STRATEGIC INVESTMENT ADVICE

You can invest using cash or you can borrow to invest. Using cash to invest relies on your personal cashflow to ensure you’re contributing every cash surplus you have towards investing.  Because cash is a limited resource for most people, your investment will depend on how quickly and how much you can put in.

You can also borrow to invest. Borrowing to invest – mostly termed as gearing – is a way to amplify your investment opportunities. You instantly get more money to invest. Because you’ve borrowed money to invest, there’re costs associated to the debt owed and repayments must be paid to ensure the debt is repaid. Any profits made after repaying the debt is yours to keep. Borrowing money to invest should only be considered if the overall return – once all the debts have been paid off  and all associated costs cleared- provide a positive outcome more than the cost of the investment.

Benefits of borrowing to Invest

• You will have access to higher capital base to invest. This can increase your chances for a greater growth potential

• You may be able to offset the cost of the debt against your income. This could be beneficial for people in a higher tax bracket to assist in managing their taxes

Risks of borrowing to Invest

• You will have a higher cost associated with your borrowed funds. If the investment income does not exceed the cost of borrowing, then you’ll have a shortfall which will require you having to top up each time to cover your debts. This could lead to serious cashflow deficit issues if not properly managed.

• If investment markets under perform and crash, there’s the potential to suffer greater losses due to the higher amounts invested.

• If interest rates go up, then there’s a risk of having to carry a larger debt on a larger interest repayment. If this is unsustainable, if could lead to losing the asset altogether.

• Because you’re reliant on your income in repaying the debt, if you lose that income due to sickness, injury, job loss, then you’ll not be able to sustain the investment and may have to sell quickly to redeem the debt. This could lead to a fire sale of your asset which may not yield the best return.

There’s always going to be risk with any investment strategy. In fact, there’s risk just having cash in a bank account. Inflation tends to erode the value of your money and this is a risk to savings.

Volatility

Investment markets tend to rise and fall and move in cycles. Some asset classes may experience a high degree of rapid changes than others. This is what we term volatility. Volatility could lead to market risks. Asset values may drop as a result of this. As different asset classes experience different degrees of volatility at any given point, mixing these assets up could reduce the stress volatility could cause on your overall investments. This will reduce your risk in the investments. This is what diversification is all about.

Interest rate risk

As discussed, when you borrow money to invest, there’s a cost associated to it. Interest rates tend to rise and fall too. Generally, when interest rates fall, most people are comfortable with that and tend to increase borrowings or use the extra capacity to pay down the debt. However, if interest rates rise, there’s a strain on cashflow and without proper cashflow planning, you may find yourself to be stressed. You can fix interest rates if you think interest rates are going up. Much as this doesn’t stop rates from rising, it sure helps with your cashflow management to know your expense throughout.

Risk to income

We discussed what could potentially happen to your income in the event of sickness, injury or loss or job even. You may be able to have a cash buffer for these unplanned events or in some cases buy insurance to cover these events. Without the income coming in, you may not be able to maintain your loan repayments which may lead to having to sell your investments when you’re not ready to do so.

Investment success will not happen by chance. We can help you design and monitor your personalised strategic plan to ensure you can reach your intended life goals.