RSPH Blogs - Finances!

What Is a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust)? Real estate has always been a popular investment — but buying property directly takes serious capital most people don't have readily available. REITs offer a way around that. What Is a REIT? A Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) is a company that owns, operates, or finances income-generating real estate — office buildings, shopping malls, apartment complexes, warehouses, hotels, and similar properties. Rather than buying a property yourself, buying shares of a REIT gives you partial ownership of a whole portfolio of properties, traded much like a stock. → Related: What Is the Share Market? (#2) How Are REITs Different From Buying Property Directly? Direct real estate ownership requires significant capital upfront, plus ongoing responsibilities — maintenance, tenants, property management. REITs remove most of that barrier: you can invest with a relatively small amount of money, buy and sell shares easily on an exchange (much mo...

  11 Must-Read Books on Various Financial Topics Here's a list of 11 books spanning a range of financial topics — Futures & Options, Derivatives, Commodities, Investing, Business, Self-Improvement, Entrepreneurship, and Forex — to help build a solid foundation across each. 1. The Psychology of Money — Morgan Housel (Business) Covers the psychological side of money — how our behavior and mindset around saving, investing, and spending often matter more than raw financial knowledge. Readers consistently highlight it as reshaping how they think about saving and investing, rather than just chasing trends. Check Price 2. The Intelligent Investor — Benjamin Graham (Investing) A foundational text on value investing — buying below a share's intrinsic value. → Related: What Is Value Investing? (#13) Check Price 3. The Warren Buffett Way — Robert G. Hagstrom (Investing) Walks through the investment principles and decisions behind Warren Buffett's career — a strong pick f...

What Is an Emergency Fund? How Much Should You Actually Save? Before diving into stocks, bonds, or any other investment, there's one financial foundation worth building first: an emergency fund . What Is an Emergency Fund? An emergency fund is money set aside specifically to cover unexpected expenses or a sudden loss of income — a medical emergency, a job loss, an urgent home or car repair — without having to sell investments, rack up high-interest debt, or rely on someone else to bail you out. → Related: Why Is It Important for You to Be Rich? (#35) — financial resilience is a big part of why this matters. Why Not Just Invest That Money Instead? Investments — stocks, bonds, mutual funds — fluctuate in value, and some take time to convert back into usable cash. If your only savings are tied up in the share market and an emergency hits during a downturn, you could be forced to sell at a loss just to cover it. → Related: What Is the Share Market? (#2) , What Is Value Investing? (...

  The Bust & Boom Economic Cycle: Basic Explanation Our economy constantly moves through ups and downs — often referred to as the Bust and Boom economic cycle. What Is a Bust? Bust is when an economy shrinks and share prices tend to fall — the share market turns bearish . Investors lose money, job opportunities shrink, unemployment rises, and the economy overall is in a weakened state. What Is a Boom? Boom is the complete opposite: the economy grows, share prices rise, and the market turns bullish (a "bull run"). Investors earn profits from rising prices and tend to invest more, job opportunities expand, unemployment falls, and the economy is functioning well overall. → Related: What Are Bear 🐻 and Bull 🐂 Markets? (#42) That's the basic Bust and Boom cycle — the economy's natural ebb and flow between contraction and growth. Thanks for reading.

  How Are Investment Banks Different From Commercial Banks? Both are "banks," so it's an easy mix-up — but investment banks and commercial banks function quite differently. We've covered each individually before; today, let's put them side by side. → Related: What Are Investment Banks? (#73) , How Do Banks Work? (#72)** What Do They Actually Do? Investment Banks help businesses raise capital by connecting them with investors — acting as a guaranteeing intermediary in the process (a function called underwriting ). They're also heavily involved in mergers and acquisitions , advising companies on buying, selling, or merging with other businesses. Commercial Banks (the kind most of us interact with daily) issue loans, handle everyday transactions like transfers, and collect deposits — paying depositors a portion of interest in return for holding their money. Who Benefits, and How? Investment banks primarily serve businesses and investors directly — helping the ...

