Do you have AU$20.000 or more to invest and you are from Australia? We’ve go you covered in this article. We will show you the best 20k investment ideas for new investors.
The entire premise of investing rests on the concept of trying to earn as much profit from the money that you initially invested. This is why most experts would suggest that $20,000 is a good amount to start with.
Now, when you do have that amount in hand, your next question may be, how do I invest $20K in Australia?
Luckily Australian investors have a lot of investment choices to choose from.
This is what I recommend:
- Go and register on highlow.com (Highlow is a trusted Australian broker)
- Make a small deposit ($500 if enough to start with)
- Work on your strategies and deposit more later on
This is the most simple, easy and hassle free way to get started with investing. If you need more info read our Highlow review.
Well, this article seeks to answer that question and to help you determine the best way to invest your money. This will help you make a considerable return. Here is what you need to do:
1. Determine Your Financial Goals
One of the first steps is to take a close look at your current financial situation and then determine your overall goals. This information will make it easier for you to figure out just how much risk you can incur with your investments. Thus, by examining your financial status and understanding where you want to end up, you can identify which investment opportunity is best for you. Let’s take a closer look at this phenomenon.
For instance, are you someone who may need access to money urgently, even though you do have $20,000 to invest? In this scenario, you may not be able to withstand a great deal of risk. This is because if you were to experience a small loss, this would affect your monetary situation, particularly if you required the money for an emergency.
On the other hand, if you are someone who does not need to touch your investment money, you can handle some risk. So, look for long-term investments that will allow you to garner considerably higher yields, even though there is some uncertainty involved.
Now, when considering financial goals, you also need to focus on how much money you would like to make within a certain period of time. For instance, if you are relatively young and have a long time until retirement, you can opt for a financial avenue that offers lower yields but also with less risk involved. In the event that you are rather close to your retirement age, it makes sense to invest in higher yield financial structures.
2. Which Type of Australian Investment Ideas Are Right for You?
Once you are a bit clearer on your current and future financial aspirations, it is time to move onto the investment ideas that are best for you. There are a few options available, depending on the type of risk you can accept as well as your preferred return on investment. Here is what they are:
A) The Moderate Risk, High Yield Option
Imagine that you don’t mind experiencing small losses as long as you are likely to get a good return on your investment. Here, you will find that equities such as shares are your best option. Australian shares, in particular, have a history of offering long-term, high yields on your investment. While there may be highs and lows during that period, it is still a great way to multiply your original 20K.
Of course, this does depend on you choosing the right stock, at the right time. So, if you don’t have too much experience in the stock market, it can be helpful to get some guidance in the form of a financial advisor. This is especially true if you are looking to invest most of your savings in shares and stock.
When investing in stocks:
- you can expect a return per annum that ranges from 4 to 7 percent, and even higher.
- To enjoy better results, it is important to focus on companies that will do well in the future.
- You should keep in mind that previous fiscal performances of a company may not have a significant bearing on their future position.
If you don’t want to go through the trouble of choosing the stock yourself, you can invest in an Exchange Traded Fund or ETF. In this instance, your money is pooled together in a fund, along with other investors, and a manager will invest them in various assets. So, the ownership of the asset, here, is indirect. If you want to learn about trading, you can read some trading success stories here.
Although you can make quite a large profit with an ETF, there are also some downsides to consider such as underlying fluctuations and a lack of liquidity. This is why you need to be careful about which fund you join. Now, to avoid any negative tax implications, you will find it best to opt for an Australian ETF that more or less deals with local investments.
B) The Low Risk, Moderate Yield Option
If you don’t want to incur too much risk but still want a decent return on your investment, then you may want to consider Australian government bonds. These can be traded on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) and can be either Exchange-traded Treasury Bonds or Exchange-traded Treasury Indexed Bonds.
With Exchange-traded Treasury Bonds, there is a fixed face value – this is the amount that you will get back once the bond has matured. These will have the same annual interest rate until maturity and this will be payable every six months. Now, the face value for Exchange-traded Treasury Indexed Bonds is adjusted for the movements in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). You will be paid a fixed interest rate that is based on the adjusted face value. The payments will be made on a quarterly basis.
It should be noted that although Exchange-Traded Treasury Bonds are impacted by inflation, Exchange-Traded Treasury Indexed Bonds are not. The main advantage with bonds is that there is little risk involved but you do get paid on a regular basis. However, these may not be the most liquid options as the market value of the bonds will depend on the time that you are attempting to sell the bonds.
