Updated maximum: In what to invest your finances in the conditions of ruble devaluation

A good salary of IT specialists in Russia allows them to live in a non-pay-to-pay mode, save money and spend it on their own projects. At least it was until recently - now the situation does not look so rosy primarily due to a significant fall of the ruble. Now they give more than 41 rubles for the dollar, and more than 52 rubles for the euro, the negative economic situation leads to higher prices, and Moody's credit agency downgraded Russia's credit rating to “negative”.

This means a drop in real purchasing power even for seemingly non-poverty IT professionals. In such a situation, it is logical to consider ways of preserving honestly earned works of finance and ways of investing them.

Banks

The most common tool for saving earned money in our country, of course, are bank deposits. This method is quite reliable (provided that the bank is correctly selected and the amounts are distributed more than 700 thousand rubles to different banks for their protection by the deposit insurance system), however, it does not allow you to get a high rate, which leads to the depreciation of savings due to inflation, which has recently everything is increasing and, according to officials. by the end of the year may exceed 8%.

The most reliable and well-known state banks do not give high interest on ruble deposits, and when opening deposits in euros or dollars, the situation is even sadder. At the same time, banks that offer their customers higher interest rates, as a rule, are not so stable, and may become a victim of 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 in the market. The services of the institution were used by many IT companies and startups and, accordingly, their employees. The closure of the bank upset many of them, but nothing could be done - company representatives said that, in principle, the Central Bank had reasons to close (“sins” in the form of dubious operations with cash and non-cash money).

By opening an account with any bank, the client cannot know whether he carries out operations that the regulator may not like, which creates additional risks.

Forex

As we already said in a separate topic and its continuation - there is nothing wrong with Forex itself (FOReign EXchange - “foreign exchange”), but the problem is that in Russia a significant part of companies that advertise themselves (on the Internet or in the metro) as Forex brokers, they do not really offer their clients the opportunity to enter the open market. Such companies "bring together" customer transactions within themselves, acting as counterparties to them - this means that it is beneficial for them to let the customer lose their money and bring more. Such brokers are called "cuisines."



Contributing to the sad outcome is the provision of insane “leverage” (ie loans for transactions) - the greater the leverage, the greater the likelihood of losing and the less time it takes to reset the deposit. According to some studies , clients of Forex brokers 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 activities of "kitchens" in Russia are not licensed, unlike brokers that provide access to the stock market (including the " civilized " Forex, where customers' applications are displayed on the general market), therefore the level of reliability when working with them is radically different.

E-currencies

Having been a hot topic and reached sky-highs ($ 900 for a cryptocurrency coin and above), today the rate of electronic currency has more than halved. The enthusiasm for the widespread use of cryptocurrencies has also declined, and the Russian authorities do not welcome their use. So the Ministry of Finance in October 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 them to pay for their goods and services using cryptocurrencies.

Stock market

You can save existing finances and diversify risks using various stock market instruments. So recently, at the Moscow Exchange you can buy gold and silver bullion .

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



Of course, the purchase of metals should not be considered as the only way to preserve finances, but with its help you can hedge risks and build complex trading strategies (metals can be used as collateral for transactions in shares and derivatives).

In addition, you can buy / sell currency on the exchange- if necessary, periodic operations with foreign money and with amounts slightly larger than “a thousand euros for 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 account. Despite this, the difference between the purchase and sale prices on the exchange is more profitable than in the bank’s exchanger - it amounts to tenths of a penny, 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 get to the broker's office only once to conclude an agreement, and all other operations will be performed via the Internet using the trading terminal.

In addition, if a user deposits money in rubles into a brokerage account, buys currency and withdraws it, then such an operation will not be taxed, since in fact no profit was obtained from speculation. If the investor begins 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 providing access to the exchange provide their customers with other services for saving funds. For example, clients of some brokers can invest in Eurobonds (the service is suitable for serious investors with amounts of more than $ 1 million).

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

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

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

As you can see, the stock market provides not only risky opportunities for investing available funds, but also more conservative products and services aimed primarily at preserving 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 preserving and multiplying funds. Buying metals through the exchange is a more flexible tool for working with money.



Investing in real estate is, in principle, a working way of saving 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 for them, but you will not be able to make a profit in the short-term outlook, and you will have to wait.

Startup Investments

The development of the startup market has led to the emergence of not only those who want to quit working in corporations and start creating their own project, but also people who have certain financial 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 private individuals may well be enough for sole or joint financing of startups with other investors. The idea of ​​creating such "clubs" of investors was voiced , in particular, by the well-known entrepreneur and investor Arkady Moreynis.



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

Conclusion

Each of the above methods of preserving 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 correctly combining each of them and not getting involved in dubious adventures such as playing Forex through the "kitchen".

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

PS The topic of asset preservation during the devaluation of the ruble is also covered in the corresponding material of The Village.