As we slowly start calculating the financial surpluses and month after month more and more money is left in our account, we wonder what to do with it. Leaving them alone will dilute their value, but very risky moves, especially in economic downturns, can end up losing them. What to invest in during a crisis? Here are dozens of ways to double your money in 2022.

Even before the sudden coronavirus pandemic, which led to a powerful reshuffle in financial markets, inflation in Poland had begun to rise dangerously. This was due to low interest rates and excessive consumption fueled by cheap money. However, when the mysterious virus made its home in the country on the Vistula forever, and the Monetary Policy Council delayed raising interest rates, in November 2021 inflation reached its highest rate in 20 years, i.e. 7.8% !

With this result of inflation, deposit and savings accounts will not allow opposition to the loss of value of money. Currently, since interest rates are not high, investing in a deposit may bring an interest of a maximum of 1.5-2%, as long as there are no negative values ​​\u200b\u200bin our account …

So it is impossible to escape inflation using this method, not to mention the additional rate of return … To achieve a return on investment of several percent, you need to resort to other investments. Some are risky solutions. What are you investing in? Let’s check out the individual possibilities.

Stocks, or how to invest in the stock exchange

The stock market is not only images from films in which brokers are plunged into a whirlpool of investments, and funny sayings from Warren Buffett. It’s also a way to get a solid cash injection, even after the 19% capital gains tax has been deducted from your earnings.

To start your adventure in the stock market, you will need a brokerage account and a good chunk of knowledge. Investing on the basis of only luck can quickly exhaust your potential and we will end up with huge financial losses. This is why it is so important to train regularly, use guides and follow expert opinions about your brokerage account.

In times of crisis, long-term investing is often not a very good solution, as important companies withdraw their profits due to financial problems. Fortunately, the situation stabilized in 2021 and large companies resumed sharing their profits with shareholders on a regular basis. In 2022, dividends should also be paid normally.

For example, PZU paid a record high dividend collected over two years, 3.5 PLN per share, which gave an 8-9% rate of return on the purchase of securities even before the dividend day on September 13, 2021.

Plus, if we can catch up with the index slot, we’ll definitely go out on our own. However, it must be remembered that looking for the moment when – for example – the value of the PKO BP shares will be the lowest, in the hope that it will rise later, may not be the best idea at all. In times of turmoil in the financial markets, there is only some uncertainty, so those looking for a basin in the stock exchange may fall into it themselves.

For people who do not want to decide on a particular company, ETFs , that is, mutual funds whose value is close to an entire stock index, for example WIG20, will be a good solution.

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Do you want to learn more about the stock market and investment psychology? Read our article:

★ Bull market and bear market. When do you play and when do you explode?

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Choose a brokerage account for yourself:

The offered financial instruments, especially those that are leveraged, carry the risk of experiencing losses in excess of the invested capital.

Many brokerage accounts, for example among those included in our rating, offer the possibility of investing in foreign markets. Have you always dreamed of owning Facebook, Coca-Cola or Netlfix? Now it’s easy!

Investing in the stock market – in search of aristocratic profits

Let us return for a moment to the question of dividend, which may be a peaceful and attractive form of investment for us. When we buy shares for many years with dividends in mind, the current price of a particular company is of secondary importance to us. The most important thing is the annual share of the company’s profits with its shareholders – therefore, if we want to invest in this way, we have to look for entities that have been paying dividends for years.

In the American market there is such a term as “dividend aristocrats”. These are companies that regularly share their profits, and whose price is rising in the long run . This type of company is, for example, Coca-Cola.

It is difficult to find similar examples on the Polish Stock Exchange, although there are companies that can boast of continuity in dividends.

The Company’s name	How many years are dividends paid?
nuka	15 years
Ascopol	14 years
ambra	11 years
kitty	10 years
Zywiec	10 years
GPW	9 years

Let’s take an example to see if investing in a deposit or buying shares with dividends into account is the most profitable.

You had 10,000 zlotys to invest and decided to deposit it. How much money did you make after a year? 10 thousand 20 zlotys for chocolate. Taking inflation into account, it was actually 9,700 PLN. For the same 10,000 zlotys, you can buy, for example, about 170 Orlen shares (price at the beginning of February 2021) . This fuel company paid a dividend of PLN 3.50 per share and thus received PLN 600, or exactly PLN 486, after deducting the Belka tax. Thus the rate of return was 4.86%. Additionally, Orlen’s stock price rose 30% from February to September 2021.

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Do you want to learn more about investing in profits? We invite you to read our article:

★ What is a dividend? How do you calculate return on investment?

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Treasury and corporate bonds

If the stock market is too risky for us, we may turn to honest bonds. These are debt securities, or simply loans granted to private companies or the state treasury. It is granted by redeeming the bonds issued and getting appropriate interest in return.

Although bonds are considered a low-risk financial instrument, they can be raised (along with the potential profit) by choosing corporate bonds, i.e. debt securities issued by private companies. They will allow you to earn more, but the risk of corporate bankruptcy is higher than the risk of state bankruptcy.

