Best way to invest money

The best way to invest money is a question that has been asked by millions of people and has no definite answer. If you ask 10 different accredited investors what is the best way to invest money you will probably get 5 different answers. Everybody has there own opinion on the best way to invest money. So what is the best way to invest money?

First, there are those who say that the stock market is the best way to invest money due to the high rewards you can receive if the stock soars. The stock market is the only investment area where you can see you money multiple ten fold over the course of a week, thus making it seem to be the best way to invest money. Also, you don’t need to have large amounts of cash on hand to be able to get involved in the stock market. Many people will start out getting involved with penny stocks, which can be purchased as low as 1 cent. Therefore, if you invest only $20 you will still be responsible for 2,000 shares. Although penny stocks are typically never big money returns they are a great way to get your feet wet with the stock market and still be able to make a profit, thus providing another reason the stock market seems to be the best way to invest money. However, there are those who also say that the stock market is not the best way to invest money due to the high risks that come with having money tied up in an ever changing stock market. The stock market has been known throughout history to crash, causing investors to be out millions of dollars. Also, there is no real way to know when a crash is coming. While the stock market may be the only investment area you can see your money multiple ten fold in a week it is also the only area you can see your money decrease 10 fold over the course of a day, thus making it seem to not be the best way to invest money. In summary, the stock market is the ultimate high risk/high reward investment. So before you play the stock market the question you have to ask yourself as an investor is do you view the best way to invest money as the safest or as the most profitable possibility?

Now, if you answered the previous question that the best way to invest money is the safest then rather then look to the stock market place your money in real estate investments. The easiest, most common and most profitable way to get involved with real estate investments is by “flipping” houses. In this case people will buy homes that are in foreclosure directly from the mortgage lender. Due to the fact that the lender is not making any money on a house that is not being occupied they will look to fill the house as soon as possible. This allows the investor to be the strong hand in the negotiation process. An investor can purchase the property below market value, sometimes up to 40%, which means that the property already has equity. Now, the investor can turn around and sell the property at full market value and make a profit. It seems so easy that you might think it was illegal. However, there are no laws against “flipping” houses. Also, the reason real estate is a safer way to invest your money is because historically property values do not crash like stock values. For the most part, property values continually increase overtime allowing the investor to make a higher profit when the property is sold. This is especially true in bigger markets such as California, Florida, and New York. For these reasons many people believe that real estate is the best way to invest money. So why would real estate not be the best way to invest money? Well, first off you have to have a lot more capital in hand to be able to start investing in real estate as opposed to the stock market. In essence, there are no penny real estate ventures. Also, while there is an unlimited amount of stocks available there is only a certain amount of real estate available. Finally, real estate investments require more hands on work and usually take longer to account for the same amount of profit that a stock can achieve. It is for these reasons many people believe that real estate is not the best way to invest money.

So what is the best way to invest money? The answer is there is no answer. Everybody has different needs and different wants. Therefore, what investment may be right for one person may not be what’s right for another person. Maybe you want a chance at striking gold quickly no matter what the risk. Maybe you would rather wait a while if it means that your risk is less. Nobody knows but you. So what is the best way to invest money? Well, only you can answer that one.

Once you’ve figured out why you should invest, the next step is learning how. We’ll break that question into two parts. First, we’ll talk about how you can structure your financial life to make it possible to invest. Then, we’ll delve into the mechanics of investing, such as opening a brokerage or mutual fund account.

What is investing?
Any time you invest, you’re devoting your own time, resources, or effort to achieve a greater goal. You can invest your weekends in a good cause, invest your intelligence in your job, or invest your time in a relationship. Just as you undertake each of these expecting good results, you invest your money in a stock, bond, or mutual fund because you think its value will appreciate over time.

Investing money involves putting that money into some form of “security” — a fancy word for anything that is “secured” by other assets. Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and certificates of deposit are all types of securities.

As with anything else, there are many different approaches to investing — some of which you’ve probably seen on late-night TV. A well-dressed, wildly positive (though somewhat whiny) young man sits in front of lazily waving palm fronds, shaking his head about how incredibly easy it is to amass vast wealth — in no time at all! Well, hey! That sounds fine! But if it were so easy, wouldn’t everyone who saw the same pitch be rich? And how come you always have to send in money to learn those wealth-building secrets?

We suggest you take the $25 you’d spend on the hardcover EZ Secrets to Untold Billions book and the $500 you would shell out for the EZ Seminar, and invest it yourself — after you’ve learned the basics here.

First, douse your debt
After learning why investing is a smart thing to do, you’re probably itching to take the next step. You want to drop everything and start investing right now. But hold on! Would you start running a marathon without first stretching? Would you pour syrup on the plate before the pancakes are done? Having dazzled you with the power of compounded returns, we want to make sure that same principle’s not working against you. Before you start investing, you’ve got to get rid of your high-interest debt.

