Obermatt CEO Dr. Hermann J. Stern met Swiss author Thomas Meyer for an interview in the Sport Bar by the Helvetiaplatz. As you can imagine for a writer, Thomas has always been skeptical of financial issues. He told Hermann that he viewed stocks as pure greed – and also as way too complicated. No wonder that he didn’t want to deal with them.
Hermann patiently explained to Thomas that stocks have nothing to do with greed and that the whole thing really isn’t that hard. That’s because stocks aren’t any more or less morally-acceptable than the money investors pay for them – or the money that Thomas earns with his books. And even if new investors initially have to deal with many new specialist terms, he didn’t have to understand them all in order to start trading. Instead, he could start with small steps. With only a few stocks.
Dr. Stern told Thomas, who was listening attentively, that it’s worth to deal with the topic of stocks because the general unwillingness to do so leads most people to lose money when it comes to saving. We are talking about a difference of thirty to fifty percent more capital in old age. If you take matters into your own hands, you don’t pay any external administration fees – and can therefore maybe afford a holiday home later in life (source: Obermatt Investing Handbook).
Thomas, self-employed for eleven years, is very interested in understanding and managing things on his own. One of the things that really bothers him is the fact that a good part of the money he has been saving for Pillar 3a products has disappeared into the pockets of those that manage it for him – and will continue to do so. From now on, he wants to take matters into his own hands. So he subscribed to the Obermatt newsletter and used the information from it to buy his first three stocks: two of the French company Schneider Electric and one from LyondellBasell Industries.
Watch the full interview (Swiss)