7 Keys to Making a Successful Investment

Despite what you may have seen on TV, investing isn’t easy. The market is highly unpredictable. Choosing between winners and losers may seem nearly impossible. However, there are investors who have used certain strategies to make a profit from their investments. Here are seven keys to making a successful investment.

1. Maintain a Balanced Portfolio

While it may seem like a cliché, it’s one piece of advice that works. The best way to come out ahead when investing is to maintain a balanced portfolio. This way, you won’t have all your eggs in one basket. If tech stocks suddenly crash, for example, you will be shielded by other investments that aren’t tied to that specific industry.

This means diversifying within all assets from stocks to bonds and real estate. For example, take advantage of different types of real estate investment like direct ownership and crowdfunding.

2. Consider Investing in Real Estate

Many people have made their fortune through real estate investment. It’s easy to understand why. The possibility for economic development may be obvious in a specific area well before real estate prices begin soaring. 

There are also many different ways to invest in real estate. A Jakob Pek Fund, for example, is a fund that can be used to invest in private mortgages.

3. Be Conservative

One good rule of thumb for investing overall is to be conservative when you try to assess different investments. One common pitfall of investing is getting caught up in hype. This can quickly lead to over-valuation of a stock or investment. 

Instead, make your decisions based on facts and more conservative estimates of an investment’s true value.

4. Invest When Your Conservative Estimate Is Above Market Price

If you are able to properly assess the value of an asset, investment choices shouldn’t be that difficult. In this case, you would only invest when the market price for a stock or other investment is below what you really believe it is worth. 

Remember that you always want to try and buy low and sell high whenever possible. This will allow you to not only get a return on your investment, but you will make a profit as well. 

5. Educate Yourself Before You Invest

Overall, you should always make sure you thoroughly understand an investment before you put your money down. This will prevent you from making errors and getting swindled into making bad investments. 

If things like gold or penny stocks sound alluring to you, make sure you do the proper research to understand these markets and the risk involved. However, regardless of how educated you are when it comes to investing, there will always be a risk. You will likely lose some investments from time to time. 

So with your education, make sure that you keep your expectations realistic in your investments as well. There are just some investments out there that are just not worth taking.

6. Focus on Business Performance

A trap many investors fall into is simply following the performance of a stock. Instead, you should be following the performance of the corporation that stock represents ownership in. If a stock is selling for a lot while the business is performing poorly, you should expect a correction in the very near future.

7. Minimize Fees and Other Expenses

Even if you do make the right choices, a decent portion of what should have been your profit may be eaten up by fees and other investment related expenses. If you can avoid some of these by doing some more of the work yourself, it will probably be worth it.

Investing may seem intimidating. However, with the proper knowledge and some strategic thinking, producing a profit from your investments is a real possibility.