Our objective is to help people make better investment decisions. Many people have trouble making the right decisions in their adult life, and many people make bad investment decisions. As a result, most people end up being much less financially wealthy that they could be.

We believe that people need to improve their financial wellness, and save for the long term. And that the best way to do that is with a high portion of equity (shares), and a 10-15 years investment horizon. When you buy a house, you really expect to keep it for 10 years or more, don’t you? It should be the same with your shares.

Truth be told, we agree that investing can be hard, for a number of reasons, that mostly reside ‘inside your brain’:

• Inertia: Getting started can be hard, and many people don’t know when, where and how to start. When faced with too many choices, the most common outcome is to “do nothing now and decide later”. Many people say that they think that they should save more, and plan to save more, but never get moving. By default, people never get started.

• Lack of knowledge: There is a massive lack of knowledge, but also a vast amount of myths, false believes and lies about financing and investing. So we believe that education is key and we advise against investing in stocks unless you feel that you are financially literate. Unfortunately, you didn’t learn how to manage your money at school, so you have to learn it via other ways (and often the hard way). And in addition, nobody can make investment decisions for you, so you need to “be your own man” (or woman).

• Self-control:  at the first sign of trouble, whether real or imagined, people get cold feet and sell. Psychologically, people hate losses more than twice as much as they like gains. It you take a long-term investment perspective, there is no reason to get into panic when the price of something that you own goes down – in the contrary, it could be opportune to buy more. If you can’t keep you brain in check, then investing is not for you.

• In addition, there is a large industry of sales people trying to sell things to you that are actually not a good fit for you – bank account managers disguised as advisors, fund managers, and even politicians! The same salesmen also forget to mention the costs, which are often hidden and high, and accumulate over time. If you have ever invested in a fund charging a 2%-5% ‘Ausgabeaufschlag’ and 1.5% annual cost, do you understand that whether the fund manager does a good job or not, the costs to you over 10 years will accumulate to about 20% of the initial capital invested? Do you ever remember receiving an invoice from a fund manager, explicitly showing how many Euros they are charging you annually for their services? Whether the stock market goes up or down, the salesmen will always make a good living, and eat into the performance of your investments.

But it is not all hopeless. Over the long term, the stock market has always gone up. And if you are ready to educate yourself, and keep disciplined, you can only be successful. And MyMoneyWorks can help you become a more intelligent and better investor.

A good way to get started is to read the Ten Principles and the interesting articles in the MyMoneyWorks Blog. For example, check the 50-year DAX Return Triangle, you might be surprised to learn that if you take a long-term investment horizon, investing in the DAX has historically been a ‘no-brainer’. Enjoy!