I was horrified by the contents of one of my Finnish mutual funds when I looked into it after years of disinterest. I’m especially disgusted by UnitedHealth Group Inc - the health insurance company whose mass murderer CEO got shot recently, sparking nationwide cheers.

As a passive investor, you’ll forget your money into the wrong hands when the bank won’t remind you of developments in the political situation.

Ålandsbanken promises:

“socially sustainable”

You may assume your bank is civilised, but you should have a closer look. I’m a customer of S-bank in Finland. In this case, the fund ended up under a different Finnish bank twice due to buyouts, and the management of the fund ended up in a Canadian bank branch in the UK.

My other bank didn’t recommend selling my Russian investment when Putin’s reign had started going overdue after his full term as a president. Luckily I was awake and sold everything.

Investments drift out of balance over time. Within mutual funds, there are limits, but the funds grow at different rates. You should re-balance your diversification once in a while to avoid excessive country risk.

I don’t know if fund managers are bribed to distort the balance within the fund’s limits for the benefit of a third party.

My fund is managed by that guy. I sold everything. Will reinvest in Europe.

  • Bsher8365@lemmy.worldEnglish
    418·
    4 hours ago

    In all seriousness, perhaps consider Bitcoin - it has a ~60% ARR since inception and is nation-state agnostic.

    • Tehdastehdas@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      121·
      4 hours ago

      Crypto money is a waste of computation that could be used for something productive, like protein folding.

      When investing in (most) companies, the money buys means of production for making a product someone can use. I like that.

        • Tehdastehdas@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
          5·
          1 hour ago

          Indeed, Wikipedia: Proof of stake # Energy consumption

          In 2021, a study by the University of London found that in general the energy consumption of the proof-of-work based Bitcoin was about a thousand times higher than that of the highest consuming proof-of-stake system that was studied even under the most favorable conditions and that most proof of stake systems cause less energy consumption in most configurations.

          In January 2022, Erik Thedéen, the vice-chair of the European Securities and Markets Authority, called on the EU to ban the PoW model in favor of PoS because of the latter’s lower energy consumption.

          Ethereum’s switch to proof-of-stake was estimated to have cut its energy use by 99%.