johnsyk said:
I have a question for people living in Canada presently. Based on the OP's initial post, one of her issues with Canada was lack of investment opportunities.
In India, if we have X amount of money, we have options of putting it in FD, Post office, Unit linked Insurance, Mutual funds etc which all give between 9 to 14% Return.
In Canada, bank FD rates are dismal. So how does one invest in non real estate options?
Thanks!
If I may add my opinion.
I am not in Canada yet, but I am in the EURO using country (one of the world currencies). On the top I also still remember time of my country where such offers were normal.
Now here is the story.
Somewhere 27 years back there was change of politics over here and as a result there were lot of changes resulting into releasing financial markets as well.
Very soon our local currency was spiraling down and loosing its value (things became much more expensive just within few years). Somewhere in 1993 or 1994 there were very nice % offer from banks rallying between 14 to 19% ROi per year. Also it lasted just few months but it was there. Common people were happy and investing into banks the small amount of Money they still had.
In the background there were lot of opportunities to buy whole factories cheap. So some people were hungry for Money as they knew that they can get 200% to 500% percent revenue per year, so like 30% interest rate from a bank seemed ok.
The problem was that such situation did not lasted long and soon most of the cherries were picked out. As a result interest rates on saving accounts in the banks went down heavily.
In addition some smaller banks crashed as law behind was not that strong. As a result some people lost lot of Money in this game. But it also triggered changes in the needed laws.
Later on (1997 - 1998), the standard interest rates went down to 5% or less which was very close if not below to the inflation rate. People were not satisfied and still had simple thinking wanting to make Money fast and easy.
That thinking was used by speculative companies that were not covered with newly reinforced banking laws. So they started to offer wonderfull 20 to 30% interest rates. And people fall for the game again. The problem behind was, that there were not such big opportunities to invest that good anymore on the market. So that was nothing else but a ponzi scheme, where small amount of people got good Money (those who invested early but also withdrew Money fast) and most of people there were to suffer.
Needless to say that all those companies retreated from the market like within a year, by bankrupcy and by the owners fleeing to some far away countries where they could not be brought to the justice. What was left behind, was a whole army of fooled people who sometimes lost their life savings.
Current market situation on all big currencies is, that there are very small % on any safe saving methods, so it is actually encouraging you either to spend your Money or to start business.
With this said, seeing something on that high % should trigger an internal alarm, as it points to short term situation and higher market volatility or it can point to the higher speculation companies, that will dissapear once they have collected enough Money.
But at the same time that does not mean, that there are not good opportunities either in Canada or somewhere else, it is just that they are mostly in different areas than in buying some shares or saving accounts.
An no, nobody who knows where the opportunity are will share with you just because you want to become rich in Canada as well. That is for you to discover.
What I see in the story of the person who put the original question of this thread, is that he was most likely never really living in some foreign country before (holiday or short business trips do not really count), to be aware enough that there are differences out there, and that keeping the mindset of his own country will not bring him too far.
...maybe thats y i am little inclined towards money but that is the fact for me....I wanted to see life here - i saw - did not like - going back...thank you all...yeah here for few more days tho (wrapping n packing)....
