If you’re interested in personal finance, investing some of your spare money can be lucrative. The right investment strategy should see you build up a nice nest-egg or give you extra cash to pay off debts. Investing money on the financial markets can also get you a much better return per year than the low-interest rates offered by most savings accounts.
If you plan to invest some of your spare cash, you must think carefully about which sectors to select. While there are never any guarantees, this is much better than merely picking sectors at random and hoping for the best. A positive way to begin is by looking at which sectors performed well in the previous 12 months.
But which sectors did enjoy a decent 2020?
Online casino sector
One sector which saw a real boost over the whole of 2020 was online casinos. People seemed to value being able to log on and play fun games from home over the last 12 months — especially as we all had lots of spare time on our hands! That is illustrated by the global online gambling sector’s annual revenue figures. In 2019, it came in at $59 billion, but 2020 saw a jump up to $67 billion — a 13% growth over the last year.
Of course, the other major reason behind this rise is the number of reputable and trustworthy casino sites on the internet.
Cryptocurrency
Another sector that enjoyed a period of real growth in 2020 was cryptocurrency. Bitcoin is still the major digital currency, and it had a great run in 2020. It had such an impressive 12 months that it was one of the best performing years for bitcoin since it was invented.
The growing mainstream acceptance of crypto coupled with a move away from standard paper currencies saw bitcoin going past the $20,000 mark for the first time in 2020 to quadruple in value. It was not only bitcoin that enjoyed a profitable time in 2020. Ethereum saw a 300% increase in value due to more interest from the FinTech business world. This kind of performance from top coins over the last year made it a very good one for the whole sector.
Internet retail
Although e-commerce was already pretty big worldwide, 2020 saw the internet retail sector take off to even higher levels. Amazon is an excellent example, and it enjoyed a colossal year. Q3 sales in 2019 for Amazon were $43 billion, while Q3 for 2020 had jumped to $58 billion. An impressive growth level was seen across the internet retail sector in general over 2020, with other top brands like Etsy doing well. With more people needing to shop online in the last year and more preferring to buy this way, it is no wonder.
Tech
It should come as no surprise to anyone that technology is one sector that makes our list. Not only is the whole world relying on tech in increasing amounts anyway, but 2020 saw it become more important to us than ever. Whether it was platforms like Zoom to make working from home easier or social media sites for catching up with friends, tech was something we all needed in 2020. As a result, this is one sector that had a fantastic year. The top seven tech firms added over $7 trillion to their value in 2020.
Investing in top-performing sectors makes sense
Investing some of your spare cash is a wise move if you plan to grow your wealth and handle your finances sensibly. While finding ways to measure your performance as an investor is crucial, deciding where to put your money in the first place is vital. While it is not possible to be 100% sure, looking back at sectors which performed well in the last year can help. With 2021 now beginning to get into its stride, looking at which businesses did well last year can make it easier to pinpoint those that might continue to do well in the year ahead.
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