I was just browsing the forum.lowyat.net and noticed this thread asking how to invest for newbies. i find this useful and worth posting. All credits dont go to me but to the sifus who posted in that thread:
Here's the link:
https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/3493626
Here's a summary :-
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By Mr Looi:-
Having cash is important.
Don't feel like you need to "invest" the spare funds. It is important to have cash for emergencies and also for unforeseeable needs. Most people feel they need to invest the funds into something to earn money on their cash. Don't get sucked into this trap. Many people don't have more than 1month of cash saved for emergencies, you should have 6-12 months worth to be safe.
Another added benefit of having cash in your emergency funds as well as in your investment portfolio is that you can use it for opportunities when they resent themselves. For instance, I'm sure many people (in hindsight of course) would love to have had a lot of cash available to invest in the spring of 2009. Try to think long term with your investments and don;t worry about day to day movements. Look at the big picture. When opportunities present themselves, and they will, you will be ready to make better investments.
I hope you found this helpful
Kirk Chisholm
Kirk is a Financial Advisor. He helps clients build, manage, and preserve wealth, manage investments and save for retirement
Before thinking about investing, are you aggressive, balanced or conservative?
It is not only important to understand the risks of the investments you are looking at, but also to understand your personal risk appetite. Sometimes, it is not a matter of what kind of risks you want to take, but a matter of what kind of risks you can take given the circumstances that you are currently in. And the best way to do it is to assess your actual experience in investing.
For instance, you might have thought that you are an aggressive investor who can cope with a high level of risk based on the results of the risk profiling test. However, in practice, if you find that you always panic too soon every time the market dips, and get overly euphoric and pump in more money whenever markets are on a roll, then high-risk investments are not so suitable for you because they are likely to cause you to lose money.
http://www.fundsupermart.com.my/main/research/viewHTML.tpl?articleNo=2266
Determining Your Risk Level
There are a lot of 'Risk Tolerance' measures out there which ask you a bunch of questions, and then tells you your risk profile. Most of the time, they pretty much tell you what you already know. Most of us have a good sense of the kind of risk we can stomach so we don't really need a test to tell us that.
What you might not be aware of, however, is that your life situation might demand that you take on specific levels of risk, no matter what your risk appetite might be. It is not a matter of what kind of risks you want to take, it's a matter of what kind of risks you can take given the circumstances that you are in.
http://www.fundsupermart.com.my/main/school/investing.svdo?PageID=3
Different investments. Different levels of risk.
Before we start, what is your attitude to risk?
http://www.eastspringinvestments.com.my/downloads/20120210103535_KnowledgeTree-Easy%20Guide%20to%20Risk%20(English).pdf
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By 3ternity for life
The question when it comes to investing is not just about what options are there, it should be what is the most suitable for you. There are a few things you must take into consideration before you invest :
1) Risk Tolerance - sifu looi pretty much had this covered.
- Something I would like to point out is that if you are young, you can afford to take more risk (smart calculated risk on proper investment though) as market balances out in the long-term and you are more likely to make profit in long-term investment especially in stocks and unit trust. You just need patience.
2) Active or passive investment?
- Determine how much time and effort you are willing to go for your investment. If you have the patience and the willingness to learn in investment, you should either go for stocks, forex or commodities. Bear in mind that all these investments are very risky and you should be prepare to lose all your capital. Start small so you can take time to learn about the market. You can start with blue chip stocks first if you are cautious in investing in stocks.
- If you are going for passive investment you can either go for ETF, unit trust, private managed account (PMA), WRAP account and many more managed-type services. Bear in mind that passive investment is suitable if you are busy with your career, does not have the time/drive to put the effort to learn more on investment or you have a specific return that you wanted to achieve which seems hard/risky to reach with your current experience. Passive investment would also result in you paying for sales charge and annual management fee but in return, you get a more secure form of investment as your portfolio is managed by investment professionals.
3) Diversify or focus?
- There are two types of diversification, first in diversifying in terms of market, second in terms of types of investment.
- When investing, you should always try to diversify your investment portfolio across different market, some in property stocks, some in finance, some in manufacturing, some in agriculture. This is in order to make your portfolio more resilient from industry based crisis such as the declining of oil and gas prices nowadays. It is even better to diversify your investment to different market globally such as in US, China, Asia-pacific, etc. Unit trust would be the easiest tool to achieve such diversification though.
- Focusing on one type of investment is more common for most people as it allows you to master that investment tool such as only in stocks (like Warren Buffet), and etc. Some people fully focus on property (like Donald Trump) while some others only in commodities like gold. Diversifying yourself on multiple types of investment is not a bad idea but it would require extensive effort. Keep yourself close with people whom you know are experienced in specific types of investments as this is the fastest way for you to learn while still making profit.
4) What's your objective?
- An important question where most people forget. What do you expect to achieve from this investment as different objectives have different investment tools and strategies.
- If you expect to save up enough money to buy property in 10 years for example or investment that focus on a specific future goal usage, go for a dividend income equity fund that focus on specific target returns per year (there are a few funds I can think off from this) which is less volatile than high return funds like small-cap. Bond funds, fixed deposit is also an option based on your risk tolerance.
- If your goal is just capital appreciation then you can go for high yielding investment tool but only invest on the amount you are willing to lose. You can also invest on specific funds like small-cap funds, developing market funds and etc which also gives high return but with lower risk of losing your whole capital.
- If your goal is just to hedge inflation, you can either go for fixed deposit, bonds, bond funds, fixed income funds(most suck though), ASB or tabung haji savings.
- If you have multiple goals which I am sure most people do, just divide a specific percentage of your portfolio for specific usage. For example 30% of your portfolio for capital appreciation, 60% for specific financial goal investment(like 5 year investment for a car, 10 year for a house, 30 year for retirement, etc2) while 10% just to hedge inflation.
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