Book Part 15 - Academy Finance Management ® Certified Financial Analyst Planner Training Accredited Chartered Financial Planner Certification

Risk Tolerance

What are the best saving and investing products for you? The answer depends on when you will need the money, your goals, and if you will be able to sleep at night if you purchase a risky investment where you could lose your principal.

For instance, if you are saving for retirement, and you have 35 years before you retire, you may want to consider riskier investment products, knowing that if you stick to only the "savings" products or to less risky investment products, your money will grow too slowly—or given inflation or taxes, you may lose the purchasing power of your money. A frequent mistake people make is putting money they will not need for a very long time in investments that pay a low amount of interest.

On the other hand, if you are saving for a short-term goal, five years or less, you don't want to choose risky investments, because when it's time to sell, you may have to take a loss. Since investments often move up and down in value rapidly, you want to make sure that you can wait and sell at the best possible time.

Investment Products

When you make an investment, you are giving your money to a company or an enterprise, hoping that it will be successful and pay you back with even more money.

Some investments make money, and some don’t. You can potentially make money in an investment if:

The company performs better than its competitors.

Other investors recognize it’s a good company, so that when it comes time to sell your investment, others want to buy it.

The company makes profits, meaning they make enough money to pay you interest for your bond, or maybe dividends on your stock.

You can lose money if:

The company’s competitors are better than it is.

Consumers don’t want to buy the company’s products or services.

The company’s officers fail at managing the business well, they spend too much money, and their expenses are larger than their profits.

Other investors that you would need to sell to think the company’s stock is too expensive given its performance and future outlook.

The people running the company are dishonest. They use your money to buy homes, clothes, and vacations, instead of using your money on the business.

They lie about any aspect of the business: claim past or future profits that do not exist, claim it has contracts to sell its products when it doesn’t, or make up fake numbers on their finances to dupe investors.

The brokers who sell the company’s stock manipulate the price so that it doesn’t reflect the true value of the company. After they pump up the price, these brokers dump the stock, the price falls, and investors lose their money.

For whatever reason, you have to sell your investment when the market is down.

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A financial analyst securities analyst, research analyst, equity analyst, or investment analyst is a person who performs financial analysis for external or internal clients as a core part of the job. Financial analysis (also referred to as financial statement analysis or accounting analysis or Analysis of finance) refers to an assessment of the viability, stability and profitability of a business, sub-business or project. It is performed by professionals who prepare reports using ratios that make use of information taken from financial statements and other reports. These reports are usually presented to top management as one of their bases in making business decisions. Certification as a financial analyst requires accredited education in finance

Management consulting is the practice of helping organizations to improve their performance, primarily through the analysis of existing organizational problems and development of plans for improvement. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants for a number of reasons, including gaining external (and presumably objective) advice and access to the consultants' specialized expertise. Becoming certified in management consulting requires proper education experience and credentials.

Management accounting or managerial accounting is concerned with the provisions and use of accounting information to managers within organizations, to provide them with the basis to make informed business decisions that will allow them to be better equipped in their management and control functions. Cost accounting is a process of collecting, analyzing, summarizing and evaluating various alternative courses of action. Its goal is to advise the management on the most appropriate course of action based on the cost efficiency and capability. Cost accounting provides the detailed cost information that management needs to control current operations and plan for the future. Certification in management or cost accounting requires education and expertise in accounting.