Bonds are purchased on your brokerage account, although it’s worth noting that Treasury bonds are only offered by PKO BP Brokerage House. You can find other forms of purchase (eg by phone or in a branch) on the dedicated website https://www.obligacjeskarbowe.pl/. Inflation-linked government bonds appear particularly attractive .

The biggest downside to bonds is the low return on investment. Funds are frozen for many years, and in return you get only a small interest. By trading stocks, you can earn more – although it involves higher risks.

Investing in the forex market

If it’s not stocks or bonds, maybe currencies? You can invest in it in a real way – that is, by buying a foreign currency to sell it at a profit over time.

You can also trade currencies not through a real exchange, but through virtual speculative transactions. CFDs are used in the forex market for this purpose, which rewards beginners who are well prepared and cards who throw themselves very deep into the water.

This is mainly due to the use of leverage, which allows you to earn a lot without having a large private contribution. However, it can also lead to huge losses.

You can play forex using the brokerage accounts that give you this opportunity. Non-banking trading platforms are the best environment for forex traders thanks to low spreads and high performance mobile apps.

Start trading forex with XTB

The listed assets with the lowest risk are bonds, which – as mentioned earlier – are a form of lending money to the state or a private company. For this loan (eg for a year – then it will be an annual bond), we will get the appropriate rate of return. Stocks are a riskier form of investment, but they can yield a greater return on your invested capital . However, the real world of risk begins with the so-called futures contracts (we bet on whether an asset will become cheaper or more expensive in a certain period) and contracts for difference, for example, in the forex market.

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Don’t know how to buy stock? Nothing difficult! Use our guide:

★ How do you buy stocks? Step by step guide

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Investing in raw materials

Another suggestion is to invest in raw materials, which is a very classic way of dealing with crises that affect currency or stock prices, and often do not affect the valuation of gold and silver. The investment opportunities found in gold are illustrated in the chart below.

If we had bought an ounce of gold for 5,000 PLN in April 2019, we would have cost 7,000 PLN a year later. So here we are talking about an annual rate of return of 40% , which is an excellent result that can only be achieved in the stock exchange or in the forex market. Of course, gold will not always record such dizzying heights, but it is still beneficial to have this raw material in your investment portfolio.

Gold can be purchased in two versions:

• Physical Gold – In this case, you get real bars or coins that you keep at home. When we buy gold from a professional dealer, we will receive appropriate certificates and assurances that he will buy it from us when we want to sell our gold. Physical gold can also be purchased with the option to store it in vaults (or even underground), but then we can’t be sure that in the event of a crisis-induced disruption, we will be able to get it back.

• Paper gold – is a derivative financial instrument based on the trading of gold. This solution is safer in some ways, because we don’t have to keep valuables at home. However, it must be remembered that “paper gold” does not reflect the true amount of physical gold available in the world. Thus, along with the accelerated trading in contracts, there may be price speculation. The commercial market also offers contracts for other raw materials – copper, iron, uranium, oil or even cocoa, wheat, cotton, and sugar .

Valcambi, Umicore, Mint Perth? These are the names of the most famous producers of gold bullion in the world. If you have a solid capital, it is better to choose bars of greater weight, the cost of one gram will be less . There are bars of gold per kilogram waiting for us at the price of a studio apartment in a big city, or maybe a kilogram of silver, which you can get for just over 4,000 PLN.

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Want to know more about Royal Metal Investing? Read our article:

★ How to invest in gold?

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Do you want to invest in raw materials? Try the XM platform

Mentos – How to invest?

Another interesting way to invest is to create an account on the Mintos platform. Not everyone may have heard of it, but it does allow for an annual rate of return of several percent.

How does Mentos work? This Estonian FinTech startup is a platform that acts as an intermediary between loan companies and people who want to invest their money in it. Lenders place available loan offers on this exchange, people with a Mintos account can invest in it , and collect the percentage of interest accrued over time.

It is not a risky investment solution due to its many security features. The most important one is the buy-back guarantee – when the customer does not repay the loan, the lender buys it from you, so you will not lose your money. The risks are not very high and the rate of return is often attractive. This is confirmed by the number of users who have registered on this platform. To date, more than 200,000 people have invested 5 billion euros, usually bringing profits of up to 11%.

Create an account on Mintos

Are there other platforms to invest in loans? An alternative to Mintos, for example, Moncera.

Investing in cryptocurrency

Cryptocurrencies, among which not only Bitcoin is the victor anymore, but also, for example, Ethereum, have become a hot investment asset in recent years.

After many years, the topic, which was of interest only to a small group of specialists, became the object of desire even among Sunday investors. However, it must be remembered that cryptocurrencies (especially less popular ones) are a very volatile asset and may be subject to speculative attacks.

Investors learned about it in 2017 – Bitcoin, after a period of amazing gains from $900 to $20,000, fell to $5,000 the following year. In 2021, the bitcoin price exceeded $30,000, which is more than 110,000 Polish zlotys.