  World's Biggest Bankruptcy: Lehman Brothers — What Really Happened? We've already covered the 2008 financial crisis and how investment banks work — this time, let's dive into the specific story of the crisis's most infamous casualty: Lehman Brothers , one of the largest investment banks in the U.S. → Related: The Global Recession/Crisis of 2008 (#49) , What Are Investment Banks? (#73)** What makes Lehman's story especially striking: it survived the Great Depression while functioning smoothly — so why did it collapse in 2008, when many others didn't? → Related: The Great Depression Case Study (#48) How Lehman Brothers Was Founded In 1844 , a 23-year-old named Henry Lehman emigrated to Montgomery, Alabama, from Bavaria, Germany. He started out as a peddler before opening his own dry-goods store. His brothers Emanuel and Mayer joined him from Germany over the following years — Emanuel in 1847, Mayer in 1850 — and by 1850, the business was officially renamed ...

  What Is the Importance of Advertising for Businesses? Ever wondered why businesses pour millions into advertising — billboards, social media marketing, TV ads, hiring dedicated marketers and digital marketers, and more? Here are the core reasons. 1. Brand Awareness For new businesses especially, the primary purpose of advertising is simply making people aware they exist — and what products or services they actually offer. 2. Beating the Competition The more people a business reaches, the further ahead it gets relative to competitors fighting for the same audience's attention. 3. Introducing New Products and Features Advertising lets people know when a company has launched a product or service that fits a need they already have — increasing the odds those people convert from prospects into actual customers. → Related: Sales Lessons: Understanding the Buyer (#36) 4. Educating the Audience & Providing Updates Businesses also use advertising to keep their existing audience inform...

  What Is Programming? What Is Hacking? What's the Hype About? In recent years of rapid digital development, programming has become one of the most in-demand skills out there — similar to how digital marketing has grown in popularity as the world shifts increasingly online. Here's what we'll cover: What is programming and hacking, and how do they differ? How can you get started with programming? What's the hype actually about? The different types of hackers What Is Programming? What Is Hacking? How Do They Differ? Computer programming is the act of instructing a computer to perform a task, communicated through programming languages — essentially, the computer's own set of "languages." Hacking , in its broadest sense, means gaining unauthorized access to a computer, account, or system — cracking a password, breaking into someone's device, and so on. To be clear: doing this without someone's consent is illegal , and this article doesn't su...

  Learn to Calculate Profit & Loss Percentage on a Share Investment Calculating the profit or loss percentage on a share you've invested in is a genuinely useful way to keep track of your portfolio's performance. Here's a simple formula to do it. The Formula Profit/Loss % = [(Selling Price − Cost Price) ÷ Cost Price] × 100 Where: Cost Price (C.P.) — the price you bought the share at Selling Price (S.P.) — the price you sold the share at How It Works Step 1: Subtract the Cost Price from the Selling Price (S.P. − C.P.). If the result is positive , you've made a profit. If it's negative , you've taken a loss. Step 2: Take that result (positive or negative) and divide it by the Cost Price, then multiply by 100 to get the percentage. A Worked Example Say you bought a share at $5 (Cost Price) and later sold it at $15 (Selling Price). Step 1: 15 − 5 = 10 (positive, so this is a profit) Step 2: (10 ÷ 5) × 100 = 200% So in this example, you'd have ear...

  How Do the Rich Avoid Paying Taxes? Almost everyone has heard some version of it: the ultra-wealthy paying close to $0 in federal income tax — legally. Here's how that actually works. Step 1: Invest, Don't Just Earn a Salary The wealthy tend to hold most of their net worth in appreciating assets — real estate, stocks, bonds — rather than a paycheck. This matters because of a key distinction in how these are taxed. Income Tax applies to money you earn — a salary, for instance. Capital Gains Tax applies to the profit from an investment, and critically, it's only triggered when you actually sell the asset. As long as an asset is simply held, any growth in its value is "unrealized" — and unrealized gains aren't taxed at all under current tax law. → Related: What Is the Share Market? (#2) This is the core insight the wealthy build around: if you never sell, you never trigger the tax. Step 2: Borrow Instead of Selling That raises an obvious question — if they ...

  Were CDOs & CDS the Real Cause of the Great Recession? CDOs and CDS played a genuinely significant role in the 2008 financial crisis — the full mechanics are covered in detail in the dedicated case study below. → Related: The Global Recession/Crisis of 2008 (#49) , How Do Banks Work? (#72)** Today, rather than retell that full story, let's focus on the actual question: were CDOs and CDS themselves the real cause of the crisis — or just the mechanism through which a deeper problem played out? A Quick Recap of the Mechanics In short: banks began issuing home loans to borrowers who genuinely couldn't afford them — known as subprime loans . Investment banks bundled large volumes of these mortgages into a complex derivative called a CDO (Collateralized Debt Obligation) , which credit rating agencies then rated — remarkably, close to 70–80% of these CDOs received the highest possible AAA rating , despite the risky loans underlying them. Insurance companies then introduced CDS ...

