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Many people are hesitant to invest, even when the market would be in their favor, because they see investment as a dangerous, “high risk” gamble, rather than as an opportunity to grow their wealth.Granted, there is some inherent risk in investing, but it isn’t as wild as some think it is, and more importantly it is a risk that can be managed, if handled correctly.

Diversify Your Holdings

To the lay investor, diversification is an earful, and probably sounds technically intimidating, but diversification is actually one of the simpler, and most effective, ways to minimize investment risk. Simply put, diversification is not putting all your eggs in one basket. That is to say that you shouldn’t over-invest in one stock or fund, because, while it may be exciting when it is performing well, if the value drops, it will be devastating.

Conversely, if you divide your risk across several stocks, you will get multiplied benefits when they are all performing well, and won’t be crushed if one of them plummets.

Average Your Dollar Costs

Part of what makes investing difficult is the dimension of time. Timing, as they, is everything. But as it turns out, timing isn’t necessarily everything, and there is a smart way to invest that takes much of the guesswork out, and leaves you with more predictable gains, no matter how the market is performing. This strategy is called dollar cost averaging.

Essentially, dollar cost averaging means that you are consistently adding to your investment, regardless of what is happening with your stocks. By investing a fixed amount on a regular schedule, you are able to capitalize on the fact that the market fluctuates. Instead of buying a lot when the prices are low and not buying at all when prices are high, you have a set amount that you use to buy shares every month – $100 for example and you just distribute that and buy as many shares as you can with it each month. In the end, your average cost will be much lower than it would be when you try to outsmart the market.

Consider your goals when investing, and ask yourself if dollar cost averaging and diversification are good strategies for you.

Byline:

This is a guest post from Jacelyn Thomas. Jacelyn writes about identity theft protection and she can be reached at jacelyn.thomas@gmail.com.

We all know mutual funds, but what are inverse mutual funds all about?

They are a special type of funds in which the value goes up when the stock market comes down. They are nothing but "short funds" or funds having short positions of the index or stocks. By investing in this fund investors/traders can take advantage of fall in the markets.

The main objective of the inverse mutual fund is to provide investors with an alternative during market-decline and in the case where they cannot short sell the index. This type of fund is generally linked to the market index such as the S&P 500 or any other benchmark index. The value of such funds change similar to the traditional funds, on a daily basis, say if the index declines by 1 percent in a day, the fund value increases by 1 percent for that day.

In what other ways these funds differ from the traditional funds?

While a traditional mutual fund purchases shares of index or stocks, which is income generating in the form dividends, the inverse mutual funds do not purchase the stocks themselves. Instead, they may short sell the index or stocks or even buy put options on the index or the stocks. Hence, these funds make money only if the particular index or stock falls.

How does these funds benefit retail investors or traders?

Many investors,rather traders, can make use of this type of fund as a hedge against market conditions.Hedging is method that can be used to protect your investments in case of a market fall. During market corrections, investors/traders could buy some shares of an inverse fund in order to protect their long positions in other funds or stocks. This way, even if the market does go down, they will be able to recoup some of their losses on their long positions with the inverse fund.

Disadvantages:

Unlike the traditional funds, there are no dividends in these type of funds. The costs involves are also high since frequent churning of positions required on a day to day basis. They also involve high risks and needs constant monitoring of the fund value and the market direction.

Conclusion:

Firstly, investors should only purchase an Inverse Mutual Fund if they completely understand the risks associated with shorting and the returns associated with it. These funds can work as a hedge only and investors will not benefit from investing a large amount of money into it, since stock markets have performed well in the long-term. This can be used as short-term strategy only and not as a long-term one. Hence, Inverse Mutual Funds are complicated instruments than traditional mutual funds and it should only be used by sophisticated investors and traders.

There are many such funds in developed markets and there aren't any such funds in emerging markets like India. Hope some fund house would take some cue from this and launch an inverse fund soon.

A stock split is sometimes confused with bonus shares, however it is different from bonus shares. So, what is the difference between these two and which one is better for the investors?

To start with some basics - all publicly-traded companies have a set number of shares that are outstanding on the stock market. These shares are nothing but sub division of capital. So if a company's capital is 100 m divided into 10m shares of 10 each, then this 10 is called the face value of the share.

Stock Split:

A stock split is usually done by companies if their share price increase to levels that are either too high or are beyond the price levels of similar companies in their sector. The move is generally seen to improve the liquidity of scrip since more investors participate due to the smaller ticket size.

A stock split is done to increase the number of shares that are outstanding by issuing more shares to current shareholders. For example, in a 2-for-1 stock split:

• Two shares for  one share.
• Face value reduces by the split ratio, i.e., if earlier the face value was 10, after  the split it will reduce to 5 per share.
• The market price is  affected by a stock split and it will reduce by similar ratio, e.g.,  200 per share becomes 100.
• The market cap does not change, since the outstanding shares are same.

