Cooking the Books podcast: Are the highs of high risk investing worth it?

If higher risk investments can go up and down, why would you bother? Photo / File

Each week the NZ Herald and Newstalk ZB's Cooking The Books podcast tackles a different money problem. Today, it's why people bother with volatile higher risk investments. Hosted by Frances Cook.

When we talk about investing, we often take the time to warn about high-risk investments.

We'll tell people you need to be ready for the ups and downs of such investments, to do your research, prepare mentally, and make sure you have a long timeframe to ride out volatility.

It's all true, but talking about this often gives the unfortunate impression that investing puts you at risk of losing everything. So people do nothing.

What gets missed in those conversations is why you would even bother with all of that.

If high-risk investments often go down, and have the potential to cause sleepless nights, why would you put yourself through it?

The problem is that it's impossible to reach certain financial goals, if you only ever put your money in a savings account.

Well as it's World Investor Week, now seems as good a time as any to make it clear why people say you don't get reward without the risk.

Because while some people think a low risk investment is the same as a safe investment, sometimes it's anything but.

I talked to David Boyle from Mint Asset Management about the pros and cons of higher risk investments, and the difference between a calculated risk, and gambling.

For the episode, listen to the podcast.

If you have a question about this podcast, or an idea for the next one, come and talk to me about it. I'm on Facebook here, Instagram here and Twitter here.

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