Off the track investment

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart - Helen Keller

Being a student of finance, investment is something which keeps on running in my mind. Everyone wants to invest their savings somewhere and in return expect a good return. But what if that investment plan is giving you a abysmal low return? An optimist will continue to trust that investment with the hope that the condition might get better and the future profit will make up for some of the present losses, if not all. Or a person might withdraw the money and invest in a stock which assures high return on a short term basis.

But, what on Earth has compelled me to pen down such a mundane financial boolean(high or low returns) logic? Well, the other day something happened and the only analogy which I could think of at that point was of relating this logic to life. When we start any relationship be it of son-daughter,brother-sister,colleagues or even friendship we inadvertently expect to be able to count on it, rely on it. We expect that the people involved in the relationship be honest at least with each other, if not the world. Also, you cannot expect an investment to be one sided, if you are giving something then you expect something in return, same applies to any relation - be it friendship or love. It can prosper only when the stakeholders of that relationship have the same feelings for each other. Expecting that X, might be able to change Y's feeling for X by various means of communication in spite of knowing the fact that it is impossible to do is like expecting the stock of a company to give 100% returns when the company has filed for bankruptcy.

Mostly, subconsciously we invest our emotions/feelings apart from time and effort to maintain and respect that relationship with the hope that we'll have some positive return in the time to come. Those who say that they don't expect anything, well think again! At some point in your life you must have expected your near and dear ones or even friends to be there for you unconditionally whenever you need them. Aahh! now you remember, don't you?

Suppose you have Rs.X crores as your lifetime savings. One day you invest all your savings into a stock which you trusted for huge positive returns. This complete act could be related to investing your emotions to trust someone. Whatever world, whatever relationships I've seen till date, I am of the opinion that majority of our relationship lacks a certain degree of balance. Then comes a time when you realize that your choice of investment was a bad one, the cumulative return of your invested emotions is coming out to be negative. That is precisely when you see two options - being optimist or withdrawing your investment. But for people like me, there exists another option - cutting down on the investment instead of completely withdrawing, though I don't expect any great returns from the left over investment but I do make sure the level of left over investment gives some return. 

I agree, by sentiments this is easier said than done but sometimes we have to bite the bullet. Take out a moment from your busy schedule and think of an instance where you had to make such an investment and then had to make choices.