Investing in bonds and the savings bank is safe as we will see. But if you are adventurous you can make a great deal from Forex.
The article is written primarily for the smaller investor who needs high yield, the man who has between, let us say, $5,000 and $100,000. If the $5,000 investor secures a return on his money not of 3%, or $150 per year, but 12% $600 per year his benefit will be material, not nominal.
If the $100,000 investor receives not $3,000 but $12,000 the difference is great enough to mean complete financial independence.
While theoretically the large investor, the one with $1,000,000 and up, does not need to consider such investments, because his $1,000,000 in the savings bank yields him $30,000 a year, or his investment in tax free bonds at 4% yields him $40,000 a year not subject to income tax, strangely enough this is the type of investor who invests the most heavily in the types of opportunities examined in this book. Some of the very largest aggregations of capital in the world do little other than invest in mortgages at discounts, foreign loans, real estate syndications and investment partnerships.
Strange as it may seem, the person least satisfied with a low yield is often the very wealthy person. If such people invest in the opportunities examined in this book, these opportunities deserve at least a quick survey by the smaller investor. There may very well be a good reason behind the saying that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The rich may know how to invest more intelligently with more information available to them.
In a stable economy we might consider high rate investments as desirable but not necessary. But we are not in a stable economy. We are in an economy in which every year our fund of savings is worth less. Dollars in themselves mean little. They have meaning only insofar as they can purchase goods and services. Let us see how this purchasing power of the dollar fared since the end of the war.
With 1947-1949 equal to 100%, consumer prices rose to 102.8% in 1950. If we consider that at this point in history 1950 we have $102 in the savings bank at 3% interest we can get a strikingly clear idea of savings in a period of inflation.
By 1960 in 10 years consumer prices had risen to 126.5%.
Now if the $102 in the bank in 1950 drew 3% interest, after a hypothetical tax of 33%, the owner of the $102 savings account would find by 1960 his account had grown to $122. His interest didn't even enable him to keep up with inflation. He was actually poorer in 1960 than he was in 1950.
If a person were in the 50% tax bracket 4% compounded annually would amount to the same thing. He would have $122 in 1960, the same amount that the person in the 33% bracket would have with his return of 3%.
Although Forex is much more risky you stand to gain a lot more, but remember that
You should not risk more than you can afford to lose.