Investing is something that many people do. There are so many ways to invest in a company. Often, people will put their money in a company’s stocks. Another option is to invest in a company’s products. To invest in a company’s products, consumers simply buy a product from the company they wish to invest in.

The main goal of investing is to earn more money for savings or retirement. In order to reach an investment objective, the right investments need to be made. Without smart investment decisions, you may not be able to get the returns you were hoping for.

When big companies come out with products, do you invest in these new items? Plenty of people choose to do this, simply to keep up with the newest technology or services. Something to consider is what would happen if you invested in stocks instead of that company’s product. What would happen if you had put the money you spent on the product into the company’s stocks instead?

In a study that compared buying stock with buying products, 35 large companies were evaluated. The study found that if people invested in stock instead of a product, they would only lose money on 4 of the 35 investments. This study used the cost of a product as the stock investment amount.

Overall, Nike was the highest performer in the study. A $75 investment in stock in 1987 grew to $62,774,925 by 2018. The company originally launched their Air Force Ones in 1987, and they turned out to be a huge success. Since then, Nike’s worth has continued to grow dramatically.

Nike was the most profitable by far among the retail stores analyzed. The other retailers used in the study were Amazon, Wal-Mart, Target, and Etsy. In the study, $79 was the figure that was invested due to that being the cost of Amazon Prime in 2005. The profit from investing $79 in Amazon was $3,518.

The automotive industry brought investors success as well. Of the five top investments in the group of 35 companies, three of them were automotive. These include Toyota, Honda, and Tesla. An investment in each of these three companies would have earned you more than $24,000 per company. Car stocks are still proving to be a good investment.

Of course, as mentioned before, some of the companies caused investors to lose money. This was only four of the 35 companies studied though. Based on this, it is still much more effective to invest in stock than individual products. The companies that underperformed included Sony, GoPro, Pandora, and HBO.

The losses that occurred in those companies were not huge. The biggest loss was only $147. If somebody invested $299 in Sony with the PlayStation 2, they would have lost about half of that original investment. Though this is a loss, it is not a significant one. This is especially true when you consider the return of the other companies’ stock when compared to the products.

Though food and drink are relatively inexpensive up front, investing in stock in this category would still result in a decent profit. There was a variation between the companies and the products they offered. McDonald’s was a big performer though. Their McRib costs only $0.99, but it resulted in a $2,735 profit.

When you are choosing which companies to invest in, think about the popular products that you are familiar with. According to Warren Buffett, it is smart to invest in what you already know. Invest in the stocks for the companies and products that you use every day.