Value Stocks vs. Growth Stocks: Value Investors vs. Growth Investors What Are Value Stocks and Growth Stocks? (The Basics) Value Stocks are shares trading below what their underlying business is actually worth — priced beneath their intrinsic value . Investing in these is essentially what value investing is about. → Related: What Is Value Investing? (#13) , How to Find the Intrinsic Value of a Share/Stock (#14)** Growth Stocks are shares of companies expected to grow revenue and earnings faster than the broader market average. Worth being precise here: this is about growth expectations baked into the price, not a guarantee that the stock will actually outperform — plenty of growth stocks disappoint relative to those expectations. The core difference: value stocks tend to be priced modestly, below their intrinsic worth. Growth stocks, by contrast, can be priced well above the average — investors are often willing to pay a premium today for the growth they expect tomorrow. In pract...

  This post contains affiliate links — if you click through and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Bring Your Readers Back to Your Website: Build Your Email List Getting a visitor to your site once is only half the battle — turning them into a returning reader (or subscriber) is where the real value is. Hello Bar is a tool built specifically to help with that. What Is Hello Bar? Hello Bar lets you display customizable pop-ups, bars, modals, alerts, sliders, and full-page takeovers on your website — all aimed at converting visitors into email subscribers, leads, or buyers. Hello Bar advertises that it can help convert a significant share of website visitors into subscribers, and that sites using it have attracted anywhere from 5,000 to 500,000+ monthly visitors — though as with any platform's own marketing figures, actual results will vary a lot depending on your site, niche, and traffic. How It Works, Broadly Setup is straightforward: af...

  What Are Shadow Banks? What Do They Do & How Do They Work? (Examples) What Are Shadow Banks? Shadow Banks are financial institutions that perform bank-like activities — primarily channeling money from savers/investors toward borrowers — without being official, regulated commercial banks. Unlike commercial banks, they generally operate with lighter regulatory oversight, and aren't subject to the same requirements around capital reserves or deposit protections. Common examples of shadow banks include: Investment Banks, Mutual Funds, Hedge Funds, and Insurance Companies (in certain of their activities). → Related: How Do Mutual Funds Work? (#58) , What Are Investment Banks? (#73)** How Do Shadow Banks Work? How Are They Different From Commercial Banks? Shadow banks — mutual funds and insurance companies, for example — collect money from investors and customers, and rather than issuing loans the way commercial banks do, they typically invest that money into various financial in...

      This post contains affiliate links — if you click through and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Engage Better With Your Employees via Monday.com Keeping a team productive and connected — especially when working remotely — is a real challenge. monday.com is built specifically to make that easier. What Is Monday.com? monday.com is a work operating system (Work OS) that lets you build workflows your own way — project boards, task tracking, team communication, and progress updates, all in one customizable platform. It's trusted by major companies including PayPal, Canva, Walmart, Coca-Cola, Uber, and Adobe, which speaks to how flexible and scalable it is across very different kinds of teams. What Can You Actually Do With It? At its core, monday.com is organized around Boards — customizable workspaces where you manage projects, assign tasks to team members, track status (new, in progress, approved, completed, etc.), leav...

  This post contains affiliate links — if you click through and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.   Create & Sell Online Courses: LearnWorlds Do you want to make money by creating and selling valuable courses, right from your own home, office, or studio? LearnWorlds makes that genuinely achievable, with your own personal dashboard to build and sell courses. What Is LearnWorlds? LearnWorlds is a user-friendly, fully customizable, white-labeled, cloud-based LMS (Learning Management System) and online course creation platform with built-in eCommerce capabilities. It helps you build a high-converting website for your own "school," without needing any technical or coding background. It's a genuinely powerful yet lightweight LMS — usable for training employees and partners, educating customers, or building a standalone course business from scratch. It's positioned as an all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, business owners, c...

