Understanding Finance from scratch

Chapter 28 How to Make Money Make Money, Deposit in the Bank or Invest——Learn some knowledge about investment and financial management every day (4)
Since 2007, gold futures have been traded on the Shanghai Futures Exchange.According to the contract, 1 lot of gold futures is 300 grams of gold, the minimum transaction margin ratio is 7% of the contract face value, and the transaction fee charged by the exchange is not higher than [-]/[-] of the transaction value (including the risk reserve).

If calculated according to the gold price of about 170 yuan per gram, the contract face value of a lot of gold futures is 51000 yuan, and the corresponding minimum margin is 3570 yuan.Since the margin ratio charged by futures companies will be slightly higher than 7% (often 10%), it takes about 5000 yuan to make a gold futures margin.Gold futures do not require a high margin, and the margin for a single lot of gold futures is only about 5000 yuan.Suitable for personal investment.For individual investors, the introduction of gold futures undoubtedly adds a more convenient investment channel.

Ordinary investors usually regard futures investment as an investment product with high threshold and high risk, but this may be a misunderstanding.There are many types of futures investment, and many of them are suitable for individual investors to operate. So how should futures investment be carried out?
Futures investment refers to the futures trading business for the purpose of obtaining price difference in the futures market, also known as speculative business.The futures market is a market for price formation, and the ever-changing supply and demand relationship will be reflected in price changes. In the language of economics, the raw material input into the futures market is information, and the output product is price.For the future price trend, there will be different views at any time, which is the same as spot trading and stock trading.Some people will buy when they are bullish, while others will sell if they are bearish. Finally, the market will give the answer whether the prediction is correct or not.

Futures trading rules require trading participants to go through the formalities of opening a trading account when they decide to participate in trading.To buy or sell one (or more) futures contracts, you must go through several links such as placing an order, reviewing the order, declaring the order, trading, and returning to complete a basic process.

Since futures trading must be carried out in the exchange, only members of the exchange, including futures brokerage companies and self-operated members, can operate and trade on the exchange.Before entering the futures market, ordinary investors should first choose a member of a futures brokerage company with legal agency qualifications, good reputation, safe funds, standardized operations and reasonable charges.Self-operated members do not have agency qualifications.

After comparing and judging, investors can submit an entrustment application to the futures brokerage company and open an account after selecting a futures brokerage company.Opening an account is essentially a legal relationship established between an investor (principal) and a futures brokerage company (agent).

Generally speaking, the procedures and required documents for opening accounts for clients of various futures brokerage company members are different, but the basic procedures and methods are roughly the same.

The first step is risk disclosure.Clients entrusting a futures brokerage company to engage in futures trading must register with the futures brokerage company in advance.When a futures brokerage company accepts a client's application for opening an account, it shall provide the client with the "Futures Trading Risk Disclosure Statement".Individual clients should sign on the "Futures Trading Risk Statement" after careful reading and understanding; clients should have their legal representative sign on the "Futures Trading Risk Statement" and affix the company's official seal after reading and understanding it carefully .

The second step is to sign the contract.When a futures brokerage company accepts an account opening application from a client, both parties must sign the Futures Brokerage Contract.Individual customers should sign the contract, and corporate customers should have their legal representatives sign and affix the official seal on the contract.To open an individual account, you should provide your ID card, retain your seal or signature sample card.To open an account, an entity shall provide a photocopy of the "Business License of Enterprise Legal Person", and provide written materials and legal Written power of attorney authorized by the representative to execute the futures trading business.

The Exchange implements a customer transaction code registration and filing system. When a customer opens an account, the futures brokerage company shall number it according to the uniform coding rules of the Exchange.A futures brokerage company that cancels a client's transaction code shall file with the Exchange.

The third step is to pay the security deposit.After the client signs the futures brokerage contract with the futures brokerage company, he shall pay the deposit for opening an account as required.The futures brokerage company shall deposit the deposit paid by the client into the client's account specified in the futures brokerage contract for the client to conduct futures transactions.The margin collected by the futures brokerage company from the client belongs to the client; the futures brokerage company is strictly prohibited from misappropriating it for other purposes except depositing the margin to the futures exchange for the client in accordance with the provisions of the China Securities Regulatory Commission for transaction settlement.

The last thing to explain is that people may have some misunderstandings about futures. When talking about futures, they often think that it is a high-risk investment. In fact, this is also a misunderstanding. Futures can meet different investment needs, such as Robust investment needs.

Robust investment, that is, arbitrage transactions such as cross-market arbitrage, cross-month arbitrage, and cross-species arbitrage.

