Saturday, November 8, 2008

Building An Investment Portfolio

Your investment portfolio is like a marriage certificate into the investment world. It binds and holds all investment commitments that you own, but unlike a marriage certificate, you can be bound to it with a few partners or a whole institute for as long as you like.

An investment portfolio is important to ensure a strong backbone to your portfolio once you start investing.

First of all, you must have a goal. Your goals should be specific, precise and personal. (you are starting this investment because you are saving for an early retirement, for your children’s college education funds, to go for Hajj, a holiday villa or a trip around the world.) Only after you know what you want can you easily make sound decisions.

The next important thing is how much you can save without hurting your bank account. This decision is determined at the beginning of your investment journey, while it could be changed from time to time according to your needs and lifestyle affordability.

With a special amount of money set aside to be invested, some people also include 10 – 20% of their monthly income to be invested.

Then the next important question is : When do you want it by? Knowing an estimation of when you will retire or when your children are ready for college will give you a clear idea of how much you have to set aside as investment budget and a realistic timeline.

All investments come with a price you cannot run away from and that is unavoidable risk, but then again, everything in life contains risk. Only you will know how much investment risk you are willing to take.

You’ve done your research, determined your needs and set yourself a timeline to reach your goals, but many investors, whether experienced or not may overlook some basic measures to maintain a good investment portfolio.

The most important concept that will follow through until the end of your investment period is diversification, meaning your portfolio will have a mixture of different assets, such as money market, bonds, dividend funds , balanced funds and equity.

To know more about how to go about doing that, please feel free to contact me ;
Dzul Rashidi at 019 2833318

Or email me at dzul_rashidi@yahoo.co.uk

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