Looking to buy some stocks? Cryptocurrency, maybe? Don’t fret. Bethel’s business majors are here to help.

By Sarah Bakeman

If you’re anything like me, you probably don’t understand the ever-changing investment scene. People are buying and selling digital drawings of monkeys for hundreds of thousands of dollars, calling them NFTs and claiming this will somehow change the world. 

I am a humble communication studies major (aka clown school student), so I thought I’d do some hard-hitting reporting and ask the professionals.

No, not stockbrokers and financial advisors. 

I mean the people who have coveted IDs that can get them into that fancy glass room across from the RC gym. The people who collectively carry all of Bethel’s athletics. The people with the most LinkedIn connections.

Yes, I’m talking about the business majors.

DEREK FROMM | BUSINESS AND BIBLICAL AND THEOLOGICAL STUDIES | FRESHMAN 

How do you build an investing budget?
Use your heart. 

What is diversification?
It’s when you spread your money out between a bunch of different investments so you’re not dependent on one. If something goes south, all of your money is not in one basket. 

What do you like to invest in?
I like to invest in tech companies and the S&P 500 index fund: the old reliable.

Should I buy cryptocurrency?
Don’t sue me. It’s the most volatile thing ever. You could very easily lose your money. But I think if you hold onto it for a while, it’ll be big in the future. So put a little bit in and just test the waters.

Should I buy NFTs?
No, because you can just screenshot them… If you screenshot them, the entire world explodes.

AUDREY ANDERSON | BUSINESS AND POLITICAL SCIENCE | FRESHMAN

How do you build a budget?
I set a limit to how much I put in and distribute the money into different stocks. It’s good to have a variety.

Should I buy NFTs?
No. It’s a waste of money.

What happens if somebody screenshots my NFT?
You wait for a knock on the door from the government.

Should I invest in cryptocurrency?
I think it’s too new, and I would not trust putting my money into something that’s more of a gamble. I don’t think I would want to put my money into something I don’t know much about.

JOSHUA YOUNG | CHIEF INVESTMENT OFFICER, ROYALS INVESTMENT FUND | ECONOMICS AND FINANCE | SENIOR

What apps should I use?
I would recommend setting up a brokerage account with Charles Schwabb or Fidelity. I would avoid Robinhood. It’s not very good to its users and has been involved in multiple scandals.

Can I invest in real estate?
There [are] lots of opportunities to invest in real estate, but the transactions require more time and more money than buying stocks or cryptocurrency. It’s a bigger commitment, and it tends to go up for long periods of time and then go down by a lot over time. Be careful and figure out where you are in the cycle.

What is the block chain?
The block chain is a digital way for everybody to agree on who owns what … It’ll be a pretty powerful future technology, and it is what is used to back NFTs and cryptocurrencies.

Should I buy cryptocurrency?
It’s pretty risky right now and the price moves a lot. You want to set up a wallet through something like Coinbase or FTX rather than crypto.com or any of the other services. I would be really careful about how you buy it. Never put more than 5% of your money into crypto. 

Should I buy NFTs?
NFTs are a great way of building a digital fingerprint, but the metaphor that they’re like paintings is not super accurate. I would say NFTs are reserved for very specific instances that most people are never going to encounter. There’s no reason to be pulled into a lot of the NFT scams that exist, so I would recommend avoiding NFTs.

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Thank you, oh wise business majors. I’m sorry if I ever underestimated you. Now that I feel confident with my investment choices, I’m overwhelmed with all the untapped potential buzzing around campus. Political science majors can tell me who to vote for in the upcoming study body president election. Music majors can curate the perfect Spotify playlists for me. Engineering majors… can do something. I’m still not exactly sure what engineering even is. Maybe they can explain that to me!

Basically, this campus is filled with free, unprofessional advice. Ask your friends for some today.

Definitions

Cryptocurrency: The National Institute of Standards and Technology defines cryptocurrency as “a digital asset/credit/unit… which is cryptographically sent from one blockchain network user to another.”

Non-Fungible Token (NFT): According to Forbes, an NFT is “a digital asset that represents real-world objects like art, music, in-game items and videos. They are bought and sold online, frequently with cryptocurrency, and they are generally encoded with the same underlying software as many cryptos.”