Cross-market arbitrage means that an investor buys a futures contract of a certain month of a certain commodity on a certain exchange, and at the same time sells a futures contract of the same month on another futures exchange. Varieties, one buy and one sell in the same month, equal positions.After obtaining the price difference, both sides close the position at the same time to close the transaction.At present, my country's cross-market trading volume is very large, mainly arbitrage between the LME of non-ferrous metals and the Shanghai Futures Exchange, and CBOT of soybeans and the Dalian Commodity Exchange.

Cross-month arbitrage refers to the behavior of investors buying contracts and selling contracts simultaneously in different months of the same product on the same exchange.Many products, especially agricultural products, have strong seasonality. When the seasonal price difference in some months is profitable, investors will enter into buying and selling arbitrage.The short-term and long-term price differences of all commodities have certain historical regularities.When there is a situation different from the historical performance, some cross-month arbitrageurs will enter the market to trade. Taking the non-ferrous metals of the Shanghai Futures Exchange as an example, many customers of Shanghai Jinpeng Futures Brokerage Co., Ltd. are specialized arbitrageurs, and many customers continue to trade , taking the year as the accounting unit, the profit rate is sometimes twice as high as the bank loan interest rate.

Cross-variety arbitrage means that investors use the difference in the price of futures contracts between two different but interrelated commodities to carry out arbitrage transactions, that is, to buy a certain month's contract of a certain commodity and sell another commodity of the same price at the same time. month's contract.It is worth emphasizing that these two commodities are related, and price changes have followed rules in history, such as corn and wheat, copper and aluminum, soybeans and soybean meal, soybean oil, etc.

Trust products with high threshold and high return

Goldman Sachs did not venture into investment trusts until December 1928, 12, when it established its first investment trust company, Goldman Sachs Trading Company.

Using the principle of leverage, in just a few months, Goldman Sachs trading company developed like a snowball. The company initially invested only 1000 million US dollars, accounting for 10% of all issued shares, while the remaining 90% of the shares were sold at an astonishing price of 104 US dollars per share. It was sold to the public at a premium, and the share price was a miserable $1.75 a few years later.What a sigh.

The risks of trust products in this short story can be seen. Under such a high risk, why can trust products attract investors to invest?

In recent years, trust wealth management products have attracted more and more people's attention, and some trust plans have been enthusiastically sought after.Trust, as the name suggests, means "trust and entrustment", and it is a system for managing property for others.The settlor and the trustee sign a trust agreement, entrust the trust property to the trustee, and manage and dispose of it according to the trust agreement.

The most fascinating magic of investment trusts is not the manager's knowledge, manipulation skills or financial talent, but the principle of leverage.In an investment trust, leverage works like this: By issuing bonds, preferred shares, and common stock to buy different combinations of common stock.When the price of the common stock purchased by the investment trust company rises and the prices of the bonds and preferred shares in the trust are fixed, all or most of the profits generated by the appreciation of the securities portfolio held by the investment trust will be allocated to the common stock issued by the investment trust. share.The price of the investment trust company's stock rose miraculously.

That's not all the magic of leverage.If the rising common stock of an investment trust is held by another investment trust with the same leverage ratio, the price of these common shares will rise exponentially.

At present, domestic trust wealth management products can be described as varied, including money trusts, chattel trusts, real estate trusts, securities trusts, and money creditor's rights trusts.Trust wealth management products have the advantages of flexible investment direction and higher expected returns, but they also have the disadvantage of higher risks.

Trust wealth management products generally take the form of private placement.The number of trust agreements for a trust financial planning cannot exceed 200, so the threshold for general trust investment is relatively high.Generally speaking, the income of trust wealth management products is higher than that of bank deposits and bonds, but lower than that of stocks, futures and other investment products. In addition, the threshold is relatively high, which is more suitable for higher income, more spare money, higher requirements for income and risk-taking ability. strong investors.

To invest in trust wealth management products, you must first choose trust products issued by trust companies with standardized operations and a good reputation.It is not suitable to buy trust products issued by trust companies with poor financial performance, unsound corporate governance structure and high operating risks.Over the years, cases of trust fraud and trust disputes have been common, so you must choose a trust company that you can trust before digging out your wallet.After selecting a trust company, you should focus on the trust contract to be signed with the trust company.The trust contract is the only written document that determines the rights and obligations between you and the trust company, and you must read it carefully.Before signing the contract, you should consider the possibility that the income of the trust project will reach the income promised by the trust company. Some people arbitrarily advocate unrealistic high income, so you must not be fooled.

Once the trust agreement takes effect, investors will almost completely lose control over their trust property, and may even know nothing about the investment management of the trust property.Therefore, when signing the contract, the investor should clearly agree with the trust company on matters such as the audit of the trust property and the information disclosure of the trust plan, requiring the trust company to regularly disclose the latest information on the trust property to the settlor, beneficiary or other designated candidates. And regularly publish the audit report of the trust property.

