Returns aren’t everything. But they are there for everyone. Money helps you fulfil personal wishes and reach your financial goals. quirion founder Karl Matthäus Schmidt explains how investing works in his Spiegel bestseller „Geld im Glück“.
Many things in life can be measured and quantified. Your own fitness, for example. How long you work. How much free time you have. How large your wealth is. Personal happiness, on the other hand, can’t really be captured in numbers – even though plenty of scientific studies have tried. Some have explored the question of whether the size of your income is an important factor in happiness. And they arrived at rather different conclusions.
But everyone has wishes and dreams. And when they do, the subject of money usually enters the picture pretty quickly. A career break, a home of your own, a relaxed life after your working years: that’s what many people want. And it costs money. Money creates room to manoeuvre and opens up possibilities. Smart investing is one route to reaching your goals. Banking pioneer Karl Matthäus Schmidt describes how to make progress step by step in his Spiegel bestseller „Geld im Glück“.
Smart investing made easy
Investing plays a special role in the author’s life. He has long been a driving force in the German finance scene. At the age of 25, in the 1990s, he founded Consors, Germany’s first online broker; in the 2000s he founded Quirin Privatbank, the first bank offering independent advice; and in the 2010s, with quirion, the first robo-advisor in Germany.
Schmidt keeps coming back to one central question: how can we help people in Germany become better investors? He offers answers regularly, for example in his podcast „klug anlegen“. And now he offers answers in book form, too. “It was important to me to write a book that’s easy to understand and takes away financial fears about the future – without false promises or exaggerated expectations,” Schmidt explains. He hopes readers will be encouraged to see investing as an important part of their lives and to take the initiative.
The “art of leaving things out”
Schmidt conveys the insight that investing isn’t complicated at all – as long as you keep a few basic principles in mind. And one of them is the “art of leaving things out”. When it comes to investing, success doesn’t always mean acting cleverly and correctly. It just as much – and perhaps even more so – means avoiding mistakes and pitfalls.
In the media or in advisory conversations, investors are practically constantly being encouraged to act and to make the “right choice”. There are always “special opportunities”. The supposed stock-market rocket, the fund with the best securities: “you can safely ignore anything that sounds like that,” Schmidt emphasises. “Banks and fund companies make a lot of money with active management. Investors, however, do not.”
In „Geld im Glück“ he goes into more detail about the specifics and the various product types and their individual pros and cons. Along the way, you learn just how much is unnecessary when it comes to investing. So what’s left? “I’m firmly convinced that investing in the equity markets is the only real option as a core investment for building wealth over the long term,” says Schmidt. “You can limit yourself to a global portfolio of low-cost ETFs, practise patience and ‘buy and hold’. Fundamentally, you don’t need more than that.”
Insights from science
Don’t get lost in the jungle of an overwhelming product range; instead, take a clear look at yourself and your own investment goals: these are key messages of the book, which also draws on findings from capital-market research. Because that research has quite a lot to offer for your investment strategy.
Where do I see myself in the future, and what do I want to achieve in life? How do I get started with investing? Where do the psychological traps lie in wait? Schmidt conveys, simply and memorably, the know-how you need to gain more financial independence – supported by illustrative guidelines and personal accounts of first-hand experience.
Can investing make you happy? “Money is not an end in itself,” Schmidt stresses. But returns are there for everyone, not just for those who already have a fortune. Risks can be minimised through smart action. “With smart investing, you can achieve a great deal of what makes you happy.”
„Geld im Glück“ is available everywhere in bookshops and directly from the publisher.
