Saturday, September 26, 2009

Basics of Investment

Investment Basics

Investment is a word that has long been used by almost every individual. And this is all because investment forms a very vital part of every one’s lives.

The money that we earn from our hard work has got huge potential to secure our future. But to do that we have to rightly plan our investments. After spending a part of our earned money, we keep aside a part of it and save it for meeting future expenses. But at times this secure money sits idle with us and thus does not give us back more money, which it could otherwise, if it had been invested wisely. This secure money forms the very base of investment. Thus investments are done so that our idle sum of money could be made to work for us and in turn give us some sound return.

People make some specific goals in their lives and for this also they need to plan out their investments in advance. One should start investing in their lives as early as possible. This would help them garner good money on their investments in the future to achieve their targets or meet their goals.

Money should be invested on a regular basis. This money could be a big sum or a small sum, depending upon the savings of the individual. It has always been mentioned that investments should be made keeping a long term perspective in mind and never a short term. Long term investments are generally more secure than short term and also have the potential to generate good amount of money in future. In long term investments, the concept of compounding plays a very crucial role, wherein the principal sum of money and the interest earned on it are reinvested year after year.

There are some basic guidelines that should always be followed while making investments. Written documents should be obtained that clearly explain the type of investments being made. The investor should read and thoroughly understand such documents and also verify its legitimacy. The costs and benefits that are associated with such investments should be calculated beforehand. After ascertaining the appropriateness of the investments for the specific goals, the investor should assess its risk return profile. The safety aspects and liquidity functions of the investments should be known and all such details should be compared with the other available investment products or services. A very basic but still a very vital point is that the investor should make such investment planning with only authorized investment planners, after seeking all clarifications about the concerned intermediary and its services. And last but not the least; the investor should also look out for the various options that are available, in case some things were to go wrong.

The various types of investment options that are available are as follows –
Physical assets like gold, silver, commodities, jewellery, real estate properties, et al.
Financial products like bank fixed deposits, life insurance, pension funds, and mutual funds, shares, bonds, debentures et al.

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