There are many many choices available. As I'm a foreigner in US, I always have an option of storing up to 15k$ in a bank account in my home country with about 3% interest rate. Any larger sum will be subject to the risk of bank collapsing (which happens daily in that country), but <15k$ is reimbursed in that case by our government. If you have more money - that just means more paperwork as you need to open more than one account.
Another unique thing about my country is that I can be a venture capitalist there, but not here (here you need to possess 1M$ to become an angel investor). I did not find any good startups there though.
Finally, the currency was doing something very interesting in my home country, and all the savings that I had in my own currency were halved. Bitcoin wasn't doing too bad but it seems to get illegal soon.
So let's discuss US and what one can do here. First, note that I look at three parameters: performance in the past (and here one should mention more than one timescale), risk (how many big jumps up and down are there), and sentiment (is there any impending doom on that financial instrument). Of course that's not enough for complete analysis, only for the first step. I'll try to outline the complete analysis in my further posts. The above three choices are as follows:
1) bank - performance +3% yr, risk = 0, impending doom = quite substantial since I'm pessimistic about my country. Also, a lot of hassle with actually opening those accounts.
2) startup - performance +50% last yr, risk = ? illiquid, so no data, impending doom = almost certain. Most of the startups don't return on the investment in any way. It only makes sense if you can invest in a 100 of them at once, which I can't as I don't have 1M$ after all.
3) my home currency - performance -50% last yr, risk = 20% (I don't expect bigger jumps than that), impending doom = that's the problem with the currencies, isn't it? Unless you wanna speculate, none of the currencies just grows indefinitely. If I keep my money in dollars in a can for 10 or a 100 years, I don't expect to be rich just because of that. Don't think that ever happened in history. One think that I can do with dollars is to go to the country where the currency is doing really poorly and enjoy my life there. I think the rules of Forex trading allow one to short a currency - that is, try to win money on the assumption that a given country gonna collapse through the floor. That idea seems strangely appealing to a pessimistic person. The fact that I'm holding my money in dollars is already a first step towards that.
4) bitcoin - performance +100% last yr, risk = 30%, impending doom = pretty sure that it will get forbidden by all major governments. It seems that the recent growth was partly due to a Russian con artists' operations in Africa in India.
Another unique thing about my country is that I can be a venture capitalist there, but not here (here you need to possess 1M$ to become an angel investor). I did not find any good startups there though.
Finally, the currency was doing something very interesting in my home country, and all the savings that I had in my own currency were halved. Bitcoin wasn't doing too bad but it seems to get illegal soon.
So let's discuss US and what one can do here. First, note that I look at three parameters: performance in the past (and here one should mention more than one timescale), risk (how many big jumps up and down are there), and sentiment (is there any impending doom on that financial instrument). Of course that's not enough for complete analysis, only for the first step. I'll try to outline the complete analysis in my further posts. The above three choices are as follows:
1) bank - performance +3% yr, risk = 0, impending doom = quite substantial since I'm pessimistic about my country. Also, a lot of hassle with actually opening those accounts.
2) startup - performance +50% last yr, risk = ? illiquid, so no data, impending doom = almost certain. Most of the startups don't return on the investment in any way. It only makes sense if you can invest in a 100 of them at once, which I can't as I don't have 1M$ after all.
3) my home currency - performance -50% last yr, risk = 20% (I don't expect bigger jumps than that), impending doom = that's the problem with the currencies, isn't it? Unless you wanna speculate, none of the currencies just grows indefinitely. If I keep my money in dollars in a can for 10 or a 100 years, I don't expect to be rich just because of that. Don't think that ever happened in history. One think that I can do with dollars is to go to the country where the currency is doing really poorly and enjoy my life there. I think the rules of Forex trading allow one to short a currency - that is, try to win money on the assumption that a given country gonna collapse through the floor. That idea seems strangely appealing to a pessimistic person. The fact that I'm holding my money in dollars is already a first step towards that.
4) bitcoin - performance +100% last yr, risk = 30%, impending doom = pretty sure that it will get forbidden by all major governments. It seems that the recent growth was partly due to a Russian con artists' operations in Africa in India.
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