• Why invest

Saving is also important for individual investors, for whom savings accomplish the function of setting aside wealth for future requirements. This function, partly as a result of the changes which have already occurred in the welfare system, is gaining increasingly greater importance.

Our idea of pension benefits is linked to that which we have seen happen to our parents (or grandparents), whose "pension" was more or less equal to their last wage. By contrast, it will not be so for many of us: what we will receive will not ensure us a standard of living which we will be used to and might not guarantee us a sufficiently dignified existence.

Today’s workers, therefore, if they want to ensure themselves a tranquil old age will have to set aside part of their savings, so that the inevitable physical, psychological and emotional difficulties of this phase in our lives are not joined by economic difficulties as well.

But if savings are so importance, why do we sometimes not dedicate the due attention to their investment, the same attention which by contrast we dedicate to purchases of lesser importance?

Here is an example: the purchase of a motor vehicle. Often, we reach a decision after a multi-stage process during which:

• one’s needs and preferences are established, in terms of performance, comfort, inexpensiveness to use;
• the expenditure limit is defined;
• information is obtained on the makes and the models present on the market in order to assess which corresponds the best to our requirements;
• having chosen the model, we visit several official dealers seeking the best offer;
• offers that seem too inviting are carefully assessed, in order to discover "what lies underneath";
• attention is paid to the clauses of the purchase contract (delivery, warranty, buy-back, etc.).

There. This is the right and rational course for whomever intends to invest a certain sum in an asset of certain importance. All the more reason why a similar route must be followed by those who are on the point of investing often greater sums destined to satisfy needs much more important than those of moving about from place to place.