Managing Wealth and Personal Investments

Personal Investments In order to do well with your personal investments, you must be able to focus on your objectives, risk tolerance and time horizon as well as market conditions and long-term financial market trends. You must also be able to diversify your portfolio in such a way that your successes will make up for any losses you encounter.

The average investor pays about 0.3% more than necessary on money market funds, about 0.75% more on bond funds, and about 1% more on stock funds when they invest in ETF’s and mutual funds. Paying higher fees unfortunately does not lead to better returns. To stop this waste, you need to either do it yourself or go with a cost-conscious advisor. While you don’t have control over the securities market, you can control investment costs and thus improve your net returns.

Beware of investment fraud: as the stock market goes down, people start looking for quick ways to make up their losses. Beware of:

• Any deal that sounds too good to be true
• Unsolicited emails touting investment opportunities
• "No risk" investment opportunities

Don’t let anyone force you into making any decision on the spot: take the time to investigate every investment offer. Know the different investment types, such as CD’s, stocks and bonds, and make sure anything promised to you is in writing.