly: implement them. 📚 First pillar: READ Reading and knowledge are like burgers and ketchup: besties for life (with al due respect to the burger with mayo eating population but don’t expect me to endorse this MONSTROSITY). Go to the library or the nearest book store and get yourself some finance books. Trust me, that’s less boring than it sounds. There are so many different books about money, just start with one that appeals to you and that suits your level of current knowledge. Book tips*: ‘You’re a badass at making money’ by Jen Sincero is so breezy you’ll finish it in 2 days. It’s about money mindset. Yes, that is finance too. ‘Rich dad poor dad’ by Robert Kiyosaki ‘Investing for dummies’ – various authors in the ‘for dummies’ series Give it a try. I bet you look smokin’ too in those reading glasses. *I don’t get any sort of commission if you decide to make a purchase. I genuinely recommend these books. Start small! Read my free guide first: 👂 Second pillar: LISTEN The amount of information we can process through hearing is phenomenal. The pace is really high and it requires not that much effort and energy. Listening in order to collect financial knowledge can come in different forms. Listen to audio books or podcasts on a walk. Then off course there’s listening to others, this can broaden your horizon. Lastly, listen to the news. Whatever happens in the world has an impact on the economy and helps you understand finance better. 👄 Third pillar: DISCUSS Something interesting happens to our brain when we discuss things with other people: we challenge our own and each other’s knowledge. In the first two pillars it’s all about taking in information, in the third one you’re putting that newfound knowledge into circulation. This helps you to form your attitude towards certain topics, and to analyze them on a deeper level. 🚀 Fourth pillar: DO The final and probably most important pillar is turning your knowledge into action. Knowledge alone won’t bring in the cash. Don’t just think about how much you could save, set aside money each month. Don’t just read about the stock market but start investing with small amounts. Don’t be afraid of making mistakes along the way. That’s called growth. Invest in your own financial knowledge I understand it can be hard to start all of this on your own. That’s why you can count on me to help you. In my course ‘Newbie to investor’ I show you the ins and outs of basic economics and the stock market. Click below to get more information:

I’m a dropout. There, I said it. I don’t have a master’s degree. I don’t even have a bachelor’s degree, and yet I became an expert in finance. And you can do that too. Here’s how. Story time! I didn’t finish college. Not because I was a bad student, quite the contrary. In high school I studied Greek and Latin and I absolutely adored it. I studied the ancient languages by choice in my teens, that says something about my appetite for learning. An 18 year old kid Naturally when high school came to an end everyone expected me and my classmates to go college. There really was no other option or at least no one talked about it. We were given brochures of all the different courses we could take at university and I felt an immense pressure. At 18 years old I needed to decide what I was going to do for the rest of my life. 18! I found it ridiculous. At that age most of us are still kids and I had little to no idea where my place in the world would be. Some of my classmates were adamant on becoming a doctor or a journalist, but I think a lot of us just took a guess. Law school then? I was torn between many different curriculums. You have to know I’m a multipassionate, and I thought about becoming a translator, an archeologist, a police detective… but ultimately ended up choosing law school. Why? Not because I wanted to become a lawyer, but because I figured it was broad enough to postpone my decision for a profession. I was catapulted into an existential crisis, had no idea where to go from there and became pretty depressed. The first year of college wasn’t even complete when I realized that I hated it. There were a couple of subjects that I liked, but I couldn’t envision myself going through with it until graduation. Then again, I had no idea what to do instead if I would drop out. I was catapulted into an existential crisis, had no idea where to go from there and became pretty depressed. Up until then I had been happy at school. I had great classmates, got along with the teachers and had good grades. After leaving high school I felt sad to leave all of that behind, although I was excited for the next chapter. But law school made me feel… lost. Exams? Failed. Because of my low motivation I failed many of the subjects and had to redo a couple of exams. In the second year I dropped out after the first semester. At 21 I moved out and started living by myself. I quickly noticed that life is expensive, so I found a job to pay for my rent and bills. During the years I kept learning – I might not have my bachelor’s or master’s degree but I have several diplomas. Tragic by the way how I always have to check the “high school diploma only” box on forms 🙄 About 1,5 years ago I found out that I am “highly gifted”. That means that I quickly lose interest once I master something new – I’m a super fast learner – and let me tell you: that’s exhausting. With every new job I though: “Yes, this is it! I finally found my calling!”. And after 3 months I got sick of it, to my own disappointment. Getting the confirmation of being highly intelligent meant the world to me. Not because I was after the label, but because I know now how to cope with it. I finally get how my brain works and that’s a giant relief. A job at the bank? Me?! Needless to say that due to this, I have a long resume. I ran out of inspiration of jobs to apply for, so I asked a temp office to search one for me when I came back after a year of traveling. They sent me to a bank, to my own surprise. “Are you sure?” I asked. “I really sucked at economics in college.” Economics was a mandatory subject in law school and we had an (pardon my French) absolute sexist jerk of a professor. He told us in the first class that women were better off working as nurses instead of lawyers. 