After around 100 episodes of "Ask the Mohr" in the FAS, 166 episodes in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Woche and many of them also on faz.net, a key question should be dealt with at the end.

Ultimately, it runs through almost all inquiries since we started the format in December 2016: How should I deal with shares?

Am I not too old, too young, too poor for this?

Aren't they way too risky?

In addition, many people say that they know far too little about the financial markets and companies, and conclude: You are probably unsuitable as a shareholder!

And on the stock market, small savers would only be ripped off anyway.

Besides, it's all detached from reality, and at some point this bubble will burst.

Daniel Mohr

Editor in Business.

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There are many prejudices about stocks.

And as is always the case with prejudices, it is better to form your own well-founded judgment.

So the clear advice: buy shares and see what happens!

My first shares were given to me by my father in 1993, when I was 14, so young, not particularly rich, I knew that it was a chemical company and that Bayer Leverkusen was in the Bundesliga, but I didn't know the Bayer balance sheet by heart therefore say, I still knew something about the position of Bayer on the world markets.

I wasn't all familiar with the economists' economic forecasts either.

But whoever becomes a shareholder automatically begins to take a little more interest in business and finance.

You are invited to annual general meetings, you are sent annual reports, back then by post, today mostly digitally.

One quickly realizes that the argument that the markets are decoupled from reality is not correct.

After all, you are now the owner of a company, so you own a (small) part of the Bayer works.

It's very real and everyone can see it around Cologne, Leverkusen and Dormagen.

Someone always thinks the bubble is about to burst

What is all this worth?

Many thousands of investors decide on this every day with their buy and sell orders on the stock exchange.

Stock trading is strictly regulated and monitored.

That the professionals make a better cut than the small private investor?

That is very doubtful.

So why do hedge funds regularly go bankrupt after bad speculations?

Why is the flagship fund DWS Germany one of the biggest losers in the Wirecard bankruptcy?

When I got the Bayer shares, the Dax was around 1600 points.

At the time, some thought that was much too high.

The bubble will burst soon.

Someone always thinks so.

Later as a financial editor, letters to the editor came regularly, asking how you could advise getting started with 8,000 Dax points?

The same readers and others then reported 10,000, 12,000 or 14,000 Dax points.

And maybe today too.

Given the war in Ukraine, high inflation, over-indebted states and expensive energy, how can one recommend equities with a clear conscience?

There is actually only one basic question that everyone should ask themselves before buying shares: Do I believe in the market economy system, in which innovative and efficient companies can operate with some degree of legal certainty?

If you answered yes to this question, you should buy stocks.

Because the entrepreneurial risk is rewarded with higher returns.

There is also a wealth of experience on companies, markets and economies that has been built up over the years.

Risk is spread across many shoulders

Anyone who buys shares is not only doing something for their wallet, they are also serving the national economy.

Let's go back a good 400 years and to Amsterdam.

Traders wanted to travel to India and do business there in the spice trade.

But a ship is expensive and the success of the voyage is uncertain in view of lurking pirates and various other adversities at sea.

Hardly anyone could afford such an undertaking alone.

So many financiers got together and became shareholders of the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC).

In this way, the risk was spread across many shoulders and enough money was raised.

For decades, it was worthwhile for the lenders, but also for Amsterdam and the Netherlands, because trade not only brought the company and its shareholders a lot of money, but also prosperity for the whole country.

If you like, you can look to Mainz today.

Shareholders like the Strüngmann family gave money to an unknown biotech company called Biontech so that it could research drugs and vaccines.

Today, it is not only the donors who are generously rewarded for this.

The city of Mainz is also swimming in money, similar to the Biontech locations in Marburg and Idar-Oberstein.