Understanding Speculation And Impacts On Investment Returns

14
Jul0

Investments often are speculative investments. Investments are said to be speculative if the investor does not make adequate assessment of the financial assets on which investments are made or if the investor is interested only in short term gains through fluctuations in its price. Such investments have a higher risk as the short term fluctuations in the price of the financial asset does not necessarily reflect its real value.

The speculative investment may be beneficial or harmful. The speculator typically buys a produce or an asset when it is in short supply or when the demand is high so that the increased short supply drives up the price. When the price is high, the produce or asset will last longer. But the higher price will keep away a section of the consumer from buying. Speculative buying also is likely to result in hoarding of the produce, further leading to an artificially created short supply fueling the prices even higher. At the same time a higher price could also promote increased production and possibly import if needed.

Increased demand and higher price is a result of speculative buying. Similarly, the price is made to fall artificially with speculative selling which can lead to the price falling below its actual value. Often speculative buying shows up as a continuous rise in the price with more prospects of increased price. This is attractive to speculators who continue to buy more hoping to make a windfall of a profit at a later date. This speculative buying spree could reach a point when the speculators loses confidence and begins to sell. A selling spree can rapidly crash its price leading what has come to be popularly called ‘bubble burst’. Speculation is high in the foreign exchange market, a major economic activity. There are a number of useful learning tools that can assist anyone to learn about the forex market such as Learn Forex Live, Forex Trading Made E-Z, the London Forex Rush System and Forex Breakouts.

Increased speculation in the market leads to short-term volatility leading to unstable prices. In recent times, there has been a series of economic bubble bursts that goes beyond the specific asset to affect the whole investment market. This has led to intense debate on the need to regulate speculative investment and trading. A number of measures have been suggested to regulate speculative trading. One such measure is to ban speculative trading in certain commodities as oil blaming hedge funds in the manipulation of oil prices. Another suggestion is to levy a penalty in the form of tax on short-term speculation in currencies of 1 percent or lesser. This tax is named Tobin Tax after James Tobin, an economist.