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COVID-19, this new Coronavirus that affects all countries in the world, is forcing the various states to take restrictive measures. We are advised to stay at home and avoid contact with other people as much as possible. We’re not going to lie to ourselves; containment is a bit boring. So here are 30 activities to do at home to avoid boredom.

1. Hanging out on social networks

We didn’t wait for the lockdown to spend our lives on social networks. But a good laugh, thanks to a tweet, is already better than putting up with your little brother’s bad jokes.

2. Creating content for social networks

Now that you have a little more time, you can have fun making more posts. Why don’t you improvise a photoshoot? Turn your room into a studio. You’ll have plenty of photos to post. Make videos, Tik Tok’s.

3. telecommuting

Anyway, your boss will never let you hang around in this quarantine, so chances are you’re working from home.

4. Netflix

No, but logical! The time we were looking for to catch up on all the series we couldn’t finish is here. Let us enjoy it! What more could you ask for than a marathon of films with your darling and/or family?

5. Cleaning up

Come on! Are you going to tell me you haven’t thought about it? The cobwebs on the wall, the dust on the bookcase, doesn’t that mean anything to you? This lockdown is the perfect opportunity for a cleanup. But a real one! The kind of cleaning where you move the chairs, cleans the floor, the windows, and even the cutlery that you only take out once a year.

6. Playing with children

You don’t have to say it. I bet they get you drunk already! Well, good luck!

7. Organize a Scavenger Hunt

Do you want to be the coolest mom in the world? Prepare the clues and hide them in the house. Each one should lead to the next, and the final should bring the winner to a special prize; a kiss from Mommy, maybe?

8. Build a fort

You know the type! Cushions from the living room couch, sheets, flashlights, the whole deal. Kids love that stuff. I don’t know why.

9. Make a wish list

Alone, with boyfriend or kids, make a list of everything you want to do before you die (from Coronavirus?!) Too early for a joke like that? All right then, I’ll stop.

10. Reading books

It’s time to read all the books you bought but couldn’t read because of a lack of time and laziness too.

11. Costume Party

One of the most fun things to do at home is to get dressed. Choose a theme (retro/cut-shifted) and make sure everyone is excited enough to make an effort. Prepare snacks, drinks, and music according to the topic, and let’s get the show on the road!

12. Karaoke Night

Reveal the Beyoncé in you. Sing along to the latest hits with your roommate, your sweetheart, or the family.

13. Playing board games

If you have a set of chess, checkers or Scrabble, it’s time to get them out of the dungeon. Play as a family or with your roommate. Do quizzes, mime games! Make this confinement fun.

14. Learn new languages

Have you always wanted to learn Mandarin? What are you waiting for? If you’re bored, you might as well learn as much as you can.

15. Cooking

By the end of the quarantine, we’ll all have gained 10 pounds. But who cares? We’re going to cook with love and eat with passion.

16. Organize a barbecue

If you’re lucky enough to have a backyard, have a family barbecue. There are some awesome barbecue recipes online.

17. Sew a dress

Sure, you’re going to be the best-dressed one after this lockdown!

18. Wake up the artist in you.

Why don’t you paint? Have you thought about photography, sculpture (he must have some modeling clay lying around somewhere!), collage? Revive the kindergarten child in you. Have fun with your hands.

19. Learn to program

Python… It’sIt’s the only programming language I know! But anyway, you get the idea.

20. Writing a novel

Have you always wanted to be the next Chimamanda Adichie? Work on that novel idea you’ve been dragging around for years. Go on!

21. Learn how to make cocktails

For anonymous alcoholics!

22. Planning Your Next Getaway

What better way to survive prison than to think about escaping? Think about your next trip, the steps you need to take: look for airline tickets, the hotel offers, or even a luxury cruise.

23. Having an indoor picnic

Put your best blankets on the living room floor and make sandwiches and other cold snacks. Sweets and fresh juice will add to the atmosphere. Garland lights around the room for an ethereal atmosphere, and you’re done!

24. Organize a Fire Poker Night

Well, it’s unlikely that you’ll be confined to your usual poker buddies, but it can be fun anyway! Whether you’re throwing it for fun or money, a poker night is a good fun time. Add drinking games and wear sunglasses – pro poker style – for even more hilarity.

25. Call an old friend or family member

Forget texting or social networking. Pick up the phone and contact a friend or family member you haven’t talked to in a while. They may be surprised to hear from you, but it’s a great way to maintain strong ties and relationships. You can also call your sweetheart. She’ll be the most surprised for sure!

26. Knitting or crocheting a scarf

Sit on the living room sofa with a few skeins of wool and try out this new model you saw on Instagram. Teach your children or your partner to knit, and together you can work on new projects. Isn’t that cool?

