Difficulty
Why do so many people refuse to invest?
Oddly enough, saving money isn’t the hard part for most people. The real blocker is fear usually the fear of losing what they’ve put aside. But the vast majority of arguments against investing are myths, and getting past them is exactly what lets your money grow and your future get simpler. Let’s go through them one by one.
Myth 1: “Investing is just gambling”
Many people see the stock market as something abstract and unpredictable - numbers flying up and down on a screen. That’s the wrong mental model. Markets aren’t just charts, curves and percentages. When you buy a share, you become a part-owner of a real company. Behind every share sits an actual business with products, revenue and profit.
Better still, you can own the very companies whose products and services you use every day and profit from the spending of billions of people worldwide. Who wouldn’t want to own a slice of a business that earns around $100 billion a year?
Over the long run, a company’s profitability shows up in its share price, regardless of short-term swings. With Finax, a single portfolio gives you a stake in more than 13,000 stocks and bonds across dozens of countries, so you share in the growth, profits and know-how of the world’s leading businesses. That’s what investing actually is: part-ownership of the real economy, not a bet.
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Myth 2: “Keeping money in the bank is safer”
It sounds counterintuitive, but leaving your money in a bank is riskier than investing it. Park cash in a current or savings account and you’re almost guaranteed a real loss, because inflation quietly erodes its purchasing power. Rising prices plus near-zero interest mean you lose ground — whereas long-term investing has, historically, almost always grown your money.
For example, based on Finax modelling: €10,000 left in a bank from the start of 2012 to the end of 2021 would have been worth only about €9,700 in real terms once inflation and typical Slovak deposit rates are factored in (source: NBS). The same €10,000 invested in global equities over that period would have grown several times over. And the eurozone inflation spike of 2021–2023 has only made the cost of holding idle cash sharper.
Put plainly: the probability of losing purchasing power by sitting in cash for a decade is effectively 100%. The probability of losing money over a decade in a global equity portfolio is around 8% (Finax 100%-equity model since 1988). If you simply want your savings to keep growing, that’s exactly what long-term investing is for.
Myth 3: “Investing is too risky”
Risk is something you can dial up or down to suit you. Investing isn’t only about shares - you can also hold bonds, which fluctuate far less, carry a fixed yield and are issued by companies and governments. That makes them the first lever for reducing risk.
When you invest through Finax, we automatically assess the right level of risk for you based on your investment horizon, your experience and your ability to sit through market swings and set the stock-to-bond mix accordingly. If the suggested portfolio still feels too bold, you can lower the risk at any time.
On top of that, our portfolios use several tools to keep risk in check:
- Diversification - risk is spread across thousands of companies and bonds worldwide, so no single one can sink you. Why ETFs make this simple.
- Regular rebalancing - we keep each portfolio at its chosen risk level automatically.
- Regular investing - investing a fixed amount every month removes the risk of picking the “wrong” moment.
Shares swing in the short term, but over long periods they have always risen so far. A long-enough horizon plus the right portfolio mix is what neutralises risk. To illustrate, in Finax’s backtested models over the past ~34 years:
- A 40% shares / 60% bonds portfolio held for any 5-year window returned a profit 99.7% of the time (average +38.6%).
- A 100% equity portfolio over 5 years was profitable in 86% of cases (average +55.8%); over 10 years, profitable 92.4% of the time (average +124.3%).
- No 13-year period in the last 30 years ended in a loss.
All figures are modelled/backtested and were not achieved by real clients - see the disclaimer below.
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Myth 4: “Investing is complicated and hard to understand”
If investing feels opaque, why not leave it to people who do it for a living? At Finax we walk you through sign-up and the whole investing process, and if anything is still unclear, our team is happy to help.
John Bogle — investing legend and founder of one of the world’s largest asset managers summed up good investing in one line: “Don’t look for the needle in the haystack. Just buy the haystack.” That’s why we don’t try to pick the handful of shares that will beat the market a risky, complicated game that reliably underperforms over time. Instead, Finax simply invests in all the biggest, most successful companies, which has historically delivered the highest long-term returns.
