Updated the maximum: What to invest their finances in the conditions of the devaluation of the ruble

Good remuneration of IT specialists in Russia allows them to live not in “from paycheck to paycheck” mode, save money and spend it on their own projects. At least it was so until recently - now the situation does not look so rosy, primarily because of the significant depreciation of the ruble. Now they give more than 41 rubles for a dollar, and more than 52 rubles for a euro, a negative economic situation leads to a rise in prices, and the credit agency Moody's downgraded Russia's credit rating to "negative."

This means a drop in the real purchasing power of even IT specialists who seem to be not suffering from poverty. In such a situation, it is logical to consider ways of preserving honestly earned works of finance and ways of investing them.
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Banks

The most familiar tool for the preservation of earned money in our country, of course, are bank deposits. This method is quite reliable (provided that the bank is well-chosen and the amounts are distributed over 700 thousand rubles to different banks to protect them with the deposit insurance system), but it does not allow to get a high rate, which leads to the depreciation of savings due to inflation, which has recently everything is increasing and, according to official estimates. for the year may exceed 8%.

The most reliable and well-known state-owned banks do not give high interest rates on ruble deposits, and when opening deposits in euros or dollars, the situation is even sadder. At the same time, banks that offer higher interest rates to their customers are usually not so stable, and may fall victim to a policy of tightening control over financial institutions.



A recent example is the revocation of a license from Bank24.ru, which was one of the most technologically advanced on the market. The services of the institution were used by many IT companies and start-ups and, accordingly, their employees. The closure of the bank upset many of them, but it was impossible to do anything - representatives of the company said that, in principle, the Central Bank had reasons for closure (“sins” in the form of dubious cash and non-cash transactions).

Opening an account in any bank, the client cannot know whether he performs operations that the regulator may not like, which creates additional risks.

Forex

As we have already told in a separate topic and its continuation - in itself Forex (FOReign EXchange - “foreign exchange”) is nothing bad, but the problem is that in Russia there is a significant proportion of firms advertising themselves (on the Internet or in the subway) as Forex brokers, in fact, do not provide their customers with the opportunity to enter the open market. Such companies “reduce” the clients' transactions within themselves, acting as counterparties on them - this means that it is beneficial for them that the client loses his money and brings more. Such brokers are called "kitchens."



Contributes to the sad outcome and the provision of insane "shoulders" (ie, loans for transactions) - the more leverage, the greater the likelihood of loss and less time that is needed to reset the deposit. According to some studies , Forex brokers clients lose their money at a rate of 60-80% per quarter. It is rather difficult to talk about making money in such a situation.

The activity of "kitchens" in Russia is not licensed, unlike brokers providing access to the stock market (including the " civilized " Forex, where customer requests are brought to the common market), so the level of reliability when working with them is drastically different.

Electronic currencies

Having been a hot topic and reaching transcendental heights ($ 900 for a crypto-coin and above), today the rate of e-currency has more than doubled. The enthusiasm around the widespread use of cryptocurrency also declined, and the Russian authorities do not welcome their use. So in October, the Ministry of Finance proposed to fine users for stories about Bitcoins and an attempt to mine them.

In addition, the image of Bitcoins as a currency for “dark personalities” has not yet been overcome, since a relatively small number of businesses even abroad allow payment for their goods and services using cryptomonet.

Stock market

You can save existing finances and diversify risks using various tools of the stock market. Since recently, the Moscow Exchange can buy gold and silver bars .

In order to buy precious metals in everyday life, it is necessary to carry out a rather complicated procedure, involving the design of a large number of papers. On the stock exchange, gold or silver can be bought by making a few clicks in the trading terminal. To carry out such operations, the broker creates a special “metal” account on the exchange for the client, after which he can buy and sell metals (the price is formed per gram, the standard lot is 10g of gold and 100g of silver).



Of course, the purchase of metals should not be considered as the only way to save finances, but it can be used to hedge risks and build complex trading strategies (metals can be used as collateral for transactions with stocks and derivatives).