27. Create a family scrapbook

Tidy up your memories. File your photos in albums. You’ll always be able to comment on them with the person you’re confined to. You’ll have a good laugh as you share old memories and create new ones.

28. Make a family video

Why don’t you film yourself and your partner? What if you took turns sharing the main reasons why you fell in love with each other in front of the camera? Or why not leave the role of director to the children? They could create a beautiful documentary about your family life.

29. Organize a SPA evening

Having a manicure, a massage from your partner, a beauty mask… How about taking care of yourself? Make yourself a good cocktail, put on the music you like, and live your best life!

30. Take an online course

Take an online course to perfect or develop a new skill. There are hundreds of courses tailored to your interests in learning platforms such as Teachable, Udemy, and Coursera.

There is an inverse relationship between bond prices and interest rates. This is all a matter of supply and demand. And, if you understand the inverse relationship then you will better understand the way interest rates move.

What Is A Bond?

Bonds are debt instruments. There are two basic types of debt instruments, notes and bonds. The difference between the two is nothing more than the length of time associated with the debt. Anything up to 10 years is a note and anything beyond ten years is a bond. As for U.S. government debt, the instruments are mostly the same. These instruments may also be expressed as bills because mostly they are bills that need to be paid by the United States government. These bills may denote in various dollar amounts.

How Bonds Get Distributed?

To begin with, you cannot purchase a bond directly from the United States government but need to go through an intermediary such as JP Morgan, Wells Fargo or another broker-dealer bank. The major banks bid up to 30 days in advance of the Treasury auction to buy the bills. These bills dispense to the various customers and second-tier banks partnered with the major banks. Through those avenues, the general public can buy bonds.

How Do Bonds Work?

Let us say you want to lend the United States government $1,000.00 for ten years. You would go to your local bank and purchase the note from the bank. You would pay $1,000.00 for that note, the face value of the bill. In exchange, you will have an agreed-upon interest rate that the government will reimburse to you annually as well as the term of the note, in this case, the ten years.

If the interest rate is 3%, in this example, and on an annual basis, you would collect $30.00 from the government in interest fees. This will go on and on for the entire duration of the ten years agreed upon when it was purchased; you would collect $300.00 in total interest payments. Then, after the ten years, the government will give you back your initial $1,000.00 that you lent to them.

But, if interest rates are to fall, or head higher, then the mathematics on that bond change.

Interest Rates Vs. Bonds Prices

I mentioned in the very beginning of this article that bond prices and interest rates are inversely related. In the above example, the coupon for the bond is set at 3%.

But, if interest rates were to fall, the bond’s price would increase as it became more valuable, since the bond contract is fixed at a higher interest rate than is now available in the market.

In that example, if, after one year, interest rates were to fall to 2%, then the price of the bond would rise. The face value of the bond is no longer $1,000.00, but instead, the price may increase to $1,082.00. This is the inverse relationship. Effectively, if you were to sell the bond, the person who bought the bond would buy the face value of the bond and receive the agreed-upon interest rate.

However, since market interest rates have moved then the price that the individual bond costs would move upward. 3% on a $1,000.00 bond yields $30.00 in interest payment after one year. But, 3% on a bond that cost $1,082.00 would be 2% in return. The face value of the bond would stay the same at $1,000.00, meaning that in 10 years (using the same example) the government would only pay you $1,000 regardless of the bond price at that time and irrespective of the amount that you pay for it.

If the opposite were to occur and market interest rates moved higher, then the value of your bond would decline, as the market interest rate is now higher than what your bond pays. While the face value of the bond always stays $1,000, the value (price) of the bond would decline to approximately $918.00. Then, with a $40.00 yield (the 4% market rate), the bond would return the 3% yield on the original $1,000.00 face value.

What Is An Interest Rate?

Here is an excerpt from an article discussing the economic business cycle, which is paramount to this discussion, and the function of interest rates:

People can either decide to consume today by way of funding this consumption through either savings or debt or they can invest the capital today and hold off consumption until a time in the future.

The money allocated by people for investment into the economy makes up the funds available for lending (called loanable funds). Entrepreneurs or businesses in the economy usually demand to borrow those funds to obtain capital for purposes of investing. The lending happens at the market rate, also called the interest rate, which is the equilibrium point where the supply of funds and demand for them meet; taking into consideration the current risk level of lending and the investment itself.

The greater availability of funds for investment, the lower the lending rate is, thus making the cost of capital cheaper for a business, thus making it easier to manage the debt and less costly, helping to grow the economy faster.