🤮  Needless to say I didn’t have a positive relationship with economics. So of course I was worried about that when I went to apply for a customer service position at the bank. But they ensured me that I would get an in-house training and I got hired. Who knew I of all people would fall in love with investing? It’s that training that sparked my interest for investing. Suddenly economics weren’t boring anymore, I could see the real life impact of it. It was fantastic and I was completely hooked. I ran to the store for books about finance, I started researching the stock market and I starte investing myself. The love hasn’t stopped since. What I discovered in the meantime is that my strength lies in explaining complicated things in a simple and easy way. And that is why I became a coach and why I try to convince you to get that same financial education. You can become a finance expert too You see, economics impact your life in ways you often don’t even realize. What I want to do is give you the power to control your own life and fortune. Wouldn’t that be great? Now that you know my story I want you to read this carefully: If I can do it, you can do it too. You might think finance is boring, that investing is too complicated. But if someone like me – the college dropout that hated economics – can do it, so can you! I created a course just for you I designed ‘Newbie to investor’ from my own experience of not understanding finance.

When I first started investing I imagined the stock market as a jungle. I envisioned I stood at the edge of the jungle, thinking there was absolutely no way to get in there without getting lost (or at least seriously hurt, haha). Investing to me meant a couple of things. Here are some of the opinions that came to my mind when thinking of finance and the stock market: finance is boring necessary to read difficult financial newspapers (the kind where you read a piece 5 times and still don’t understand) white men in suits talking gibberish putting money into schemes I didn’t understand locking your money away for a long time, not being able to reach it when you need to There’s a good chance you might be nodding now. “Yes Valerie, that’s exactly what I think!” Well, in that case I have some good news for you: it doesn’t have to be this complicated. In order to understand investing you should take it step by step. And the first step is to understand what kind of products you can buy on the stock market. The stock market and its products First of all: what is the stock market? The stock market is just like any other market: a place where buyers and sellers meet. Only here they don’t sell fruit or vegetables, they sell a variety of financial instruments. In order to see the forest through the trees as a beginner there are 4 products you need to learn about. Get a good understanding of these before you do anything else. Stocks A stock is a fraction of a company. Whenever a company goes public (i.e. offers itself on the stock market) it virtually splits itself up into pieces that are valued at a certain price. Those pieces are the stocks. The goal? Raising capital the company can use for further growth, product development etc… Stocks are considered the purest form of investing because you have a direct link with the issuing company. You get to share in both wins and losses, so there is quite a large risk attached to investing in stocks. As a stock holder you own a piece of the company, which also comes with voting rights. Bonds A bond is a financial instrument that represents a loan between a borrower and an investor. The borrower – for example: the government – needs money and issues bonds that investors can buy at a set price. The bond is a proof of the loan and has a fixed due date after which the investor is reimbursed. Usually a set interest rate is communicated upon issuing the bonds, so the investor knows how much the profit will be. Bonds are considered fairly safe investments. Learn how to start investing and build wealth with my course “Newbie to investor”: Mutual funds A mutual fund is a basket of securities and consists most commonly of bonds and stocks. Multiple investors put money into the fund through a broker, and the fund managers will actively follow up on the fund’s structure with the goal of optimizing the returns. For this active management investors pay a fee. Mutual funds offer diversification, so that you – the investor – don’t have to purchase each of the underlying financial instruments individually. ETF’s ETF stands for “exchange traded fund”. They are similar to mutual funds because ETF’s too are baskets of securities. The difference? They are not actively managed which means they have lower fees. ETF’s are freely available and are traded all day long on the stock market (whereas the price of mutual funds is only determined once a day or even once a week). They are in fact traded like stocks. My opinion? They are the ultimate beginner product because of the simplicity, diversification and low fees. Investing in ETF’s will give you the opportunity to get to know the market in a low effort way. Side note A lot of ETF’s are index funds, meaning they track a particular index. What is an index?A list of securities to measure the performance of a certain market. For example: the S&P500 index measures the performance of the largest US listed companies. An ETF that tracks the S&P500 buys all stocks in that index, so if you buy a unit of the ETF you have a tiny part of each and every one of those stocks. Recap The stock market is a place where buyers and sellers meet to trade in financial instruments. There are 4 products you need to know and understand as a beginner:– stocks– bonds– mutual funds– ETF’s ETF’s are great beginner products as they are simple, diversified and relatively cheap. Hungry for more? Start learning how to invest with “Newbie to investor” now!