The very same principle of compounding that helps your investments grow can quickly transform a dollar of debt into a few hundred dollars. Does it make sense to try to save money even as your debts are multiplying like bunnies? No way. Although some kinds of debt may be low-interest or tax-advantageous (such as your mortgage), you’ll want to free yourself from the high-interest stuff before you begin to invest.

Every dollar you can put toward investing will work for you. And every dollar of yours kept out of the pockets of financial professionals or full-service brokers is also creating value for you. (We’ll get back to this point later.)

Pay yourself first
To become a successful investor, make investing a part of your daily life. That’s not as great a stretch as it may sound. After all, you make decisions that affect your finances every day, whether you’re ordering a $7 glass of wine with dinner or getting a home equity loan to pay down credit card debt.

We’re not suggesting that you obsess over every penny you throw into a wishing well. (Please don’t embarrass your mother by diving in after it.) If you pay yourself first, you won’t have to.

You already pay the companies behind your credit card, gas, water, electric, cable, and phone bills every month, right? Why not add yourself to the list? Heck, put yourself right at the top. Set aside a chunk of money to save or invest when you first get your paycheck, and you can happily forget about it for the rest of the month.

It is recommended that you save as much as possible; 10% of your annual income (total, not take-home) is a good goal. Depending on your obligations, you may be able to save more or less. The more you save, the more wealth you create — but anything is better than nothing. Even a few dollars saved now will be worth more than lots of dollars saved later.

With online banking and brokerage services, it’s easier than ever to set up automatic monthly transfers between your checking account and a savings account or investing vehicle of your choice. You’ll be surprised how easy it is to live on a little less money each month — in fact, you probably won’t even notice the difference.

Don’t hesitate to be flexible about your savings. If you find yourself truly pinched for pennies once all the bills are paid, perhaps you’re paying yourself too much. Perhaps you’re not yet in a position to start paying yourself at all. That’s perfectly OK — but as soon as you can feasibly start saving, jump right in! The earlier you start, the better.

Active and passive strategies
The two main methods of investing in stocks are called active and passive management, and the difference between then has nothing to do with how much time you spend on the couch (or the exercise bike). Active investors (or their brokers or fund managers) pick their own stocks, bonds, and other investments. Passive investors let their holdings follow an index created by some third party.

When most people talk about stock investing, they mean active investing. It may sound like the superior strategy, but active investing isn’t always all it’s cracked up to be. Over the long haul, most actively managed stock mutual funds have underperformed the S&P 500 Index, the most popular and prominent benchmark for index funds.

In that light, you can understand why some people want an alternative to “active” management. Many people who just want a return roughly equal to that of a major stock index prefer passive investing. Beyond the S&P 500, you can find passive investments in many indexes, including the Russell 2000 for small-cap stocks, the Wilshire 5000 for the broad market as a whole, and various international indexes as well.

Investing versus speculating
Right about now, you may be thinking about that brother-in-law who “made a killing” in options. Or maybe you’re reminiscing about the Nevada vacation when your one lucky quarter magically drew out 700 more with the pull of a slot-machine lever. Why put your money in slow-and-steady investment vehicles that merely promise double-digit returns, when you could have near-instant riches? With compounding, you have to wait patiently for years for your riches to accumulate. What if you want it all now?

Granted, there’s nothing exhilarating about predictability. Matching the performance of the S&P 500 won’t make you the life of the party. But neither will the far more common tales about how you lost your savings on some speculative gamble — nor a recounting of your subsequent adventures in bankruptcy court.

You don’t need a card dealer, dour strangers, or Wayne Newton background muzak to gamble. Plenty of stock market gamblers do an admirable job of losing their money on seemingly legitimate pursuits. At The Motley Fool, we believe investors “gamble” every time they commit money to something they don’t understand.

Suppose you overhear your best friend’s dentist’s nanny talking about a company called Huge Fruit at a cocktail party. “This thing is gonna go through the roof in the next few months,” she says in a stage whisper. If you call your broker the first thing the next morning to place an order for 100 shares, you’ve just gambled.

Do you know what Huge Fruit does? Are you familiar with its competition (Heavy Melon)? What were its earnings last quarter? There are a lot of questions you should ask about a “hot” company before you throw your hard-earned cash at it. A little knowledge could help keep you from losing a lot of money.

Remember, every dollar that you speculate with and lose is a dollar that’s not working to create long-term wealth for you. Speculation promises to give you everything you want right now, but rarely delivers. In contrast, patience all but guarantees those goals down the road.

Planning and setting goals
Investing is like a long car trip: A lot of planning goes into it. Before you start, you’ve got to ask yourself:

Where are you going? (What are your financial goals?)
How long is the trip? (What is your investing “time horizon”?)
What should you pack? (What type of investments will you make?)
How much gas will you need? (How much money will you need to reach your goals? How much can you devote to a regular investing plan?)
Will you need to stop along the way? (Do you have short-term financial needs?)
How long do you plan on staying? (Will you need to live off the investment in later years?)
Running out of gas, stopping frequently to visit restrooms, and driving without sleep (this is the last of the travel analogy, we promise) can ruin your trip. So can saving too little money, investing erratically, or doing nothing at all.

