How to Make Informed Investments

Preparation is the name of the game. The Chicago Bulls would never have won six championships if it wasn't for the countless hours that Michael Jordan put in the gym throughout his entire life, and the endless game planning that he had undergone before every single game of his career. This kind of preparation, mixed with an unnatural athletic ability, was the reason that he had reached the level of success that he had. In the world of investing however, one does not need to possess any particular natural talents or abilities. The key characteristics of a truly successful investor include knowledge and preparation. Even the most experienced and successful investors in the world today are constantly searching for ways to improve themselves on a day to day basis. All of the best investors are not only informed on what industries to invest in and when, but also informed on what kind of position they are in at any given time, and aware of the best kind of investments for them at that particular moment in time. Continually being conscious of your financial position during all points of your investing career and knowing yourself as an investor inside and out is crucially important when determining the level of risk that you should be taking on and when. If you are someone that finds themselves particularly interested in long term investments that will ensure a fairly moderate amount of return on investment, then there are a multitude of options for you. We all know that with the all-time low interest rates we are experiencing right now, savings accounts are not an effecting way of collecting interest at all. Personally, I believe that the two best long-term investments include certificates of deposit (CD's) as well as bonds. CD's are just about as low risk as they come. These are especially nice because they are insured $250,000 by the FDIC, so as long as you are diversifying the CD's that you purchase, you're 100 percent certain that you will be receiving the promised amount of money back. By this I mean that when purchasing CD's you should open up multiple of them and never let them reach $250,000 before maturity if you want to be 100 percent certain of receiving the promised amount of money on time. They typically range between 6 month investments to 30 year investments. The longer away the date to maturity, the higher the interest rate on that particular CD. The best way to ensure a solid return on investment as well as a steady flow of income from a CD would be to have many different ones with a range of maturity dates that span from the short term to the very long term.