It seems like everyone is investing nowadays. You can’t turn on the tv without seeing an ad for a broker app and stock market tips are all over social media. We are all starting to realize that just saving money isn’t gonna cut it. But how do you start investing? Saving is losing Savin is losing. There, I said it. Inflation rates are sky high and they are surpassing interest rates on savings accounts by miles. This means that you are losing money without spending it. The best way to combat inflation? Investing. Investing = putting money into financial schemes, shares, property… with the expectation of achieving a profit. Getting your money invested is what will keep it in the running. It means that you are actively participating in the economy and your hard earned cash is not going to waste. “Sure Valerie, that’s nice and all, but where do I even start?” I get that investing can seem daunting. It took me years to get started because I was convinced that the stock market was a playground of the rich only. I also thought it was too dangerous to put my savings on the line. What if I lost it all? Luckily, I learned a lot in the past couple of years and I know now that you can start with small amounts and that taking huge risks is not necessary. Follow these steps to start investing First of all: you need to set goals. Knowing what you want to do with your money is crucial because it will give you the motivation you need. I want you to really visualize this: do you want a nice house in 10 years? Do you want to send your future kids to a private school? Do you want to take care of your loved ones after you die, donate to charity, buy a condo in Thailand… Whatever it is you want, write it down and revisit that goal from time to time. Secondly, you need to take a look at your financial situation. Track your expenses and see where you are at financially. See if you are overspending on things you don’t need. Maybe you can save on things you weren’t even aware of you bought. Look for ways to increase your income if you’re short on money and can’t cut back. Calculate what you could set aside every month. This is also important to determine how much risk you can take. Now it’s time to learn about the stock market. It is in fact like any other market: a place where buyers and sellers come together. You can choose from the range of products and pick the ones that are interesting to you. In order to choose you need to know the basic products: stocks, mutual funds and ETF’s. Select the products that will make up your portfolio following a strategy. That strategy is based upon your risk profile and financial situation. That’s why it is really important to go through those first steps before you are even taking a look at the stock market. Lastly, you need to pick a broker. A broker is your gateway to the stock market. They facilitate your transactions. See if the broker of your choice offers advice if you want that, check the fees and the available markets. Stock market products for beginning investors Stocks: fractions of a company. You have a direct link to the company and get to share in their wins and losses. Mutual funds: a basket of securities that commonly consists of bonds and stocks. They are manually built by fund managers. Mutual funds allow you to diversify without having to buy all underlying stocks separately. ETF’s: exchange traded fund. Similar to a mutual fund but this product is not managed actively, meaning you also get the diversification but at a lower cost. ETF’s are traded all day long just like stocks. Download my guide “How to start investing” for FREE: Go and listen to this episode on Spotify. If you enjoyed it, please subscribe and share the podcast with your friends. P.s.: Are you eager to learn more about investing? Check out my online course “Newbie to investor”. It contains everything you need to know to get started.