In view of the many uncertainties and an unhealthy demographic development, private provision for emergencies or old age is essential. Time and again, stock investments are touted as such. But the stock markets are currently going downhill. Safe investments are in demand. But some supposedly profitable investments on the Internet can turn out to be flops.
Here the Stiftung Warentest warns
“Make your retirement provision secure and also participate in the return opportunities of the stock market,” is how Allianz Insurance advertises its Indexselect retirement provision product. A whole series of other companies advertise their index policies in a similar way. The idea sounds simple at first. Part of the investment is invested in stocks. This is intended to spice up secure investments with high-yield stock market investments. Allianz alone has attracted more than half a million customers with this.
But according to Stiftung Warentest, the products do not live up to the hopes of a high return. The opposite is the case. “Too expensive, too opaque, too little chance of a good return,” is the conclusion of an investigation of the policies by the in-house magazine Finanztest. Its expert Ulrike Sosalla makes a harsh judgment: “We warn against an entire product group, index funds.”
The test showed that participation in the development of a stock market index such as the DAX or the S&P 500 is severely restricted, for example by limiting profits while at the same time passing on any potential losses in full. Stock markets rose by 20 percent last year. Despite this, customers of one of the policies were only shown a zero return. “The providers are aware of the deceptive packaging,” suspects Sosalla. This is also supported by the fact that only two of the twelve companies initially revealed their cards.
Are real estate properties safe?
Rental income from your own apartment or house is a fine and relatively safe investment. However, not many savers have the capital to buy a property. However, they have so far been able to benefit from rising property prices and rental income by buying shares in property funds. These are so-called open property funds, whose shares can basically be bought or sold on the stock exchange at any time. The principle is similar to that of equity funds. In this case, the fund assets consist only of many different properties, rather than company shares. These are shopping centers, office buildings or residential buildings.
For a long time, open-ended real estate funds were considered a safe investment, but they yielded relatively low returns. Shares in one of the leading funds, Hausinvest from Commerzbank, have increased in price by 20 percent in the last ten years. A two percent return per year is manageable, but steady. This level of security is no longer available for all open-ended real estate funds.
The consumer portal finanztip.de is now even warning against buying shares. “Investors have just experienced a 17 percent loss in value in a large fund from one day to the next,” says editor-in-chief Hermann Tenhagen. Such a loss in value occurs when the prices, rental income or market opportunities of the buildings in the fund’s assets fall. Then the redemption value or the stock market price of the shares also falls. After the financial crisis, a regulation was introduced here that is disadvantageous for investors. For shares purchased after July 21, 2013, a one-year notice period applies. They can only be sold on the stock exchange, which brings in less money.
The yield curve is pointing downward
Security is one of the most important criteria for almost all savers. The selection of offers for overnight or fixed-term deposits is almost overwhelming. After years of low interest rates, there are attractive offers again. But the interest rate curve is already trending downwards again. There are still attractive offers of almost four percent. However, these are often lure boxes that are valid for a period of a few months. One exception is the neobroker Traderepublic, which promises its customers to pass on the respective ECB interest rate directly to them.
Anyone who searches on interest portals such as weltsparen.de If you look around for good overnight money offers, you will be amazed. There are still a number of attractive offers of well over three percent for overnight money. Banks from other countries such as Italy, Malta and France are particularly generous here. However, a certain amount of caution is advisable here. In the other EU countries, statutory deposit protection also applies to amounts up to 100,000 euros. However, consumer protection groups doubt whether the financial strength of the countries and their banking systems can cope with major bankruptcies in an emergency in financially weak countries. If you want to play it safe, keep your money at home.
Watch out, trap!
Where there is money to be made, scammers are not far away. So dubious providers of interest-bearing investments quickly got back to work after interest rates rose again. They use comparatively high interest rates on fixed-term deposits to attract customers on the Internet. The Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) has repeatedly warned about fraudulent brokerage portals over the past few years, sometimes under the name “Zinsfox”, sometimes under “Zinsvergleich”. According to BaFin, such portals operate without the required official permission. Any consumer can easily check this. www.bafin.de There is a company database in which the approved companies are recorded.