The Federal Reserve controls the rate of interest that it pays to its member banks for holding their reserves, as well as the rate at which member banks lend to one another. By controlling the interest rates throughout the economy, this ultimately affects all consumers, businesses and investors and foreign governments.

Here it is in the Federal Reserve’s own words:

Changes in the federal funds rate trigger a chain of events that affect other short-term interest rates, foreign exchange rates, long-term interest rates, the amount of money and credit, and, ultimately, a range of economic variables, including employment, output, and prices of goods and services.

In theory, if the economy is experiencing rapid inflation over established targets, then the Federal Reserve would increase the interest rate. Thereby increasing the cost of lending and reducing your ability to purchase a car, home or anything else on credit as it becomes more costly for you.

For example, if a new car costs $25,000.00 to purchase with 60 monthly payments and interest rates are at 5%, the monthly loan payment is $472.00. But, at 6% that same loan will go up to $483.00 monthly.

That may not seem like a lot for any one individual, but there are some 17.6 million vehicles sold in the United States annually. If you added $132.00 ($11 x 12 months) to every car sold in America that is $2.3 billion annually in costs that are not helping the economy grow, but merely the cost of servicing debt, imagine what rising interest rates would do to the whole economy?

A recent study reveals that millennials and women are driving demand for sustainable investing putting their money to work in a socially responsible way.

When discussing how to invest like a millennial, I mentioned that social responsibility is a crucial factor when making investment decisions. A study from Morgan Stanley’s Institute for Sustainable Investing supports this claim, finding that millennials are two times more likely to invest in companies that target impact outcomes. What’s more, 76 percent of women surveyed prioritize economic, social, and governance factors in their investment decisions. But this phenomenon isn’t limited to any one generation or gender. I spoke with Deborah Winshel, Global Head of WeenMony Impact, to learn more about what she sees in this space and why sustainable investing is here to stay.

First things first. What is sustainable investing?

At WeenMony, we define “sustainable investing” by three key segments: exclusionary screens, ESG considerations, and impact investing.

1. EXCLUSIONARY SCREENS

Exclusionary screens remove specific products or industries that don’t align with an investor’s values. For example, you may decide you don’t want to invest in tobacco or fossil fuels. This approach was the first iteration of making investment decisions based on factors other than just financial performance, applying constraints based on personal beliefs.

2. ESG CONSIDERATIONS

ESG considerations use environmental, social, and governance factors to identify not only what a company does but how they do it. Companies report on how they pursue ecological responsibility, how they support employee diversity, how many volunteer hours they devote to the community every year, etc. We then use these standards to build a portfolio.

3. IMPACT INVESTING

Impact investing targets an apparent social or environmental outcome that is measurable and transparent. Instead of just refraining from investing in something that doesn’t align with your beliefs, you’re focusing on companies that are operating responsibly and having a positive impact on the world.

How much of an increase have you seen in sustainable investment assets globally?

We have seen sustainable assets increase by 61 percent in the last few years, and the growth continues globally. About two-thirds of the sustainable investment market is in Europe and 30 percent in the U.S., where we see faster growth. We know that exclusionary screening is most prevalent in Europe, whereas the ESG approach is most common in the U.S… In my opinion, a key reason why growth isn’t even more significant is that there hasn’t been a wide range of investment opportunities to meet the demand until very recently.

If you could pinpoint the source of this increased demand, what would it be?

No matter how old you are or which generation you identify with, there is an increasingly undeniable overlap between our personal lives, our financial lives, and the world at large. Whether it’s carrying reusable bags with you to the grocery store or hearing the Pope talk about climate change or reading about President Obama’s environmental initiatives, it’s clear that what we do today has long term impact.

There’s now an opportunity for people to direct their investment capital in a way that is meaningful to them beyond just generating a financial return. This opportunity is resonating with individual investors who are looking to do more with their money. At WeenMony, first and foremost, our job is to protect and grow our clients’ assets. In doing so, our unique investment platform, insights, and technology enable us to identify and track attractive impact opportunities. Our objective with any impact investment is to deliver two outcomes: (1) defined and measurable impact outcome alongside (2) a targeted financial return.

How can an investor be confident that they are making a difference and having a positive impact overall?

Transparency is essential. With the reporting capabilities that are being made more readily available through technology, it is becoming easier to effectively measure the repercussions of where we, as investors, direct our money. For example, my colleagues and I are laser-focused, not on what makes a “good” company or a “bad” company, but which companies have a carbon footprint that is better than the index, or companies that are achieving environmental outcomes through green technology and innovation. By making this information readily available to the investor, we are helping them to decide for themselves which investments will have the impact that they are hoping to achieve.