I have a confession to make. I am an addict. I have been an addict all my life. It started at a very young age and I never managed to really control it. I know I am not alone. There are many who have that urge. If I have a bar in front of me, I will indulge. Most of it will be gone. Sometimes I can limit myself to just a few pieces or a spoon. If you are anything like me, you know the importance of sports, just to balance out its negatives. My addition: You put a jar of Nutella in front of me and, behold, I hold a spoon and munch away. I confess, I am addicted to chocolate.

10 years on and we are still facing low interest rates on savings and mediocre bond returns that pay peanuts on your invested money. The only bonds still paying around 9, 10, 11 percent or higher are either high risk, bordering on junk status, or carry some sort of currency risk as they are issued in much more volatile currencies. Of course you can always put some money to work following a high risk strategy, but you have to ask yourself whether you want to gamble a large portion of your money. 

Are cryptocurrencies an investment?

That should be the first question one asks. With more than twenty years of investing experience and as a former investment banker my verdict is a clear No. Cryptocurrencies are as much of an investment as trading in any other currency. They are pure speculation. Cryptocurrencies are as much an investment as shifting money back and forth between the Canadian and US dollar. Does that mean cryptocurrencies are a Ponzi scheme or worthless? Far from it.

A few years ago, I wrote the first article on bitcoins. It was long before they became the new big thing. Bitcoins were a thing for geeks, a subsection of the population. Most people had no idea what cryptocurrencies were. Today every mainstream newspaper and magazine talks about bitcoins. Too often, it is evident that they are still not really part of the mainstream. “Expert” journals describe the way they work incorrectly, draw really strange conclusions or elaborate on the way they are created (too a great extent even mining is misunderstood by many in the mainstream media).

Bitcoin, the new kid on the block. Well, amongst the cryptocurrencies, bitcoin is the father of virtual currency, the grand daddy. Not the first cryptocurrency ever, but definitely the one that has made the biggest impact. Amongst the other virtual coins are Litecoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Monero, Bitcoin Cash, Gold, and many more. Bitcoin Cash and Gold are forks of Bitcoins and thus share many commonalities, but are different. They were created after their parent Bitcoin was forked. In principal, a fork in cryptocurrencies is a split into two separate coins.

Would you like to earn 5 to 10 percent per year in investment returns? It’s easy right now. An opportunity not to be missed.

Sounds like one of those advertisements for a risky unreal investment, doesn’t it?

“Hey, watch, listen, I’ve got an unbelievable offer for you. A secret no one knows about, just you and I. So give me your money. Just invest all your hard-earned cash in my fantastic secret and become rich. … well, maybe not, but at least I will fill my pockets. Hohoho.”

What to invest in when you are just starting out?

With the low interest rates everyone is in the search for better returns. And the longer the rates stay that low, the greater the urge to find that holy grail that will pay higher rewards.

It probably explains why recently I have been asked similar questions by different folks:

It has been quite some time now since I last published something on Captain Finance. The reason being: our property project. It was much bigger than we had anticipated. Regular life and working on the apartment left absolutely no room for anything else. But with the apartment now successfully renovated, a lot of time is freed up that will also be reflected in the publication frequency on Captain Finance.

The time has come for Mrs. Captain Finance and me to take the next step. We have finally found an apartment that we both love and where we can see ourselves live. It is a little gem in the challenging and wide property ocean that is Paris. A gem that is not only architecturally different but also its price.

Our old gem

For quite some time now, we have been looking for an apartment to buy. Just as in many other places, property prices in Paris have gone through the roof and it has become increasingly difficult to buy.