Although Santiago Yasky graduated as a Sociologist, four years ago he began his training as a Financial Advisor at the company Evolution Investment Life. “There we offer financial planning solutions for families and companies, both in the short and long term. We are an agency that belongs to Grupo Loyalty, the largest consultancy firm in Argentina in family and business financial planning with more than 20 years of experience in the market and more than 20,000 active clients between individuals and companies,” says Santiago.
– What led you to leave your career as a sociologist to dedicate yourself to finance?
I was employed in a dependency relationship and lived on my salary until I came across the possibility of obtaining a loan and buying a house. That led me to get in debt at very high levels, which motivated me to learn to manage my personal finances in a different way. When the possibility of learning this trade arose and being able to help others with what I had learned, I did not hesitate. The management of personal finances has some mathematics, but in reality everything happens (like many aspects in life), by understanding our behaviors and learning to manage our emotions. Today, I work as an independent financial advisor and I provide tools that adapt to any profile and any short or long-term financial objective that a person intends to achieve.
– How do you work with your clients?
We are a team of more than thirty advisors who work with various tools, which allow the client to put together a plan that fits their possibilities, needs, and goals. All these tools are regulated by some control body, such as the National Securities Commission or the National Insurance Superintendence, and the client can see the management of their savings or investment in real time. This way of working makes everything completely transparent and allows constant contact between the advisor and the investor.
– Are the advisors specially trained or do they continue with their training?
The company provides us with ongoing training. We have many hours a week of seminars, corporate calls and team meetings. In addition, it provides us with the tools to enroll in the various areas of expertise that we cover. I, for example, am about to receive a Higher Technician in Insurance and Qualified in Capital Markets and I have a very diverse active portfolio of clients made up of family businessmen, small merchants, employees in a dependency relationship, programming professionals, etc. Which means that anyone who wants to learn and understands the discipline of saving, is willing to give themselves time, knows their risk profile – which is nothing more than knowing how much I am willing to risk, understanding that the greater the risk, the greater the return. but also less security- they can save, invest and capitalize, without losing money in the process and without falling for scams or gurus that generally end up taking them away from the enormous possibility they have of changing central aspects of their lives.
– What do you have to do to lose the fear of investing and lose savings?
To lose your fear of investing, the first thing to do is learn about the famous investment triangle. Where in each angle of the base is on one side the risk and on the other the liquidity and in the upper angle the profitability. The investment triangle is closely related to what was mentioned at the beginning: our risk profile. What strategy am I going to use knowing that the most profitable carries more risk and that which carries less risk is not as profitable. The other point to take into account is liquidity: if I need my capital in an emergency, how quickly do I have that cash? For example, in a traditional fixed term, the investor does not have liquidity during the chosen investment period: 30, 60, 90 days or one year. If I am willing to make a long-term investment, and I do not need immediate liquidity, I may use a more aggressive strategy. If, on the other hand, my investment horizon is short and my need for liquidity is greater, I may need to adopt a more conservative strategy. For this, there are different financial instruments or assets, with different returns and risks that can also be combined to diversify risk.
– Is diversification the key to a correct investment?
Absolutely. The ideal is to build a portfolio combining assets of different risk, to mitigate the effect of a drop in the yield of any contained asset. Mutual investment funds use this strategy, combining different assets and returns, making them, in my opinion, the most attractive investment instrument for someone who wants to build capital over time, without getting on an emotional roller coaster.
– Today, is it possible to beat inflation with investment?
In Argentina, the number one enemy of the saver is inflation. Inflation, say those who know, is the sustained increase in consumer prices; but it also represents a huge sustained loss of purchasing power and a major stumbling block for savers. Today, it is difficult to beat inflation in the short term, without taking risk. But there are tools that allow (often) to overcome it, or match it, thus reducing the loss of saving capacity, especially in the short term.
– So in the long term is the prognosis better?
In the long term, by choosing appropriate instruments and with another risk perspective, inflation can be largely overcome. Today, in stock exchange companies or brokers, there are funds that adjust by CER – the abbreviation for reference stabilization coefficient – which allows us to adjust our savings for inflation or even, depending on the broker and the fund, at least in the short term, overcome it. Although it is not something that always happens.
– Is there a lot of stability and emotional management that investors must handle?
As I said at the beginning, saving has a large emotional management component. If I, for example, collect the Christmas bonus and go out desperately to buy clothes or eat out, I probably won’t be able to save, even if my income is very large. Not having a monthly budget discriminating fixed and variable expenses and separating a percentage for savings and investment is a great limitation for the economic growth of a family. In doing so, money is used rationally and emotional spending and “ant consumption” are limited, at least in part, which are nothing more than small daily consumption that can be avoided and that, at the end of the month, represent a significant portion of the income. This is how you can distinguish need from whim.
– Can anyone who wants to invest be advised by you?
Of course. Anyone who decides to have a counseling meeting can contact me. It is worth clarifying that the first meeting in which the client’s profile is analyzed and its possibilities and horizons are evaluated, is free of charge.
Cell: (11) 5487-0718
Mail: [email protected]
IG: @planealo.ok
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by CEDOC