A study of investment strategies : are Brazilians making the right decision when investing their surplus?

Authors

Santos, Bruna

Issue Date

2014

Degree

MBA in Finance

Publisher

Dublin Business School

Rights

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Abstract

This thesis is about how Brazilians are investing their financial surplus. Nowadays, when an investor decides to maximize capital, it is essential to know which possibilities are available and which ones are more adequate depending on the individual’s purpose, profile, timing and other variables that need to be taken into consideration before deciding on an investment. However, the adverse situation, in this case, is that there is a great diversity of strategies available in the Brazilian investment portfolio. Along with this context, there are many Brazilians that lack proper and quality information while choosing an appropriate strategy. For this reason, this study aims to investigate whether Brazilians are able to take advantage of the great variety of investment strategies, despite their lack of knowledge, or if Brazilians do not even consider the entire investment portfolio, but the most basic strategy available, because they do not want to risk and invest in something that they do not really understand. In order to verify the choices that Brazilians have towards investments, the main and most common investment strategies are explained, including their respective pros and cons. Afterwards, research is conducted with many Brazilians. Through a questionnaire they report their attitude towards saving capital and also their preferences when investing their surplus. Once the primary and secondary data are gathered, it is possible to analyse the information and present the findings of this study and also suggest potential topics that need further research in this same field. Author keywords: Investment strategies, Brazilian investors, surplus maximisation