Important point to note here is there is no financial impact on the stock, due to stock split. Recent stock split done by companies include Titan Industries, VIP Industries and Crisil.

Bonus Shares:

Bonus shares, are given free of cost to the investors. So when you get a bonus share, the number of shares you own increases at no cost to you. A stock split is also like a bonus, but that is where the similarity ends. A bonus is a free additional share whereas a stock split is the same share split into different number of shares.For example, if a company was to issue a 1:1 bonus share:

• It would increase the amount of shares by 100% (1 share for every 1 share owned).If there are 1 million shares in a company, this would translate into an additional 1 million shares.
• Face value does not change.
• The market price changes and the price would reduce by half.
• The market cap increases, since the outstanding shares increase.

The bottom line is that a stock split is used primarily by companies to provide greater marketability and liquidity in the market. Whereas bonus shares are issued with the intent of rewarding the investor and the  financial effect of bonus share is that it increases the number of shares outstanding and reduces the earnings per share accordingly. Companies like Karur Vysya Bank, Infosys Technologies have rewarded investors with  consistent bonus issues and have performed well on the enhanced equity too.

The buzz word in the investing world is now - GOLD. Nowadays, there are many ways to invest in gold, other than buying physical gold and they are Gold ETFs and Gold Funds. There is a lot of confusion among retail investors about understanding and investing these products and we are quite sure this article would clarify things better.

To make things clear, both Gold ETFs and Gold Funds are mutual fund products — only the mode of purchase differs. The Gold Funds are fund of funds, which invest in their own fund house ETFs, for e.g., HDFC Gold Fund invests in HDFC Gold ETF.

Similar funds have been launched by Reliance mutual fund, Quantum mutual fund and Kotak mutual fund. Investors can get details of these funds from their respective websites.

Gold ETFs:

• ETFs are exchange traded funds launched by leading mutual funds which are traded in stock exchanges like Nse and Bse.
• You need a Dmat account and a trading account with your stock broker, to buy and sell these ETFs.
• Charges involved are brokerage charges and Dmat charges.
• They can be bought and sold over the exchange through a broker on a daily basis during trading hours. Gold ETFs provide an opportunity to benefit from changes in price movements of gold as the prices of gold ETF reflect the value of the underlying gold on real time basis.
• SIP is not possible, since it involves manual purchase by the investor every month.

Gold Funds:

• Gold Funds are fund of funds launched by mutual funds, which can be bought and sold through mutual fund agents or through online websites offered by the fund houses.
• You don't need a Dmat account or trading account.
• Charges involved - no entry load, but exit load of about 1 - 2%, if sold before one year from the date of purchase.
• Can be bought and sold on any working day, but the NAV of the fund at which the fund sells the units is based on the closing NAV calculated based on price of the gold on the previous day.
• SIP can be done, which is a good positive thing, since investing a fixed sum of money every month ensures you better average cost of purchase.

To sum it up, investing in Gold Funds are for those investors who want to invest in a simple and systematic method, involving lower costs. Whereas ETFs are for those active investors and traders, involving high costs and continuous monitoring of buying and selling.

With the emergence of smart phones, mobile applications have completely transformed how we live our lives. Applications make activities that we were once only able to perform in a stationary environment into something that we can do anywhere, anytime. Of the millions of activities, like banking, shopping, and more, that have now been made mobile, even stock trading is now made that much easier thanks to mobile apps. Here are some of the best ones out there:

1.Bloomberg
Bloomberg, the media and financial services behemoth, has always been a one-stop shop for information about the markets. Now, Bloomberg is available on a nifty app, so that you can have real-time stock information, market news, and more right in the palm of your hand.

2.E*Trade Mobile Pro
If you use E*Trade to buy stocks, then its mobile app is especially helpful, since you can use it to buy and sell stocks, transfer money from any financial institution, and monitor the markets with comprehensive charts and live stock quotes.

3.Virtual Stock Market Lite
Virtual Stock Market Lite is a great app especially if you are relatively new to the markets. When you download and begin using this particular app, you are given $100,000 in virtual cash to invest as you please. The app uses real stock prices and real markets, so using this app is wonderfully accurate, not to mention, fun, way to practice trading!

4.Stock Twits
Stock Twits has all the benefits of apps like Bloomberg in terms of information and news about markets. The one aspect of Stock Twits that makes it unique, however, is that it serves also as a social network for traders. You can follow traders who invest the same way you do, discuss different strategies, and generally become part of an entire community of like-minded investors.

Trading and investing has never been a walk in the park. It takes time and energy, business savvy, and of course, a little bit of luck. Using some of these apps, however, will enable you to access an enormous amount of data and expertise so that you can make the best investment decisions, any time and any place.

Author Bio:
This is a guest post by Nadia Jones who blogs at accredited online colleges about education, college, student, teacher, money saving, movie related topics. You can reach her at nadia.jones5 at gmail.com.