During the process of the trust plan, the beneficiaries of the trust plan have the right to inquire about any information related to their property from the trust company, and the trust company is obliged to disclose the use, management, and income of the trust property to the relevant obligees.You must not give up this right, otherwise it is tantamount to adding artificial risk factors to the inherent financial risks of the trust itself.

How can real estate investment expand income
Mr. Su runs a small trading company by himself, and he likes to make some investments with his spare money. In the past two years, Mr. Su made some money by investing in real estate, and now he plans to quit.

However, there were still many intermediaries who called for consultation. At first, Mr. Su patiently explained to the intermediary that he did not intend to invest in this area, and advised the other party to delete the information.But then he discovered that his phone information on the Internet could never be deleted, and an intermediary would call him every now and then to ask if he was selling the house.

The most recent time, Mr. Su was in a meeting at the company when he suddenly received a call from an unknown person. With his previous experience, he chose to refuse to answer.The strange phone calls continued, and Mr. Su pressed the button again.The strange phone called again tenaciously, and he had to answer it, probably because of some urgent business.

"Are you planning to buy a house?" The other party asked immediately.The troubled Mr. Su threw out a sentence: "Idiots still buy houses now!"

Now that the state has continuously introduced housing price control policies, it has become a problem for those who like to invest in real estate whether to advance or retreat.But in any case, the basic method of real estate investment will not change, so how should real estate investment be done?

To reduce the current high housing prices, the state has taken great pains to stabilize housing prices, and policies have been introduced one after another. Therefore, it is imperative for ordinary home buyers to adjust their buying strategies in a timely manner as the situation changes.At present, among many home buyers, there are still "housing for housing", "rent for loan" (real estate investors often rent out one of the properties after purchasing a second property with a loan, and use the rental income to repay the other property). Monthly payment of a set of real estate) real estate investment method.

This group of people first began to bear heavier burdens than before as the central bank raised interest rates. Compared with the ever-increasing housing prices and the heavy repayment pressure brought about, the relatively stable rent has made some buyers with ordinary economic strength At the beginning, they decided to sell one of their properties, but at this juncture, the introduction of sales tax put them in a dilemma.

In the face of this situation, is the real estate investment of "housing for housing" and "rent for loan" still valuable?Is it feasible?Investors who currently own real estate should sell or rent, how to choose?

First of all, real estate investors must get rid of three bad investment psychology.

Sit and collect rent.Since it is intended to obtain rental income as return on investment, location factors must be considered.Especially in Beijing, don't trust the sales lady's words.She only sells the house regardless of whether the house can be rented out.

For posterity.If you have enough money to buy a house for your children to use when they grow up and get married, you must consider the depreciation factor of the property.When an item is not used or fully used, its value will be greatly reduced, let alone talk about value preservation and appreciation.

Low in and high out.This risk is the greatest.Today, housing prices in Beijing have been rising continuously for many years and have reached a very high level, and the room for continued rapid growth is quite limited.In addition to choosing the right property with a discerning eye, you also need to settle accounts carefully.For example, a house worth 100 million yuan must first have a bottom line price difference of 9.5 yuan. After removing this part, it is possible to make money.

To investigate whether a property is worth investing in, the most important thing is to evaluate its investment value, that is, to consider whether the relationship between the price of the property and the expected income is reasonable.The following three formulas can help you estimate the value of your property, so give it a try.

Formula 12: The rent multiplier is less than [-].

The rental multiplier is a simple formula for comparing the full selling price with the total annual rental income (rental multiplier = investment amount ÷ potential annual rental income), and the rental multiplier should be less than 12.If it exceeds 12 times, it is likely to bring negative cash flow.Disadvantages: This method does not take into account vacancy and rent arrears losses and the impact of operating expenses, financing and taxes.

Formula 8: 10~[-] years to recover the investment.

The investment payback period method considers the rent, price and the main input in the early stage, which is more applicable than the rent multiplier, and can also estimate the length of the capital payback period.Its formula is: Years of investment recovery = (down payment + mortgage payment within the off-plan period) ÷ (monthly rent - monthly mortgage payment) × 12.The shorter the recovery period, the better, and the reasonable period is 8 to 10 years.

Formula 15: [-]-year income depends on the return.

If the annual income of the property × 15 years = the purchase price of the property, then the property is worth the money; if the annual income of the property × 15 years > the purchase price of the property, the property still has room for appreciation; if the annual income of the property × 15 < annual real estate purchase price, then the value of the property has been overestimated.

In addition to house value assessment, investors should also grasp 6 investment tips. The following tips can help you make investments with less effort and safety:
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