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From making nearly a million by investing in overseas real estate to turning to large fixed deposits and savings insurance, Amy, a factory worker, has made a 180-degree turn in her financial management approach in the past two years.

Yuanyuan, who also works at a large company, has also made the same change. Yuanyuan was once "badly beaten" by the fund. Recently, she started to "cut her losses" and leave the market in order to repay the loan in advance. Just like she used to put any spare money into the fund, now Yuanyuan uses all her spare money to repay the loan in advance.

In Yuanyuan's opinion, it is difficult to find a way to manage money with higher returns than paying off mortgage loans. "The interest rate for new homes keeps going down, and the existing homes not only lose money on the house price, but also lose a lot more on the interest than others."

The frequent reduction of deposit interest rates has not only made young people realize that the returns from deposit management are getting lower and lower, but also made people in large companies, who are representatives of the high-income group, more anxious about financial management. With salary cuts, layoffs, and the 35+ red line, many people in large companies hope to use financial management income to hedge against workplace emergencies, and some even dream of earning enough money and firing themselves directly through financial management.

At the height of the Internet industry, people in large companies were not far from the above-mentioned financial management dream. Some of them did not even need to spend much effort on financial management.Employees of large companies who hold equity rewards are waiting to soar with the company while purchasing real estate to meet their needs for self-residence and asset appreciation. At most, they can make some regular investments in funds to make some pocket money for themselves or to save some education funds for the next generation.

But after the plunge of Chinese stocks in 2022, more and more people in large companies no longer pay for options/equity. They prefer to hold on to the real cash in hand. At the same time, the volatility of the financial market is also increasing, and the property market continues to decline... If you are not careful in investing, the middle class may become poor overnight.

Equity was once an important source of core wealth for people working in large Internet companies. Because of this, even an employee of a large company who does not trade stocks at all will be tied to the stock market, and many people working in large companies have begun to enter the stock market under this bond.

Da Xu, an Alibaba employee, is one of them. In 2020, not long after he joined the company, Da Xu had his own overseas bank account. "People from Dachang are very popular with banks and securities firms, and they even came to our door to help us apply for overseas bank accounts and open U.S. stock securities accounts." After four years of stock trading, Da Xu is still "paying tuition fees". "The U.S. stock market made me successful, and the U.S. stock market also made me fail." In the past week, Da Xu paid back all the hundreds of thousands of dollars he earned from the U.S. stock market last year.

Amid the turmoil in the financial management market, the financial management concepts of people in large companies have also changed. Compared with their previous aggressive investments in the stock market and real estate, they now prefer financial products with stable returns and flexible subscription and redemption.

In an uncertain economic environment, stability trumps all risk.

A

Along with Amy's change in financial management concepts came a decrease in her salary, which further deepened her financial anxiety.

Amy joined a large company in 2016 and caught up with the rapid development of the Internet industry. She was promoted from a product specialist to a senior product manager, starting from a small module to being responsible for an entire product line. Amy has been working in different large companies for 8 years. Her highest annual salary was 600,000 yuan, but now it is much less than before. Compared with saving 1 million yuan in three years, "it is hard to save 200,000 yuan a year now."

The salary drop also directly affected Amy's ability to deal with risks in financial management. After experiencing the uncertainty of overseas real estate, Amy, who was worried that "the more she managed, the less she had", directly chose the most conservative large deposit.

Now facing the decline in deposit interest rates, Amy took out her 300,000 yuan current deposit as emergency funds and bought all of it into savings insurance. "When it's hard to make money, you have to take the money you earn seriously. My parents are still in good health and don't need so much liquid funds for the time being." The savings insurance Amy bought needs to be withdrawn in 15 years, with an annual interest rate of 3.5%. In her opinion, this has exceeded the current increase in housing prices, funds, stocks, and bank large-denomination certificates of deposit.

Faced with a reduction in deposit interest rates, there are many young people who are "moving savings" like Amy. At the same time, many people in large companies who are burdened with high outstanding mortgage loans also regard paying off their mortgages in advance as the best way to manage their finances.

In Yuanyuan's opinion, it is difficult to find a way to manage money with higher returns than paying off mortgage loans. "The interest rate for new homes keeps going down, and the existing homes not only lose money on the house price, but also lose a lot more on the interest than others."

Yuanyuan bought a small, old house in Beijing in 2019, and the value of the house dropped by 1 million yuan in 5 years. After paying off the first 500,000 yuan in advance, Yuanyuan calculated that the interest saved was about 700,000 yuan.