Myth 5: “Investing has high fees”
It’s the opposite. Investing can be one of the cheapest places to keep your money - get it right and your investing fees can be lower than the running costs of an ordinary bank account. Thanks to passive investing and low-cost ETFs, you avoid the entry, exit and performance fees that eat into traditional funds, and pay a single, transparent management fee.
Myth 6: “I don’t have spare money - investing is only for the rich”
This one has it backwards. If you want to change your life, investing is one of the routes there. Choosing not to build wealth because your income is modest is exactly what keeps people financially stuck for good.
At Finax there is no minimum investment amount. Investing small sums regularly over the long term does something close to magic: put aside just €10 a month for, say, 30 years and you can accumulate well over €14,000. Learn to harness compound interest - interest earning interest and don’t put off starting.
Myth 7: “I don’t want to lock my money away for years”
Unfortunately, if you can’t set part of your income aside for the longer term, you’ll stay financially dependent on your salary or the state pension for life. Time is what lets the real power of investing show up and lets risk fade away.
The foundation of building wealth isn’t finding the perfect investment or inventing a unique business. Wealth is built by letting compound interest work. The longer your horizon, the more dramatic the compounding effect. (And with Finax, “locked away” is the wrong word anyway - you can withdraw at any time, without penalties.)
Myth 8: “Markets are high right now - I’ll wait for them to drop”
This urge is completely natural. We’d all love to buy at the bottom and sell at the top. The problem is that nobody knows when the bottom or the top is not even the greatest investors alive.
Investing is about time in the market, not timing the market. As Warren Buffett put it: “We make more money when we’re snoring than when we’re active,” and “My favourite holding period is forever.” Trying to time your entry is a losing game; refusing to invest for fear of a near-term dip is like benching your best players so they don’t get injured - you’d rather lose every match?
The key to managing risk isn’t nailing the perfect purchase date; it’s holding the right portfolio and rebalancing it consistently, which automatically trims what’s expensive and tops up what’s cheap. Make investing a routine and the temptation to time the market starts to look absurd.
Myth 9: “The financial world is run by a bunch of crooks”
Look at some bank statements and we understand the feeling. Finance, like any industry, is driven by profit. But we live in the 21st century, and the quality and price of services should reflect that. Modern technology and passive investing strip out most of the unnecessary costs - which is exactly how we keep fees so low.
Markets let you stand on the profiting side of the financial world, the side that earns from everyday human consumption. It’s smarter to join the party and earn alongside the financiers than to sit it out. The choice is yours, but the party continues either way.
Myth 10: “There’s no way to invest efficiently where I live”
Finax is available right across the European Union a fully regulated, low-cost, transparent way to invest that suits any household. We operate under a securities-dealer licence supervised by the National Bank of Slovakia; your assets are held in your name and protected up to €50,000 by the Investor Compensation Fund. For retirement specifically, our pan-European pension product PEPP lets you save for later life on the same low-cost ETF foundation and take it with you if you move country. In short, the excuses have run out. Anyone can invest.
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Frequently asked questions
1. Is investing the same as gambling?
No. Gambling is a zero-sum bet on chance; investing makes you a part-owner of real businesses that generate revenue and profit. When you buy a broadly diversified ETF portfolio, you own thousands of companies at once and earn from the long-term growth of the global economy. Short-term prices move, but over long horizons broad equity markets have historically trended upward which is the opposite of a game of chance.
2. Is it safer to keep my money in a bank than to invest it?
For the long term, usually not. Cash in a bank feels safe, but with inflation running above typical deposit rates, its purchasing power tends to shrink year after year a near-certain real loss over a decade. A diversified, long-term investment portfolio carries short-term ups and downs, but has historically been far more likely to grow your money in real terms. A bank account is best for your emergency fund; long-term savings are better off invested.
3. How much money do I need to start investing?
Less than most people think. With Finax there is no minimum, and you can start from as little as €10. Because the platform buys fractional units of ETFs, even small monthly contributions get you a fully diversified, professionally managed portfolio and thanks to compound interest, starting early with small amounts often beats starting later with large ones.
