Huh? What is offshore investment?

Recently, I read a book by a local author that encourages people to put their funds offshore.  The author particularly emphasize that by investing solely onshore is risky.  He even spells out evidence on what sort of disastrous that the local policy will lead us to.  On this basis, he strongly suggests us to diversify our risks via offshore investment.

So, what are the differences between offshore and onshore?  In a layman term, offshore means overseas investment while onshore denote local investment. 

 

Now, you may wonder whether it is true that offshore investment could really generate impressive return as compare it with onshore.  To me, this might not be the case.  When come to investment, every country in this world are doing it via similar investment vehicles like shares (some countries call it stocks), unit trust (some countries call it mutual fund), savings accounts, fixed deposits accounts, money market, trusts etc.  So, we could have all these in our home country, why bother to go offshore?  Furthermore, how well do you know about the economy condition of those offshore countries you are targetting?  If you knowledge over the economy condition is nothing better, don't risk your hard-earned money.  Last, but not least, no one could guarantee your offshore return will be better on the back of "risk diversificaiton".

 

Shall we come back to the book again?  After finishing it with basic understanding on offshore investment, I come to know that the author is actually providing offshore investment service and now I could understand why he keeps promoting offshore investment.  I don't against any professional advise if the one is really a professional with proven track records and high net worth.  But, in this case, I just know his name via his newly released book and nothing else.  I will not risk my money with him (who I don't know anything about him) in to offshore investment (where I don't know anything about those countries' economy condition).  Since I know my country better than the others, onshore investment is what I am targetting for at this moment.  Furthermore, since I know what, how and should I do on my investment onshore, my return is still well double digits every year.  Explore into the area which I am not so familiar with might not provide any help on improving my return.

 

In short, only do your investment in the area you are familiar with.  Do not take risk into any area that you do not know or with little knowledge about.  Do not simply believe in what people are telling you.  Do your homework and research.  Do not invest until your research gives you green light to do so.

 

Good luck!