According to many economists, this is another speculative bubble. Novice investors should be very careful with cryptocurrencies . It is better to invest money in understandable financial instruments, and a thorough understanding of the characteristics of electronic currencies based on blockchain technology is not an easy task.

Cryptocurrencies can be purchased on special online exchanges and stored later in virtual or physical wallets. These physical wallets are similar to a flash drive or external drive. Bitcoin or Ethereum can also be bought at Bitomats, ie “ATMs” of cryptocurrencies, well-known in Polish cities . Subsequently, it is uploaded to a physical or virtual wallet.

The last method is CFDs on cryptocurrencies, thanks to which we can also play in cases of decline and not have to worry about storing our virtual currencies .

Play on cryptocurrency fluctuations with XTB

Investing in real estate – renting or flipping?

In times of rising housing prices, many experts specialize only in real estate investing, organizing webinars or conferences on this topic. It is possible that the best times for this type of investment are over. However, there may still be interesting opportunities in the real estate market. How is this type of investment done?

• Investing in an apartment for long-term / short-term rent – This is the most common type of investment in apartments, when the lessor repays the owner’s loan installments. Long-term rent gives you peace of mind, but it generates less income than daily rent. However, the coronavirus pandemic has shown how quickly all clients interested in short-term rentals can be lost. Estimating the return on a real estate investment should be very careful. Include in your fixed costs repair prices, bill hikes, or months when the apartment is empty. Area tax may also appear at any time, which will be the next burden.

• Flipping – is to buy an apartment in an attractive area that needs refreshment. After renovation, the apartment is sold for ten percent or more. By subtracting the renewal price and performing the same scheme several times a year, you can get an interesting rate of return. Unfortunately, this business is already handled by so many people (who can buy an apartment in 15 minutes, with cash in their bags) that it is difficult for small fins to enter the market.

crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is a social screenshot, often of a charitable nature. However, we can also find the option of investing in crowdfunding in, for example, a small start-up company. Often it is a purchase of stock rights, and this move allows startup owners to get a better start.

When the company gets the first touches, begins to earn and multiplies its capital – and after entering the stock exchange, our shares will probably become much more expensive. Often, with investment crowdfunding, you can achieve a rate of return of more than ten percent. However, when we find a real hawk, our profits can reach 200 or 300%.

Alternative Investments – Art, Antiques, Alcohol

Or maybe investing in unusual assets is the answer to a recession? Paintings, clocks, antique ceramics or… whiskey or wine? These types of investment items are subject to very different volatility than bonds or currencies.

The most important thing is time, often, the longer we stockpile an alternative investment good, the higher its price will be . Fashion for certain historical periods or a particular artist is also important, which can lead to a sudden increase in the prices of our investments.

Richer Americans not only have stocks, bonds, money, or ores in their portfolios, but also vintage works of art or wine. In 2014, as many as 13.5% of wealthy Americans’ investments were tied to alternative forms of venture capital.

Until recently, the price of the most expensive Polish paintings sold did not exceed 5 million zlotys – for example, we are talking about the work “M39” by Wojciech Fangor, which cost 4.72 million zlotys. However, the bank destroyed the “Portrait of Marjorie Ferry” by Tamara Chimpica. In February, at an auction in London, this painting was purchased for up to 82 million Polish zlotys!

Investment 2022 – Rate of Return

	Potential annual rate of return
Active buying of shares	-20% – 20%
stock dividends	5-7%
bonds	1-2%
Real estate	5-7%
Raw materials	5-10%
deposit	0-0.5%
Investing in loans (such as Mintos)	0-11%
Cryptocurrency	-100% – 100%
Artistical works	0-15%

Invest in yourself and your children

Some people think very unusual and consider themselves an investment. This way of thinking is correct, because by investing in our health and skills, we can earn more after many years or be, for example, ready to start our own business.

The best investments are training, good books or equipment that will allow us to work more efficiently . Mental health is just as important, especially in difficult crisis situations, when the situation is so volatile and for many people who are mentally unprepared, it can end up collapsing.

Investing in children is also an interesting idea, as the habits developed in them can stay with them for life, leading to better adaptation to socio-economic conditions. It is worth making a deposit for your child (interest rates will definitely increase at some point), buy shares, send them to additional classes or teach them a reasonable way of money.

Leave the money and wait for the opportunity

Or maybe it is better not to invest and wait with your money for the great opportunities that will arise during the recession? The crisis has caused cases where some people are getting rid of their goods at a much lower price than they actually are.

It can be not only a broken piano or precious cutlery, but also land or real estate. The old trader Warren Buffett always said that you earn more during a crisis, but you only have to have the money to take advantage of opportunities. What we wish you and ourselves!

sources:

https://stat.gov.pl/wykres/1.html

https://www.pb.pl/dywidendowy-armagedon-w-wig20-988656

https://www.hbrp.pl/b/sztuka-inwestowania-w-sztuke/PKhjZjr4s

https://strefainwestorow.pl/artykuly/inwestycje-alternatywne/20200206/najdrozszy-polski-obraz-w-historii-tamara-lempicka