By Babajide Komolafe

Investment opportunities abound every year in every economy. Some are open and accessible to very few people, most times the high-networth or highly connected.

But there are some investment opportunities open to everybody. These are common, easy-to-access opportunities that can be accessed with small savings as low as N5,000.
Mutual funds are one of such opportunities.

If you had invested N10,000 in a Money Market Mutual Fund at the beginning of 2025 your money would have grown by at least N2,000 (20%) to over N12,000 at the end of the year. This is because top performing Money market mutual funds achieved returns of over 20 per cent in each of the last two years, 2024 and 2025. And you need just N5,000 savings to access this opportunity, which comes with almost zero risk.

Furthermore, if you had N50,000 in an Equity Based mutual fund at the beginning of 2025, your money would have increased by at least N25,000 (50% return) to at least N75,000. This is because the stock market performed very well in 2025, recording 58.4% increase in value of all listed shares, and investors gaining N36.6 trillion. As a result, investment in any of the top performing Equity based mutual funds record more than 50 per cent returns.

Other types of mutual funds that did very well in 2025 include Balanced mutual funds with returns of more than 30%; Dollar mutual funds with returns more than 8%.

As I have stated in earlier articles, mutual funds are the easiest way for low to middle income people to grow their wealth with little stress and risk. I hope you will consider these opportunities in 2026.

One of the things that amazes me are people who have been educated and failed to take the steps to enjoy these opportunities. What may be the reasons for this? Laziness and procrastination. Some believe in these opportunities but seem unwilling to sacrifice the time and efforts it takes to start and complete the process required to start.
For some, it is fear.

They have been shown evidence of the huge benefits of these opportunities but somewhere in their mind, there is the fear that the huge returns are too good to believe and they may lose their money along the line. The antidote to these barriers is to first, set a timeline to start the investment, and second, have someone with experience in these investment opportunities, to guide you through the process.