12/01/2012

Moving Out of Your Investment Comfort Zone

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If you have started out safe in the investment world, you may find yourself engaging in safe investments and making some good returns. If so, it may be time to spread your investment wings and move out of your investment comfort zone. However, while more risk will be involved, it?s important not to take too great a leap. you could land yourself in hot water and face potential losses, especially if you are not experienced in investing in particular areas.

Stocks and Shares

If you are investing in shares and stocks, moving out of your investment comfort zone can be done in a variety of ways. You might want to consider:

• Investing in a new company or niche. For example, you might want to move away from blue-chip stocks and invest in a company that?s a little more risky, or you might want to invest in an up-and-coming industry that you feel has potential.
• Changing your current investment strategies to involve more risk. You could consider changing or removing your stop-loss limits or amending your selling and buying tactics to try something new.
• Simply putting more into your current investments. This means sticking with what you?ve already got and increasing your share volume by buying more of the same shares and stocks.
• Diversifying your portfolio altogether. This would indicate moving away from stocks and shares to invest in something else; you could invest in something similar, like precious metals or bonds, or diversify completely and start investing in commercial property.

Forex

Learning and investing in forex is a fun and easy way to get into the investment field, and many beginner investors will often learn forex as a way to supplement their income and manage a comfortable, low-risk portfolio.

Getting out of your investmentcomfort zone, however, means involving more risk in your strategies and decisions. You may choose to invest more money into your present currencies, giving yourself more leverage or investing in new currencies. Like stocks, you can also consider removing or changing your stop-loss orders to increase your percentagerisk.

Property

Property investment can be quite different to trading shares or currencies online, and growing your property investment portfolio often means buying or investing in more properties. If you are keen to grow your investment, you can consider:

• Using your current equity to purchase more properties in the same area.
• Using your equity to invest in properties in different areas.
• Investing in different types of properties (e.g. moving from residential investments to commercial investments).
• Buying international properties.
• Analysing your profits and losses in regards to capital gains tax (CGT) and rethinking your strategies.
• Leasing out your investment, if you are living in it, and turning it into an investment property.
• Diversifying your property portfolio completely by investing in some stocks or bonds.

Precious Metals

Investing in precious metals has become increasingly popular in the last few years, especially given the instability of the global economy and reliance on the more steady values of metals like gold. Investing in precious metals can be a lucrative endeavour, particularly for those looking to secure their future wealth. If you have invested in only one particular type of metal, you can step out of your comfort zone by looking into other metals. You could:

• Invest in other metals and minerals, such as gold, silver, platinum, palladium or copper.
• Invest in gems (e.g. diamonds or rubies).
• Invest in other commodities, like oil, gas, etc.
• Change your investments from coins to bullion bars or vice versa.