Cash-or-Nothing Put

finance a la shmoop what are the return dynamics of investing in stocks versus

bonds well here's risk yeah and here's reward

take more of this and you get more of this but also this right stocks yeah [Man performs bike jump and holds trophy]

they're risky while they're risky in the short run

anyway here's a chart of the S&P 500 since the late 19th century Peaks

valleys Peaks valleys Peaks valleys it goes up a lot and down a lot but over

time it goes up a lot in fact over time the stock market has gone up by about 10

percent a year give or take and yeah there were long periods of time where [Man throws money into the air]

the market did way better than 10% and long periods where it did way worse and

don't forget you have to include dividend and dividend reinvestment when

you do these calculations all right so you can't invest in the stock market [Man giving lecture on stocks]

with a short term view really it's like navigating a ship with a magnifying

glass instead of a telescope if you're gonna take on the risk of the stock

market well you mitigate a lot of that risk by

just committing to own your basket of stocks for a very long time if you do

and history continues to repeat itself like a bad Thai food dinner well then [Person in a restroom cubicle]

you'll double your money about every 7 or 8 or 9 years something like that got

it okay the bond markets a completely different animal here our yields in the

early 1900's and here our yields around world war two and here our yields around

the 70s well note the skyrocketing numbers here is the Jimmy Carter [Interest rate history graph]

Administration tried hard to fight and then stomp out inflation and they did

but oh the price anyway and since then bonds have been on a long slow ride down

to the modern era where yields are almost nothing it's unprecedented to [A 100 dollar bill on the floor]

have such quote free money unquote but that's where we live in the world today

with government's desperate to stimulate inflation so that they can pay off their [Football being pumped up]

fixed debts easier so over the decades bond yields have come down and today the

ten-year t-bill yields about two or three percent depending on the weak you're

looking at it and corporate bonds yield modestly more because they're modestly more risky

they're yielding about four or five percent they're way safer both of these [A team of people waving]

then similar stocks that is government bonds and corporate bonds way way safer

than stocks less risk so what would you expect you know less reward and yeah cuz

bonds basically just boringly payoff only a very small handful of [Pennies drop]

bonds as a percentage of the total out there ever lose money by not paying

their full interest and their full principal generally on time where stocks

lose money all the time so that's it more risk more reward so if you've got [Person stacking poker chips]

lots of time with your investments put it in the stock market it's gonna go up

at a much higher rate than the bond market but if you're thinking about

buying a house in eighteen months well you probably can't afford the market

risk so you know sit tight [Man standing outside of a house for sale]