The money Yuanyuan used to repay her loan came not only from her and her husband’s savings, and year-end bonuses, but also from funds sold at a loss.Yuanyuan followed the trend and bought the fund at a high price in 2021. Instead of getting the expected return, she lost her principal. In order to recover her investment, Yuanyuan increased her investment from more than 200,000 yuan to nearly 600,000 yuan. Her losses also increased from a few thousand yuan at the beginning to more than 200,000 yuan now. "In the current market conditions, it is unlikely to recover the investment. It is better to use it to repay the loan."

Da Xu, who also has a mortgage of nearly 2 million yuan, completely disagrees with Yuanyuan and others' practice of paying off their loans in advance. "Mortgages are linked to the LPR (loan market benchmark rate), and interest rates have clearly been on a downward trend in recent years. The best option should be to hedge mortgage interest with low-risk financial management." Da Xu's confidence comes from his successful experience in the past year. In the past year, Da Xu has diversified his 1.75 million yuan deposit and made a total profit of 130,000 yuan.

But just a week ago, facing the epic collapse of the U.S. stock market, Da Xu's mentality collapsed. In just one week, Da Xu lost the 130,000 yuan he earned from U.S. stocks last year.

As the best part of Da Xu's financial management income last year, Da Xu increased his US stock holdings to 600,000 yuan this year. "In less than a month, the Nasdaq has fallen by 10%." Da Xu's account also evaporated more than 100,000 yuan in just one week.

B

For people in large companies, financial management used to be an easy thing. They could hold shares while investing the money they earned in the real estate market, and then wait for their assets to double.However, as the dividends from the Internet and the real estate market gradually fade away, financial management has become a problem for people in large companies.

For not planning ahead and missing outNvidiaDa Xu still feels regretful. "As a practitioner, I was aware of Nvidia's takeoff. I had a flash of thought in my mind, but I missed it in the end."

But Da Xu has no regrets about paying the "tuition fee" in the stock market. "At one point, I lost 200,000 yuan at one time, but that didn't stop me from investing all the 500,000 yuan, including my year-end bonus, in the next year."

Da Xu is very satisfied with his performance in the stock market last year. In the past year, Da Xu diversified his 1.75 million yuan deposit and made a total profit of 130,000 yuan. Among them, 600,000 yuan was used to purchase R2-level bank wealth management products, earning 16,000 yuan. 400,000 yuan was used for reverse repurchase of treasury bonds, earning 11,000 yuan. 300,000 yuan of US stocks earned 115,000 yuan, 100,000 yuan of gold earned 12,000 yuan, and 150,000 yuan of bond funds earned 6,000 yuan.

Therefore, when seeing several colleagues repaying their loans in advance, Da Xu would always give some advice, "Mortgages are linked to the LPR (Loan Market Reference Rate). In recent years, interest rates have clearly been on a downward cycle. The best option should be to use low-risk financial management to hedge the mortgage interest."

Today, Da Xu also has a mortgage of nearly 2 million yuan, but because he needed money to buy a house, he sold all his index funds before he was trapped. But Yuanyuan was not so lucky.

For those who have large amounts of wealth and are busy working in large companies, regular investment in funds once became one of the necessary ways of financial management, and many fund managers were also deified.

Yuanyuan, who believes that "mortgage is the lowest financial bonus that ordinary people can get", would invest any spare money in funds. "The market was good at that time, and almost all my colleagues bought funds. During lunch break, they talked about how much the stock price had increased."Even though she didn’t know anything about funds, Yuanyuan followed the trend and bought several popular online funds, which became very popular. “Every month, I get money in, ranging from 2,000 to 3,000 yuan, to 5,000 to 6,000 yuan.”

But soon these days of making money with eyes closed came to an end. At the beginning of 2022, young new investors were hit hard by the market. Yuanyuan not only lost all the money she earned, but even her capital preservation became a problem. With the obsession of "getting back the capital and getting out of the trap", Yuanyuan fell into a vortex of "the more she covered her position, the more she lost", and eventually invested nearly 600,000 yuan.

"I have been wanting to sell my money for the past few years, but I was unwilling to do so and could only wait for the market to return. My husband advised me to leave it alone, but I still check it from time to time, and lose a little every time I do so." One of the funds that was once a popular online fund fell by nearly 60%. "If I had chosen to pay off the mortgage early, I could have saved hundreds of thousands of yuan in interest."

In 2019, when Yuanyuan needed to buy a house, Amy also saved her first 1 million yuan. At that time, due to the impact of the epidemic, Beijing's housing prices fell. Some colleagues interpreted this as a good opportunity to buy at the bottom and advised her to buy a house in Beijing as soon as possible, but Amy insisted that the current high housing prices were unsustainable.

