How to find good, safe investments

If you are like many investors, looking for ways to save your money to set it aside for your future is one of the most important goals you may have. How can you find good, safe investments? You need to turn to some of the conservative investments that will be able to provide you with steady returns versus the large returns immediately.

As you meet with a financial advisor to discuss your financial situation, you will be asked to assess your risk appetite. Basically the company wants to learn about your financial habits and understand what type of risk you are willing to take on. They will tell you that when you take on higher risk you will get a higher return but this also means that you could lose everything. Young investors have a lot of time to recoup this money if it is lost compared to the investors that are a little older and unable to make money back in a short period of time.

How long do you want to invest your money? If you need the money back in a short period of time like to invest into a home, you will need to look for short term investments versus the long term investments. There are 3 basic time frames for investing, short term, medium term, and long term. As you understand what type of time frame you need, your financial advisor will be able to help you understand the investments that can provide you with the certain type of returns you need.

Always have a diversified investment portfolio. You need to have a diversified portfolio to avoid losing everything in the event that your stocks and other things aren't performing well. A diversified portfolio will be able to spread your money out over several investments and prevents you from sustaining losses with your portfolio like many people dealt with during the recession.

As you meet with your investment advisor ask him/her several questions about the investments and how much money will go into the various investments. They will likely talk to you about standardized formulas about calculating investments. Typically they will follow the age matrix formula. This usually comes down to calculating your age and putting money into equities and other securities to make money in a short period or long period of time.

How long should you invest into a stock? It is common to have an average of 7 years per stock. It will take time for that stock to get a higher amount of money so you need to lock it into that stock so it actually has time to perform for you. Your investment advisor can talk to you about the investment in the stock and will sell it if they feel it has peaked. Then you need to invest into good and safe investments such as certificates of deposit, bonds, high yield savings accounts, etc. As you do this you will be able to have money in securities that provide a guaranteed return.

Mutual fund investing is one of the best investments for individuals looking for safe investments. If you are concerned about losing your money, investing into mutual funds will spread out the money into several accounts so you have a chance to make money in several stocks over a long period of time. Bonds are also great as they will help you to build up your portfolio as they have incoming interest money that is guaranteed. Look for government issued bonds as they do have guarantees on them, which will prevent you from losing everything.