Savings outweigh inflation for the first time in four years

The income from savings managed to beat inflation in 2022, in the first real return of this type of investment since 2018, according to a survey carried out by Einar Rivero, from the Trade Map consultancy. The return for investors surpassed the variation of the IPCA (Extended Consumer Price Index) by 2% last year.

Even so, savings went far from being the type of investment that gave the most return last year.

Another survey carried out by Rivero shows, for example, that the CDI, a debt security negotiated between banks that closely follows the basic interest rate and is used as a reference for the return of fixed income funds, had a real increase of 6.24 %. The survey also takes into account investment funds, public securities and dividends.

Among the 13 types of financial investment considered by Trad Map, bitcoin had the worst performance, with a real negative return of 68%.

The reference indicator with the best performance in 2022 was the IHFA, an index by Anbima (Brazilian Association of Financial and Capital Market Entities) that is based on multimarket funds, which can have different types of assets in their composition. The real return on the index was 7.45%.

Next comes the stock index of companies that pay the most dividends on the Stock Exchange, the IDIV, with a yield of 6.49%. Right after the CDI, another positive return in 2022 came from the General IMA, also from Anbima, composed of government bonds, with 3.66% above inflation last year.

Savings completes the ranking of investments with positive real yield. The Ibovespa lost 1.04%, discounting inflation. The Ptax dollar and gold had a negative return of 11.61% and 13.49%, respectively.

There is a rule for the fixed return on savings that changes according to the Selic rate level. If interest rates are above 8.50% per annum, the investment yields the traditional 0.50% per month plus the TR (Referential Rate). If interest rates are below this level, savings will earn 80% of Selic.

The projections of the BC (Central Bank) Focus Bulletin indicate that the year 2023 should end with interest at 11.75% per year, which should maintain savings with a yield of 0.50% per year plus TR.

But in the view of Tiago Reis, from Suno Research, savings is not and will not continue to be the best option for investors.

“This statement ends up being a consensus in the market, since there are investment alternatives that are just as or safer than savings, and that provide a higher return than it”, says Reis.

He cites options that have risks as low as those of savings, but offer greater returns, such as government bonds, CDBs (securities issued by banks) and fixed income funds.

Filipe Ferreira, Business director at consultancy Comdinheiro, projects that interest rates should remain above 8.50% per year for a long time. But he agrees that other investment alternatives are more interesting.

“In the case of fixed income funds, it is important to look for those that offer zero management fees. It is important to avoid funds that charge fees of 1% per year, for example. Those that charge up to 0.2% may even be fine, but the ideal is for it to be really zero”, points out Ferreira.