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Home Investment Bitcoin beats traditional investments for the 2nd year in a row in Finder’s annual Investment Tracker

Bitcoin beats traditional investments for the 2nd year in a row in Finder’s annual Investment Tracker

by Staff GBAF Publications Ltd

£1,000 investments into 7 of the UK’s most popular investments from last year have been tracked throughout 2021

20, December, 2021, LONDON –

Bitcoin looks set to comfortably top Finder’s Investment Tracker for the second year in a row. Someone who invested £1,000 in it at the beginning of the year would currently be 62% up.

Every year, the personal finance comparison site follows the most popular types of investments from the previous year to see how they perform against each other. By investing* £1,000 in 7 different types of investments, the aim is to help understand the risk associated with different approaches, especially given the unprecedented disruption to the markets caused by coronavirus.

The top performers of the year

If you had invested £1,000 into Bitcoin at the beginning of January, it would currently be worth £1,622, despite a spectacular fall in value of 27% over the past 6 weeks – it reached a high of £2,231 back in mid-November. This follows on from 2020, where an initial £1k investment into Bitcoin finished the year at £3,919.

Tesla was the most popular stock in the UK in 2020, and anyone who bought shares in it at the beginning of this year would not be disappointed. They would currently be sitting on a 36% rise in value (£1,364).

This year’s 3rd best performer is the UK’s most popular fund of 2020, Fundsmith Equity. It has risen fairly consistently since April and a £1,000 investment would currently be worth £1,209. It is closely followed by a FTSE tracker, an Exchange-traded fund (ETF) that mirrors the FTSE 100’s performance, that is returning £1,125 at the moment.

And the ones that struggled

While Gold was the 3rd best investment in 2020’s tracker, it is currently in last place. Someone who invested £1,000 at the beginning of the year would be almost £20 down (£980.54), making it the only investment that would see them losing money at present.

The most competitive savings rate on an easy-access account back in January was 0.05%. This means that as 2021 draws to a close, £1,000 deposited in an account like this would have earned interest of £4.82 with 2 weeks of the year remaining. This puts it second last in the tracker, although it is worth remembering it is the only option that carries no risk of capital being lost.

Commenting on the findings, Head of Research and Communications at the personal finance comparison site, finder.com, Matt Mckenna, said: “Despite a second year of COVID disruption and mixed emotions in the markets, it’s been another stellar period for some of the riskier investments like Bitcoin and Tesla. This tracker highlights the potential returns that you can get if you’re prepared to risk your capital but don’t be lured in by the past performance of these assets. Higher potential reward comes with higher potential risk and it is a real possibility that you could lose a lot, or all, of your money when you invest – more so if you go into particularly risky cryptocurrencies or ‘penny’ stocks.

“Thoroughly research any investment you want to make. Our recent white paper found that 7 in 10 (71%) investors who identify as beginners do very little to no research before making an investment, which is a truly worrying statistic. Make sure you’re not one of these people!”

“While the returns from the savings account are not eye-catching compared to the other assets in the tracker this year, it is wise to have at least some of your cash somewhere where it is protected in case you need it for an emergency.”

To see the research in full visit: https://www.finder.com/uk/investment-tracker

Methodology:

The Tracker follows the price of: the FTSE, Bitcoin, Gold, the Dollar, Stock – Tesla, Fund – Fundsmith Equity, Savings account – Union Bank

For the individual company share and fund, we selected the most popular choices in 2020 according to Trading 212 and Interactive Investor. For the savings account, we picked the most competitive rate available on our site as of Jan 2021. All data is taken from the markets at the close of markets on a Friday. For this release, the prices were taken on Friday 17th December.

*The £1,000 hasn’t actually been saved or invested in these methods, it is just being used as a way to illustrate the performance of each method.

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