Getting Started with Investing

Before I discuss the major investing alternatives, I
want to start with something that’s quite basic, yet important. What exactly
do I mean when I say “investing”? Simply stated, investing means you have
money put away for future use.

You can choose from tens of thousands of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and
other investments. Unfortunately for the novice, and even for the experts
who are honest with you, knowing the name of the investment is just the tip
of the iceberg. Underneath each of these investments lurks a veritable mountain of details.
If you wanted to and had the ability to quit your day job, you could make a
full-time endeavor out of analyzing economic trends and financial statements
and talking to business employees, customers, suppliers, and so on. However,
I don’t want to scare you away from investing just because some people do it
on a full-time basis. Making wise investments need not take a lot of your time.
If you know where to get high-quality information, and you purchase wellmanaged investments, you can leave the investment management to the best
experts. Then you can do the work that you’re best at and have more free time
for fun stuff.
An important part of making wise investments is knowing when you have
enough information to do things well on your own and when you should hire
others. For example, investing in foreign stock markets is generally more
difficult to research and understand compared with investing in domestic
markets. Thus, hiring a good money manager, such as through a mutual fund,
makes more sense when investing overseas than going to all the time, trouble, and expense of picking your own individual stocks.
I’m here to give you the information you need to make your way through the
complex investment world.