All kinds of low risk things go down occasionally. Think of the 2008 financial crash for example. On average, or over a long time, you are very likely to make gains. But that’s not nevessarily true for shorter periods like 10 years even if you invest in low risk assets.

Edit: I also invested some of my student loans in Finland. Or officially, my other income that was freed up due to the loan ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

well he made the profit in like 2 years lol.
Also there's at least one bank here that specifically only has savings accounts, with pretty decent interest (like 2.7%) and free withdrawals at any time. And because it's sweden the state will protect any money you deposit under like $100k per person.

[–] frayedpickles@lemmy.cafe 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

For the last year or so getting a 5% (1-3 yr) CD was not unheard of, so literally leaving it in a bank account is better than the annuity option by the above poster's math.

[–] nimpnin@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 week ago

I don't think you quite understand what I mean. You can't extrapolate from the last 3 years. What you can extrapolate from is longer periods of time, where we occasionally see assets going generally down for some time. So you have maybe 90% chance of your stock portfolio going up in the next 5 or 10 years, and 10% chance of it going down (rough numbers but the point holds).

So you can end up in a situation where you lose money, but it's unlikely. If you are very risk averse, you would prefer a 0% increase over these odds.