"Not only are Beijing's housing prices high, but the loan interest rates and down payment ratios are also high. Even in Hong Kong, where every inch of land is valuable, the down payment ratio is only 10%, and the loan interest rates are much lower than in Beijing." So Amy set her sights on overseas properties. "After some research, I found that compared to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, houses abroad are really not expensive, and some rental income returns are also very high."

One million yuan is not enough to buy a house in Beijing, but it is more than enough in Dubai. "You can make money even by picking up garbage in Dubai." At that time, the cousin of a colleague in a large factory was doing overseas immigration and real estate business. With the help of her colleague, Amy got a preliminary understanding of the real estate market around the world and finally set her sights on Dubai, which "will definitely skyrocket after the World Expo."

"Dubai has a high rental-to-sale ratio, the houses come with decoration, and there are agents to help manage them. The only cost of holding is the property fee." In Amy's view, the monthly rental income of more than 10,000 dirhams is just enough to pay off the mortgage, which is equivalent to 0 monthly payments.

In 2019, Amy bought a house in Dubai for a total price of 1.54 million yuan, with a down payment of 20%. But in 2020, instead of taking off, Dubai's housing market hit a low point. Unable to leave, Amy could only contact agents online, and couldn't find anyone to take over even if she wanted to sell.

C

If you don't manage your finances, money will always stay with you. People in large companies who are increasingly aware of this are becoming more and more conservative in financial management.

Amy is considered a lucky person. She has reaped the benefits of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Some wealthy Russians have also gone to Dubai to buy houses, pushing up Dubai's housing prices.In January 2022, Amy paid the final payment of 770,000 yuan and immediately sold the house in Dubai for a total of 2.5 million yuan, making a net profit of 960,000 yuan.

Nowadays, many of Amy’s friends, whom she added at some unknown time, are selling their houses. Even some of her former colleagues from large companies are selling their houses overseas.

According to Amy's friends, Dubai houses are still in great demand, but now she doesn't dare to buy any more. "The property fees for Dubai houses are very high. The cheapest property fee is more than 10,000 yuan a year. Although I made money this time, I don't think I can make the right bet next time."

Before the money from the house sale came in, Amy, who couldn't stand the high risk of financial management, set her sights on large-denomination certificates of deposit. "The Big Four banks are not in my consideration. The annualized interest rate is too low. The interest rates of local banks are high, and some village banks even exceed 4%."In the end, due to her high demand for stability, Amy chose two local banks with an annual interest rate of 4% and deposited 800,000 yuan for five years. She also used 200,000 yuan to buy a retirement savings product with an annual interest rate of 4.12%, which has higher returns and can be withdrawn at any time for emergency use.

Compared with overseas real estate speculation and other high-risk financial management, Amy is very clear that this amount of money is not even a drop in the bucket, but in her heart, "stability overrides everything."

Unlike two years ago when local banks chased her to buy large-denomination certificates of deposit, now large-denomination certificates of deposit have to be "grabbed". In order to find the "slippery fish" with higher returns, Amy kept an eye on the bank's large-denomination certificate of deposit transfer interface from time to time. At the same time, Amy also saw scalpers reselling large-denomination certificates of deposit on social platforms, but gave up because she was worried that they were unreliable.

Da Xu, who was made by the US stock market last year and severely hurt by it this year, has adopted the method of medium- and short-term debt to conduct low-risk financial management in order to diversify risks."The best part of financial management income last year was US stocks, and I have increased my investment this year... In addition, short- and medium-term bonds have risen by nearly 7% this year, which has exceeded mortgage loans. And the liquidity of financial management is much better than real estate, so it is worth it even if I sacrifice a little bit of income."

Until a week ago, Da Xu began to lose his confidence as he did last year. He comforted himself with the long-term investment value, but couldn't help but diversify his risks. In order to prevent the next crash, Da Xu has already unloaded all leveraged ETF options and switched all positions to underlying stocks.

At the same time, Daxu also diversified more funds into more stable R2-level bank wealth management products.While "making friends with time", Da Xu also began to consider repaying the loan in advance.

You can’t just win by paying off the loan, but you’ll feel like you’re losing if you don’t pay it off. Just like when I used to put any spare money into funds, now whenever I have any spare money, I use it all to pay off the loan in advance.

Yuanyuan's previous financial management was conservative, but she also had a wide range of financial management options. She had some money in stocks, funds, and Yu'ebao. Now, except for a few funds that have lost a lot of money, all other funds have been cleared out. "If I need money urgently, I will clear my positions. This will give me the courage to cut my losses and leave."