Investing 101:

Beginner investments and investing terms

There are many ways and many reasons to invest your money. If you are like the majority of Americans who currently invest, are looking for beginner investments, or are thinking about investing in the near future, you probably are already familiar with a few of these terms, but not all of them, or not very well. This document was written for you, and for the other large percentage of people who are just starting out and need all the investing advice that they can get. When you’ve gotten these basic terms down, and want to learn some of the more advanced terms in finance and investing, please click on the Glossary button in the menu to the upper left, and you will have access to the definitions of all the hard-to-find terms in the world of finance and investing.

But for our purposes here, let’s take a running leap into the basics.

     Many people think that investing is risky, because stock markets can crash and banks and insurance companies can go out of business. This is only true for the insurance companies and small banks, but doesn’t have much to do with the stock market at all. In the long run, wisely investing in stocks is by far the safest investment one can make, dollar for dollar. Stock market crashes are so few and far between, that as long as your investment is over a long period of time, they don’t hurt that much in the long run. And having professionals do fundamental and technical analysis on the stock will minimize risk by a factor that most investors find amazing.

     Minimizing risk should be your #1 goal in investing, even above a high return. To understand this fully, it's best to learn all about the key investment vehicles. Over the next 7 pages we will cover all of these key players and wiegh the pros and cons of each.

Onward to What is a Stock?

What is a Stock | What is a Bond | What is a Fund | What is cash | What are annuities | What is tax free investing | Types of investments