Once upon a job I was a stockbroker and financial adviser for an American company which decided that it should add the UK to Canada and the USA as markets it operates in.
They had a great training process, which not only put us throught he relevant qualifications required to do the job, but also steeped us in the culture of the company.
They took a long term view to investing, not seeking to chase profits as markets fluctuate, but rather to steadily aggregate gains on the basis that over timescales required to build towards retirement, which is going to be the best formula.
Even now that holds true.
There was a cultural debate ongoing in the company as to whether individul stocks and bonds, or mutual funds, were a better option. When the company was founded the focus was very much on the individual holdings, but the rise of mutual funds over the years has provided for excellent opportunities to save and invest across a wide range of holdings.
As with all investments the the sensible option is a bit of everything, while an individual's view of risk, and sentimental reasons, all come to play.
One of the key selling points for this company was that they would help you grow savings and investments with little regular effort by the saver/investor, resulting in a nice nest egg when time came to realise it.
It is as close to passive investment as a model that I have seen and, when the model is followed, allows for a good level of passive income.
It's worth clarifying what 'passive' means in these terms.
For me, it means 'not requiring active management by the beneficiary'. In the growth phase, for those who have no head for investment themselves, using a well respected company to provide advice on a regular basis is a wise move.
Even if you feel you have good knowledge, making use of a stockbroker's expertise can lead you to opportunities you may have been unaware off.
BY the time you are seeking to use the money then, realistically, a truly passive income is ideal. An annuity which pays out a fixed sum for the remainder of your life is a great example of such.
But there are things which can be done to recieve an income much earlier.
The best method is to be born into a fabulously wealthy family, where long standing trusts jealously guard the capital which provides family income.
THe other is to find something which can provide the income without regular input by yourself. There is much excitement as to the welath which crypto-currencies have and can generate and the two Bitcoin accounts which recently activated after a decade or so of dormancy and realised the owners multi-million dollar benefits are a good example.
But while there are high profile winners, there are also many losers. Currencies and exchanges which have crashed, and outright fraud and theft, as well as a hostile stance taken by some governments (we mean you USA) provide a level of risk which makes crypto a high risk addition to a protfolio and one which should be used only with money which you would feel comfortable using.
WHAT ABOUT HIVE
Sorry, is someone shouting? Something about Hive currently offering 20% per annum return on HBD, which currently hover around 80-100cents US$.
There is certainly a feeling of stability in the HIVE ecosystem which I don't see in other blockchain, and I think that is very much down to the active measures being taken to ensure it is a community, and not a 'fleece the gullible' get rich quick scheme.
A 20% return is outwith pretty much anything you can find anywhere (illegal activity excluded). So, if HIVE is stable and friendly, would it be wise to cram every bit of cash you can spare into HBD?
No. Never.
Firstly, you should never have all of your money in one investment - and this is an investment, not a saving plan. It can go down, and up.
Secondly, no matter how secure or stable an individual investment appears, there is the danger of something happening.
When I was stockbroking I had one potential client who had been a Royal Bank of Scotland manager and retired with his pension and a large number of bank shares. Everything was invested in the bank, one of the oldest, most stable financial institutions in Britain, with vast holdings overseas.
Then the 2008 collapse came.
RBoS was found to be vastly overextended and required government intervention to ensure it did not collapse completely.
In real terms, my client lost all of his shares. Oh, he still held them, but they were so diluted as to be worthless. Had he taken my advice to move some of them into other invetments he would have still had a lower value of investement, but the products I was recommending all survived the 2008 crash, unlike his bank shares.
So, even feeling confident in HIVE, it is not an ideal place to vest all of your funds, rather, only those you would be comfortable to lose.
Still creating streams of passive income so that they drip fill a bucket without you noticing, or gush like a faucet to pay your monthly bills, is a most sensible thing to do.
Would I have considered sharing these thoughts without 
P.S. the company I worked for got a mention in my first post in this series. They're the company which withdrew from the UK market and sold to a non-like competitor who made 95% of folks redundant.
I'll maybe do a post about that one day, as it's a great example of why companies who move away from their core standards set themselves up for failure.
text by stuartcturnbull, picture from AnglesNViews via Pixabay
