Week 2: The spectrum of personal investments

Introduction

The second week of Managing my investments explores the range of mainstream savings and investment products available to the personal investor. You’ll also examine new types of investments like peer-to-peer lending and crowd funding. Begin by watching the video, to hear Martin Upton introduce this week’s topics.

Download this video clip.Video player: ou_futurelearn_mmi_vid_1028.mp4

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Transcript

MARTIN UPTON

Hello again, I’m Martin Upton of The Open University’s True Potential Centre. We ended last week on Managing My Investments by looking at the factors that drive the levels of interest rates and share prices – two of the key factors that affect the returns from investments.

This week, we look in detail at the variety of investment types, or ‘asset classes’ available to personal investors. We’ll look first at the different types of savings accounts, before moving on to look at bonds and shares.

We’ll then focus on the way that personal investments can be made in various types of investment funds and how these funds enable even small amounts of money to be spread over a range of individual investments. We’ll examine investing in property too – and the UK has experienced a marked increase in recent years in the numbers investing in property which is then let-out (or leased-out) to renters.

We’ll look at investments in commodities and the different ways that this can be undertaken. And we’ll examine the growing business of investing in so called ‘peer-to-peer’ products – these enable you to lend directly to individuals and companies without the intermediation of banks.

We can’t examine the process of investing without covering the sometimes controversial issue of the costs involved – particularly the fees paid to fund managers – as well as the taxation that applies to investment returns, such as income taxation of interest and share dividends.

We also look at the issue about whether or not to take professional advice about your investments. Advice does normally result in the payment of fees, but are the fees worth it or should you be making your own decisions?

So after learning the basics about investments in Week 1, by the end of this week you will have a good understanding of the spectrum of assets you can invest in. Enjoy the week!

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The coverage of the spectrum of personal investments includes savings accounts, shares, bonds, property, commodities and investment funds. You’ll also examine new types of investments, like pensioner bonds and peer-to-peer and crowd lending.

The week also includes coverage of the costs associated with investing, including the fees that may be paid to investment managers, and the taxation of investment returns.

You’ll also look at the concept of the government bond yield curve and the importance of this yield curve to investment management.

By the end of the week you will understand the features and risks of the products available in the personal investment ‘supermarket’.