INVESTING 101:
COURSE SUMMARY

Now that you have completed our online course on investing basics, let’s do a quick review of what you’ve learned.

Let’s review…

There are many reasons to start investing. You may have a specific financial goal in mind, such as building a retirement plan, college fund or nest egg. Most importantly, the earlier you start working towards your goals, the more time you will have and the less pressured you will feel — which can lead to better decision-making.

Investing terms to remember

We’ve also covered a variety of investing terms you will need, including:

• Volatility: the rate at which an asset increases or decreases in value over a period of time.
• IPO: short for Initial Public Offering, where a private company turns public by selling its shares on a stock exchange, making them available to the general public.
• Dividends: the distribution of a company’s profit in the form of payment made by the company to its shareholders.
• Long (buy) position: owning an asset because you believe that its price will appreciate in value in the future.

The different types of assets

You can choose to invest in a variety of instruments belonging to the different asset classes. They are:

Stocks

Shares of ownership in a public company

Cryptoassets

Decentralised digital assets created for online use

Indices

Stock indexes that follow the performance of a group of regional stocks

ETFs

Short for exchange-traded funds, which are baskets of instruments usually grouped by sector or industry

Commodities

Basic goods or raw materials, such as oil or gold.

Currencies

Also known as forex, is the buying and selling of global currencies.

Trading or investing?

You have also learned the difference between trading and investing. Generally speaking, investing is for the long-term, while trading is for the short-term. Investing can be further categorised as passive or active, but both typically have a longer term outlook and hold your assets for long periods. Trading, however, is about creating results in shorter time frames.

Get a handle on emotions

We’ve discussed the importance of psychology on investing, and how to be aware of some of the emotions you may encounter as an investor. Expect to have losses occasionally; beware of biases, and don’t let “FOMO” take charge of strategic decisions.

Don’t forget to manage risk

Risk management is a priority for every investor. Avoid concentration of assets by allocating capital to a variety of different assets, thus, spreading your risk. Recognise which assets are riskier than others to create and manage a less volatile portfolio. And make use of a stop-loss to limit the downside of investments that don’t go the way you hoped.

How you structure your portfolio will define its volatility and risk exposure. Remember that diversifying your assets with varying types, sectors, geographic exposure or other criteria will help to keep your risk score low. To learn more about creating the best portfolio for yourself, proceed to our next course “Building a portfolio.”