Determining Where You Will Invest and Your Risk Tolerance

By Louis Soul

Determining where you will invest begins with researching the various available types of investments, determining your risk tolerance, and determining your investment style - along with your financial goals.

With stock markets, learning about the stock market and investments takes a lot of time but it is time well spent. There are numerous books and websites on the topic, and you can even take college level courses on the topic - which is what stock brokers do. With access to the Internet, you can actually play the stock market - with fake money - to get a feel for how it works.

The stock market is one of the most popular investments around. Other types of investments - outside of the stock market - do not have simulators. You must learn about those types of investments the hard way - by reading.

The risk tolerance

Determining one's risk tolerance involves several different things. First, you need to know how much money you have to invest, and what your investment and financial goals are.

If you invested in the stock market and you watched the movement of that stock daily and saw that it was dropping slightly, what would you do? In investments in definitely need a stock broker to help you plan on your investment. So don't go on without one.

A good financial planner or stock broker should help you determine the level of risk that you are comfortable with, and help you choose your investments accordingly.

Getting started

You should determine how much you can add to your investments in the future. If you are employed, you will continue to receive an income, and you can plan to use a portion of that income to build your investment portfolio over time. Speak with a qualified financial planner to set up a budget and determine how much of your future income you will be able to invest.

You can select the duration of your investment, and interest is paid regularly until the CD reaches maturity. CD's can be purchased at your bank, and your bank will insure them against loss. When the CD reaches maturity, you receive your original investment, plus the interest that the CD has earned.

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