Investment Goals

The first step of investing is to know what you want to achieve. You need to establish investment goals. After all, you cannot plan how to achieve something you have no idea what. You know your own investment goals better than anyone does. You need to think hard about what you want to achieve, in the long run, financially.

Here are some examples of investment goals:

• Retire in comfort.

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• Send your kids to a good college.

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• Owning a Yacht in the Caribbean.

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• Become richer than Bill Gates.

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• Get married soon!

It's no coincidence that this is the first step. Approaching an investment without fully examining your goals first is a lot like buying a new car and not researching any cars first… That is, if all cars had a mortality rate of 50% in the first year!

Even if your only goal is simply to make a better rate of return, one must still examine their time horizon, (How much time you expect the investment to pay off by) risk tolerance, (how comfortable you are investing in riskier stocks) and other prime factors that only a qualified Financial Advisor can weigh properly.

For now though, simply write these goals down. Add as much or as little detail as you like. Think of them as the start of your portfolio, no less important than the investments that get you there.