This week’s blog post is an excerpt from the website of FINRA, The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc. You may access the information here.
“When you invest, you take certain risks. With insured bank investments, such as certificates of deposit (CDs), you face inflation risk, which means that you may not earn enough over time to keep pace with the increasing cost of living. With investments that aren’t insured, such as stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, you face the risk that you might lose money, which can happen if the price falls and you sell for less than you paid to buy.
Just because you take investment risks doesn’t mean you can’t exert some control over what happens to the money you invest. In fact, the opposite is true.
If you know the types of risks you might face, make choices about those you are willing to take, and understand how to build and balance your portfolio to offset potential problems, you are managing investment risk to your advantage.
Why Take Risks?
The question you might have at this point is, “Why would I want to risk losing some or all of my money?” In fact, you might not want to put money at risk that you expect to need in the short term—to make the down payment on a home, for example, or pay a tuition bill for next semester, or cover emergency expenses. By taking certain risks with the rest of your money, however, you may earn dividends or interest. In addition, the value of the assets you purchase may increase over the long term.
If you prefer to avoid risk and put your money in an FDIC-insured certificate of deposit (CD) at your bank, the most you can earn is the interest that the bank is paying. This may be good enough in some years, say, when interest rates are high or when other investments are falling. But on average, and over the long haul, stocks and bonds tend to grow more rapidly, which would make it easier or even possible to reach your savings goals. That’s because avoiding investment risk entirely provides no protection against inflation, which decreases the value of your savings over time.
On the other hand, if you concentrate on only the riskiest investments, it’s entirely possible, even likely, that you will lose money.
For many people, it’s best to manage risk by building a diversified portfolio that holds several different types of investments. This approach provides the reasonable expectation that at least some of the investments will increase in value over a period of time. So even if the return on other investments is disappointing, your overall results may be positive.”
Here at Wisdom Wealth Strategies, we want to help you identify and manage the different types of financial risks. We’ll help you tailor a plan to match your risk tolerance.