C) The Low Risk, Low Yield Option
While investing, there are certain ways to mitigate the level of risk that you are exposed to. Nevertheless, the downside with this option is that there is also a limit on how you can expect as a return. Still, if you are someone who can’t deal with losses or want to have access to your money with little notice, here are the best avenues in Australia for you:
- First, there are high-yield savings accounts but the name is somewhat deceptive. This is because, when compared to stocks, these accounts don’t actually produce very high yields. They do, however, allow you to earn more interest than traditional deposit savings accounts. The main benefit of high-yield savings accounts is that they keep your money safe so you won’t have to worry about losing it. You could also take a look at vanguard.
- Then, there are money market accounts – although these may not be the most interesting investment option around, they can offer you some advantages. Much like with high-yield savings accounts, money market accounts provide you with greater financial stability. As such, you can be certain that your money will not disappear at any point. This is especially true if you have around 20K to invest, as these accounts typically require higher minimum deposits to get started with.
These accounts are not just suitable for investors looking for lower levels of risk, they are also right for anyone requiring a more liquid investment option. You will find that, within reason, you are able to withdraw your money from these accounts when needed.
3. What to Consider When Investing 20K – Investment Ideas
As you can imagine, it isn’t enough to just narrow down the type of investment you want to engage in. You will also have to figure out what sectors and industries to focus on, giving you more investment ideas. This is rather significant as it can determine whether or not you can actually turn your initial investment into a long-term profit. You will need to do some research to figure out what these top-performing sectors are.
Often, it is a matter of figuring out what sectors are performing well in your own country. For instance, at the moment, Energy, IT, Materials, and Health Care are the best Australian sectors of the year. Nevertheless, Financials, Utilities, and Telecommunication are at the bottom of the heap. Thus, investing in the better-performing sectors gives you some protection from risk.
Of course, you can’t be certain whether a sector that is currently doing well will continue to do so in the future. Here, you will need to determine how a sector has been performing over a period of time. By looking at these various intervals, you will be able to see whether the performance is increasing or decreasing. Furthermore, you should also be able to make an educated guess regarding the growth or depreciation of the sectors over the next few years.
4. How to Spread Your 20K Around
It has already been mentioned that there is a certain level of risk involved when it comes to investments, especially if you are hoping to make some real gains. This is why investors constantly need to be on the lookout for a way to minimise this level of risk. The most useful way to do this is to diversify your investments.
By doing this, you spread your money across sectors and asset classes. The main concept behind diversification, though, is to invest in assets that perform contrary to one another. This way, if one of your assets are performing poorly, you can be fairly certain that the other set of investments will be making you a profit. You are then able to balance out your losses.
This leads to the question of how you should diversify your portfolio – namely, how much of your 20K should you place with each of your investments? In this situation, there may be a rule of thumb that you can follow, at least to a certain extent. So, subtract your age by 100 and the answer will tell you just how much to invest in at each opportunity. If you need more, here are 50+ passive ideas and examples.
For instance, let’s imagine that you are 30 years old. This gives you:
100 – 30 = 70
This means that you should put around 70 percent of your 20K towards riskier, high yield investments such as stocks.
You could invest the rest of the money in:
- moderate
- or low yield, stable options like bonds and savings accounts.
As the numbers show, when you are younger, you can handle more risk as it has time to even out during your lifetime. So, your investments in the high yield investments can offer a better profit. On the other hand, if you can’t afford to lose too much since you are nearing retirement, you need more low-risk investments.
Age is not the only factor. It is also about how much risk you are open to and even how much of your $20,000 you can afford to lose at any given time. If you want a more cautious financial plan, even out your investments between the high and low-yield options.
5. Growing Your Portfolio
Just because you started off investing $20,000, doesn’t mean you should be content with this amount. A good way to continue contributing more and more to your future wealth is by reinvesting any dividends or profits that you make on your initial investments.
As long as you don’t need to utilise these profits straight away, it can be helpful to reinvest them either in the same company or sector or to try another option. After all, the more you are able to invest, the greater your wealth will be by the time you are ready to retire.
In this article we answered the question: how to invest 20k Australia?
You can get started with a deposit under AU $1k.
This is all you need to know regarding investing 20K in Australia. We’ve shown you the best AU $20k investment ideas we know. So, if you do have this amount saved up, you are now aware of all of the right moves that you need to make to multiply this amount. The only thing left for you to do is to actually start investing.