Best advices for how to multiply your money. Mr Modray says: “Larger sums of money make it practical to put together a basket of funds that gives you exposure to several asset types that are unlikely to all move in the same direction at the same time. It can also make sense to add further diversity by combining cheap stock market tracking funds with active managers who invest quite differently. At the very least, I’d suggest exposure to UK and overseas stock markets, fixed interest and commercial property.” Darius McDermott, managing director at Chelsea Financial Services, suggests the following strategy. “For cautious investors – perhaps someone making the transition to investing in other asset classes other than cash for the first time – I would suggest a mix of a more defensive UK equity income fund and a targeted absolute return fund.

There are many ways to pick stocks, and it’s important to stick with a single philosophy. Vacillating between different approaches effectively makes you a market timer, which is dangerous territory. Consider how noted investor Warren Buffett stuck to his value-oriented strategy, and steered clear of the dotcom boom of the late ’90s—consequently avoiding major losses when tech startups crashed. Investing requires making informed decisions based on things that have yet to happen. Past data can indicate things to come, but it’s never guaranteed. In this 1990 book “One Up on Wall Street” Peter Lynch stated: “If I’d bothered to ask myself, ‘How can this stock go any higher?’ I would have never bought Subaru after it already went up twentyfold. But I checked the fundamentals, realized that Subaru was still cheap, bought the stock, and made sevenfold after that.” It’s important to invest based on future potential versus past performance.

The answer is by buying an index fund. Index funds are the best friend of the passive investor who want an easy way to invest in the market. An index fund is a type of fund with a portfolio constructed to track a certain index. Index funds can track the return of the S&P 500, Dow Jones, or NASDAQ. Index funds can either be exchange traded funds or mutual funds that hold securities in a given market. A S&P 500 index fund will buy shares of the 500 largest companies in the United States and will track the movements of the Standard and Poor’s 500 index. This fund will replicate the performance of the S&P 500 index. If the S&P 500 index is up 10 percent for the year then a fund like the Vanguard S&P 500 index or the iShares S&P 500 index should be up approximately 10 percent as well. Read more on Easiest Way to Invest Money.

Not many small investors begin their investment journey with US Treasury securities, but you can. You’ll never get rich with these securities, but it is an excellent place to park your money—and earn some interest—until you are ready to go into higher risk/higher return investments. Treasury securities, also known as savings bonds, are easy to buy through the US Treasury’s bond portal Treasury Direct. There you can buy fixed-income US government securities with maturities of anywhere from 30 days to 30 years in denominations as low as $100. You can also use Treasury Direct to buy Treasury Inflation Protected Securities, or TIPS. These not only pay interest, but they also make periodic principal adjustments to account for inflation based on changes in the consumer price index.

Warren Buffett says that many people think quite a bit before making any investment – and sometimes think TOO much. Buffett cautions that you should never invest in businesses that you don’t fully understand. He says that if before he invests in the stock of a company, he has to first understand how the company makes money and the main drivers that impact its industry in no more than 10 minutes. If he’s not able to understand it in 10 minutes, he moves on to evaluate another company on this basis. Most people can’t predict the next fashion trend among teenagers or whether or not a medicine will be successful in the market. Even if if you had more data than anyone else, it’s still impossible to predict the future with 100% accuracy.

About MultiplyMyMoney : I have more than 12 years of experience as an independent and personal financial and investment consultant. I used to run a financial blog called BuylikeBuffett which provided insight on investing, saving, money management, and all things finance. I am also the author of Your Financial Playbook: A Guide To Navigating The World Of Personal Finance a financial guide written to inform the beginning investor about the basics of the market. I decided to start a new site because I receive a great number of questions about financial topics on a daily basis. I figure that this would be a great way to answer those questions and increase financial literacy. I also figured it would be a good platform to write articles on everything from teaching how to get rich, explaining the basics of cryptocurrency, to detailing ways of rebuilding your credit score. I was the founder and president of New Horizons Financial Management, LLC, and was a registered investment advisor. New Horizons was an independent investment advisory asset management and personal financial consulting firm offering investment advisory services to high net worth individuals. See extra details at Multiply My Money.