  What Is Y Combinator? How Does Its Startup Accelerator Program Work? Y Combinator (YC) is a San Francisco-based startup accelerator, founded in 2005, that provides early-stage companies with seed funding, mentorship, and investor access in exchange for equity — widely regarded as the most influential accelerator in the world, having funded more than 5,000 companies to date, including Airbnb, Stripe, DoorDash, and Dropbox. That's the short answer. Below is the full breakdown: what a startup accelerator actually is, exactly how YC's funding and equity terms work, how selective it really is, how it compares to an incubator, and what founders get out of the program beyond the check itself. What Is a Startup Accelerator? A startup accelerator is a fixed-term, cohort-based program that gives early-stage companies funding, mentorship, and access to a network of investors — typically in exchange for equity. Unlike a traditional investor who simply writes a check, an accelerator...

  This post contains affiliate links — if you click through and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Hire People to Help Manage Your Business: Get Work Done With Fiverr If you're looking for skilled professionals to help grow your business, you don't have to spend hours searching for the right person yourself — Fiverr is a marketplace built specifically for this. What Is Fiverr? Fiverr connects businesses (and individuals) with freelancers across a huge range of skills — digital marketing, graphic design, programming, writing, business management, and far more. Whether you need a one-off task done or ongoing help running part of your business, it's a genuinely useful place to find qualified people quickly. How It Works, Broadly The general flow is straightforward: search for the type of professional you need (say, "digital marketing"), and you'll find a wide range of freelancer profiles — many with verified experien...

  How Do Investment Banks Work? What Are Investment Banks? An Investment Bank is an organization that partners with businesses to help them raise capital — while taking on much of the risk involved in that process itself. That definition will make a lot more sense by the end of this article — let's walk through what investment banks actually do. What Do Investment Banks Do? Say a company wants to raise funds quickly. It can approach an investment bank and ask it to find investors on its behalf. The investment bank goes out and finds suitable investors for the company, and — critically — guarantees both sides of the deal: the company that its shares (or bonds) will sell, and the investors that the company will follow through on its end. In doing so, the investment bank takes on real risk as an active participant in the deal, not just a matchmaker. This makes the investment bank a genuine intermediary between the buyer (investors) and the seller (the company). If either side fails ...

How Do Banks Work? Banks are among the most powerful financial institutions out there — capable of influencing the shape of an entire economy. But have you ever actually wondered how they work? Why do they pay us interest? How is that beneficial for them? And how do banks make money in the first place? Here's a straightforward overview covering all of it. Where Does Bank Interest Actually Come From? Banks collect deposits from ordinary people — money we choose to deposit, either to keep it safe or to earn some interest on it. Banks don't come looking for this money; we're the ones who bring it to them. If you leave your deposit untouched for a year, the bank might pay you, say, 4% interest on it. But where does that interest actually come from? Here's what's happening behind the scenes: banks also issue loans — and that loan money isn't the bank's own money. It's our deposited money, put to work. Banks lend that money out at a higher interest rate — say...

  What Is Fiat Currency? What Is Fiat Currency? Fiat currency is money that has no inherent physical value of its own — its value exists purely because people collectively trust and accept it, backed by government decree rather than a physical commodity like gold or silver. How Did We Get Here? The short version: money evolved from a barter system, to gold and silver coins, to paper receipts representing those coins (an early precursor to banking) — and eventually, those receipts became backed by nothing but collective trust and government authority, rather than any actual gold or silver reserve. → Related: What Is Inflation? What Causes It? (#28) — covers this history in more depth, including an important caveat: historians and economists actually dispute how literally the barter system functioned as money's true precursor, so it's worth treating that part of the story as a popular simplification rather than settled fact. The key idea: paper money is essentially a deri...

  All You Need to Know About Blogging Today, let's step slightly outside our usual finance focus and talk about something closely related to it: blogging itself. Here's what we'll cover: What is blogging? How do you start? How do you get visitors (and why do they matter)? What about ranking on Google — indexing and all that? How do you actually earn from it? Some essential dos and don'ts What Is Blogging? What you're reading right now is a blog post — and writing it is exactly what "blogging" means. A blog website (like this one) is simply a site built around publishing a series of articles on an ongoing basis. How Do You Start Blogging? First, choose a platform. Options include Blogger, WordPress, Wix, and others — or you can build a custom-coded website if you'd prefer full control. Every platform has its own trade-offs, so it's worth researching a few before committing to one. Then, choose a niche. This is simply the topic your blog wi...