At Thread, we believe investing is a right that no one can afford to ignore. Investing builds healthy pension plans, finances growth projects, and empowers entrepreneurial projects to shape the world of tomorrow.
Yet, resources and tools that investors use to make their investment decisions have little changed since they were created in the 90s. They are no longer up to tomorrow’s challenge.
We also believe technology will redefine how investment decisions are made by breaking existing silos between investment data, insights, and teams.
This is why we share our 5 predictions on how investing could look like in the next 5 years:
#1 — Investing will be as simple as booking a hotel or picking a movie to watch
Investors will build watchlists and buy securities at investment “marketplaces” where all investing products will be easily accessible: Transparent pricing, clean labels, and organized sections will become the norm.
Just like IMDB did for movies, or TripAdvisor did for restaurants, investment securities will be “branded” with simple words and classified with tags that will make them easy to search. Investment top list will become mainstream, companies will be rated ranked and debated, and everyone will have the right to give his opinion.
#2 — Investment decisions will be as interactive, collaborative, and engaging as social networks
Investors will no longer set hundreds of quantitative criteria to find out their next target. They will discuss their preferences with others and will be provided personalized options suited to their needs.
The emergence of social trading shows that this trend is already underway in the personal investing space and professionals will need to catch up.
#3 — People will “vote” with their money to endorse projects that they believe in
Investors will no longer seek performance at all costs. They will buy into investments they understand, which are aligned with their values, and their vision of the future. In exchange, they will expect more communication, transparency, and accountability from companies.
#4 — Investors will demand full transparency and understanding of their assets
They will be able to aggregate every ownable asset in digital portfolios with real-time information for all their underlying assets.
They will have access to a 360° overview of their thematic and risk exposures explained in simple words (e.g. Pet Food, Wind Energy, China…)
Their portfolios and watchlist will be accessible through interactive and intuitive interfaces that will be shared with their trusted ones: family, community, advisors.
#5 — Investment Research will empower investors to make informed investment decisions.
For decades, investment research has been accessible only to the wealthy few. This has prevented most to make informed investment decisions and created divisions between the informed and the rest. Instead of healthy discussions and debates, most investors relied on individual instincts and partial information to decide where to put their money at work.
Just as Wikipedia democratized access to knowledge, we believe that next-generation tools will de-more-cratize access to investment knowledge.
Professional and Individual investors will crowdsource investment data, and conduct healthy debates to uncover healthy investment opportunities.