In addition, at the stock exchange you can buy / sell currency - if necessary, periodic operations with foreign money and with amounts slightly larger than “thousand euros for a vacation”, buying on the open market will be more profitable than in the nearest exchanger. The broker takes a commission in the amount of hundredths of a percent of the transaction amount, plus sometimes a certain amount is charged for withdrawing money from a brokerage account to a bank. Despite this, the difference between the purchase and sale prices on the stock exchange is more profitable than in the bank's exchanger - it makes up a few tenths of a penny, and not several tens of kopecks, as in the latter case.

The advantage of buying currency through the exchange is the complete automation of the processes - you only need to reach the broker's office once to sign a contract, and all other operations will be performed via the Internet using a trading terminal.

In addition, if a user opened a ruble money into a brokerage account, bought the currency and brought it out, then such an operation would not be taxed, since there was actually no profit from speculation. If the investor starts to perform operations, playing on the difference in rates and making a profit, then he will need to file a tax return and pay income tax.

Brokerage companies that provide access to the exchange, provide their customers and other services for the preservation of funds. For example, clients of some brokers can invest funds in eurobonds (the service is suitable for serious investors with amounts ranging from $ 1 million).

A more democratic service (in ITinvest, the amount of finance from 10 million rubles is a very real amount of savings for an IT specialist) - placement of demand funds, which is an exchange alternative to bank deposits. The broker takes the client's money and makes repo transactions with them (the detailed scheme is described in our topic ) - the term of such investments can be from 1 day, and the expected annual yield is at the level of 4.5-5.5%. Income is credited to the client’s account on a daily basis, which allows you to deposit and withdraw funds without losing earned interest.

There are also services that brokers create exclusively for their clients - among them ITinvest has investment advice (the client receives recommendations for working in the stock market through instant messengers, as well as alerts in trading terminals) and “ Structural products ” (financial instruments compiled from various assets ).

In addition, the stock market may be of interest to IT professionals in terms of the technologies used - brokerage systems API , direct connection , various data transfer protocols and the ability to create trading robots ( example ), with which you can buy, including, shares of known IT companies like Yandex .

As can be seen, the stock market provides not only risky opportunities for investing free funds, but also more conservative products and services aimed primarily at saving finances and hedging risks.

Real estate and precious metals

Standard options - buying gold, silver and platinum, as well as real estate investments are popular means of saving and multiplying funds. Buying metals through the exchange is a more flexible tool for working with money.



Investment in real estate is, in principle, a working way to save money, however, the current economic situation in the country contributes to price stagnation in this market. This means that you can save money by buying an apartment on them, but it will not work out in a fairly short term, and you will have to wait.

Investments in startups

The development of the start-up market has led to the emergence of not only those who want to quit work in corporations and start creating their own project, but also people who have certain monetary resources (several tens of thousands of dollars) and are ready to invest them in an interesting product - in particular, this phenomenon used in crowdfunding on services like Kickstarter.

At the initial stage of development of a startup (seed), the money available to individuals may well be sufficient for solely or jointly financing startups with other investors. The idea of ​​creating such "clubs" of investors was voiced , in particular, by a well-known entrepreneur and investor Arkady Moreynis.



At the same time, a change in the ruble exchange rate negatively affects these new companies - as a rule, IT start-ups inside Russia receive revenues in rubles, but some services (such as Amazon cloud hosting) can pay in dollars, which leads to a decrease in revenues. In a conversation with the publication of Roem.ru, many domestic entrepreneurs declared that a rise in the dollar exchange rate to 45 rubles would negatively affect their business.

Conclusion

Each of these methods of saving finances has its drawbacks - some do not allow inflation to be defeated, others require too much money, and others are too risky. Obviously, the best results can be achieved by competently combining each of them and not getting involved in dubious adventures like playing Forex through the “kitchen”.

You can get more knowledge about the stock market by reading the relevant literature and analytical materials (we compiled a topic with a selection of the best books to understand the stock market and launched an educational online channel with a leading RBC), and then testing our strategies first in a test format on virtual money .

PS The topic of preserving assets during the devaluation of the ruble is also covered in the relevant material of The Village.