Should you should KISS your investment strategy?

You know what K.I.S.S. stands for

Keep It Simple Silly

And you thought I was going to insult you!

We’ve both heard that “serious investors” have complicated and advanced investing products and strategies which enable them to make more than us mere mortal investors.

• Hedge Funds
• REITs
• High Yield Bonds
• FOREX trading
• Commodities
• Penny Stocks
• Etc, etc, etc

I will admit that there is potential that someone could make a lot more with these. There is also the potential that you could loose it all!

I have one overriding investment philosophy that I teach my clients:

Never invest in anything you don’t understand well enough to teach it to someone else.

Think about it; if you have a thorough understanding of your investments, how they work in the market, and what makes them ‘go up’ or ‘go down’ then you are a lot less likely to panic and worry when the Dow Jones dips. In fact, you might even see a silver lining in market drops!

It is possible to learn all the ins-and-outs of the more complex investments, but what will it gain you? Do you have the time and desire to become an expert? Or the time and desire to manage those investments?

I’ve been trained in all that stuff (through the Certified Financial Adviser program) and I could teach you a lot of it, but I still don’t have a “sophisticated” investment strategy.

Because I don’t have the time to manage my portfolio every day and want to keep my risk to a manageable level, while taking advantage of the long term growth of the market, I stick with mutual funds.

Mutual funds are easy to understand, have high diversification (my eggs are in lots of different baskets), and are easy to invest with. I even invest in mutual funds that cover different market sectors to increase my diversification even more! (If you are not sure what a mutual fund is, please ask!)

Boring? Yes. Simple? You bet! Do I know enough to teach you how they work? Of course! Give me a call and I’ll teach you today! Then you, too, can have confidence in your investments!

What are your thoughts?