Don’t let yourself get away with fuzzy answers, either. Investing demands hard numbers — get used to them. You’ll need to pin down exactly how much it’ll cost to send a child to college, or how much you’ll need to live on in retirement. It can be liberating to see exactly what you need to reach your destination, and that precision helps you stay accountable to yourself along the way.

Don’t worry — you don’t have to do all the math yourself. Online interactive calculators can help you figure your future money needs. The more specific you can be, the more likely you are to set and achieve reasonable goals.

How stock trading works
You’ve whipped your finances into shape. You’ve set concrete financial goals. Now you’re ready to learn how to start making your investments. If you use a mutual fund, the process is pretty easy: Contact the fund company and ask to open an account. But with stocks, things get a little trickier.

Stocks trade on exchanges. In the U.S., the major exchanges are the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), the American Stock Exchange (AMEX), and the Nasdaq Stock Market. While there are differences in the way the various exchanges handle trades, buying and selling shares on any of them involves a similar process.

Exchanges bring together buyers and sellers. The price that buyers are willing to pay for shares is called the “bid,” while the price sellers are willing to accept to sell their shares is the “ask” price. The difference between these two prices is called the “spread.” Usually, the spread goes into the pockets of the exchange professionals who handle trades.

The amount of spread will vary, depending on the volume of shares traded. For heavily traded stocks, competition will make spreads quite small. Thinly traded stocks may carry a large spread, in order to compensate exchange professionals for the risk they take.

Investors can set their own bid or ask prices, too, by placing orders to sell or buy only at a specific price. (These are called “limit” orders.) Exchange professionals keep a close eye on these “open” orders, executing them when conditions are met, and using them to gauge demand for the stock.

Brokerage accounts are the most common way to buy stocks. You can either use one of the many way-too-expensive full-service (or full-price) brokers, or execute your trades through a discount broker. Learn more about how to pick one in our Broker Center, where you can compare brokers and open an account.

The perils of margin
When you use a brokerage account, you can have a cash account or a margin account. The former lets you trade only with money you actually have. The latter — and right about now, you should be hearing alarm bells and warning sirens — lets you purchase stocks with borrowed money. Margin accounts can increase your returns — but they’ll also increase your risk.

Brokers, who have a vested interest in enticing customers to use margin, like to say that such accounts increase your “buying power.” But in reality, buying on margin only enhances your “borrowing power.” You’ll have to pay all that margin money back at some point — forget that at your peril.

Brokers make a good part of their money by collecting interest on margin loans. And since margin gives investors more (borrowed) money with which to buy stocks, it generates greater commission fees for those same brokers. The broker has total control over the collateral for the loan, including the ability to step in and force you to sell stock if it thinks you’re in danger of defaulting on its loan. For brokers, margin is a cash cow; for investors, it’s a double-edged sword.

Dividend reinvestment plans (DRPs) and direct investment plans (DIPs)
Not yet ready to open a brokerage account? These plans offer another, steadier way to buy stock. Lovingly known by many investors as Drips, they allow shareholders to purchase stock directly from a company, with only minimal costs or commissions. Not every company offers such plans, but they’re great for people who can only invest small amounts of money at regular intervals.

Summing up
All right, you’ve got a rough idea of what you want to do with your finances, how much money you’ll need, and how much time you have to reach that goal. And you now know how to start investing your money in the market. For your next step, it’s time to start thinking about exactly what you should invest in, and the kind of returns you can reasonably expect.

1. Get educated: Read about stocks and the market, take a seminar or class on investing and review online financial sites.

2. Develop financial goals and an investing and stock-picking strategy.

3. Research individual stocks by reading annual reports, quarterly reports and other documents on file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Look them up online at www.freedgar.com.

4. Invest in what you know. Consider the stocks of local companies with which you are familiar and in which you have confidence.

5. Check out the holdings of some successful mutual-fund companies. If they are winning with particular stocks, perhaps you will too.

6. Diversify. Avoid putting your money in just one or two stocks or, for that matter, in one or two industries.

7. Use a discount brokerage to buy stocks if you are confident in your investment skills and have the time to do your own investing. You’ll save on commissions.

8. Buy stocks that you will feel comfortable holding for three to five years. Resist the temptation to dump a stock the moment its price drops a few percentage points. Give it a chance.

Tips & Warnings

Know your appetite for risk before you start investing. The stock market can be a roller-coaster ride.

If you don’t have time to research and review stocks daily, try investing in a mutual fund account, at least to get started.

Look for value. Use price-earnings ratios, usually reported in newspapers’ stock tables, to compare a stock to industry norms before you buy.

Take advantage of investing through 401(k) plans, Individual Retirement Accounts and Keogh plans. These provide tax breaks to the investor.

Don’t think that by investing all your money today, you will be a millionaire next month. Invest for the long term.