Let’s play the “What if” game — -What if you had Invested $1,000 dollars in…The Winner is?? (originally published 11.26.17)
I ran across an article the other day I found most interesting.
It was talking about the problem with Millennials not investing in traditional stocks and the stock market.
While I found their reasoning suspect, I found their graph most interesting.
It posed the question, “What if you had invested $1,000 ten years ago?”.
The article went on to pick some of the most famous companies.
If you were to guess, which one do you think performed the best over the last ten years?
Apple?
Alphabet (Google)?
Amazon?
How about Starbucks? GE? McDonalds?
Maybe Netflix? Microsoft? Disney?
Well, the winner with a $1,000 investment providing a return of $51,996.00 was….Netflix!
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/22/if-you-put-1000-in-stocks-like-amazon-heres-what-youd-have-now.html
Wow! What a winner.
Shockingly, investments in companies like Alphabet and Microsoft was less than $3,000.
Even Apple was less than $7,000.
So, when you look at investing in the stock market, those returns all look pretty paltry.
Worse yet, if you picked GE, you would have LOST money!?! Try explaining that one?
See, I think it’s not Millennials are scared to invest — they may just be smarter in trying to find places for their money to get a return.
I’ve long been a proponent of the stock market as a great barometer for returns.
However, that mindset is now changing.
What and why? Well, let’s say it’s not a stock, but the symbol is BTC.
BTC is the symbol for Bitcoin.
That’s right. The weirdly popular, highly suspect, and mostly misunderstood decentralized “investment” vehicle.
I purposely put “investment” in quotes, as many people don’t really know what to make of Bitcoin.
Is it an investment vehicle? It’s not like a traditional stock- meaning it’s not tied to PE (price earnings) ratios, or tied to equity. Heck, Bitcoin’s not even tied to a company.
It’s a decentralized electronic ledger that’s now owned, managed or controlled by anyone.
Further, unlike a traditional stock, you don’t have to buy the whole thing.
Here’s what I mean;
Let’s say you wanted to buy some Amazon Stock. You go check the price (which is currently $1,260.00), and you decide you only have $1,000 to invest.
Well, to begin, you don’t have enough to buy a single share of Amazon.
So, perhaps you can scrape together the extra $260 need to buy ONE share.
Could you find a broker to sell you that ONE share of Amazon? Probably not!
What about Bitcoin?
Well, the price of Bitcoin (as of this moment- 10:38PM on 11–26–2017- I put that in for posterity to look back upon this moment) is $9,715.00.
What? If you didn’t have $1,200 to by a single stock of Amazon, how could you ever afford a Bitcoin?
It’s because with BTC you can buy fractions. Yes, if you had $1,000 to invest, and wanted to buy BTC, you simply could.
Well, not simply, as it’s still a bit complicated to purchase BTC, but that’s quickly changing.
Indeed, you could start your investment ride in BTC, ETH, or several of the other up and coming crypto currencies, with any amount of funds you wish to invest/risk.
Now, back to the what if game.
What if…….you had invested $1,000 in Bitcoin in 2010? That’s a scant seven years ago (not even ten years ago).
What would your return have been?
Well, it’s not fair, and not even close.
If you want to guess first- do so NOW before reading on.
If you want the answer in an article, you can find it here.
And last, if you just can’t wait….Scroll below for the answer:
$35,000,000!
That’s right — -that’s 35, followed by SIX zeros, or $35 Million!
I’m not sure how that’s supposed to compute against the other “big stock” companies.
However, I can tell you, it’s in a league…no make that a Universe! All of its own.
For millennials, perhaps the world of decentralized Crypto Currencies will become their new path to social prosperity.
