Investment risk analysis is a means to make sure that a potential investment is measured for the possible risks involved so that you can balance this accordingly in order to maximize returns. Properly analyzing risk in an investment helps to make sure that only investments that can be handled by the existing resources are considered to be entered in a portfolio. Most investment companies manage large investments over the course of months or even years rather than looking for short term, high risk / high yield opportunities. Poor investments with high risk can require a large portion of available resources, and in the cases that they sour, and are sold or canceled early, much of the investment budget is wasted, and credibility of the investor, or investment brokerage can be questioned.

The first step in any portfolio management risk analysis is to make a list all your potential investments, each with the resources it requires, and the projected earnings. This way you can get a good idea of any overlapping investments you might have, and you can quickly identify high risk investments. During this portion of the analysis, potential investments that will require too much of the available resources, or that have too much risk, or that do not provide adequate reward for the risk may be canceled. The idea is to keep from having to cash out poor investments early, or to keep from accepting them at all, while continuing to accept potential good investments.

Another important part of portfolio risk analysis is to create a risk assessment matrix. Investments can be categorized into three main categories, low, medium and high risk. High risk investment opportunities can be more heavily scrutinized than low risk investments before the investment is made. But ultimately, a good mix of low, medium and properly analyzed high risk investments usually make the best composition of anyone's portfolio.

Is there a difference between investing and saving? Or is 'investing' just another word made up in order to allow financial advisers a greater percentage of your life savings?

Simply put, investing can be explained using a mathematical equation.

Savings = Disposable Income - Expenses

Savings refer to any proportion of your income or earnings after tax that you have not spent. If you earn $2,000 monthly after tax and your monthly expenditure is $1,500, this not only indicates not only that you should find another job, but also that your total monthly savings is only $500.

Investing on the other hand, is a portion of your money that you have set aside that works for you. Yes, it comes from your savings, but you have set it aside for the longer term, hoping that this money increases in value based on the appreciation o products that you purchased with it.. This could be money that you had placed in various stocks, bonds, or real estate or mutual funds.

Investment also come with a higher level of risk than funds that are simply part of your savings. Because of this risk, you generally expect returns on your funds to be greater in the long run.

So, Why Should You Invest?

Now that you know the difference between savings and investment, you have learned that simply setting a portion of your money aside in savings, is not going to increase in value the way investing can. Saving doesn't help you generate wealth nearly as fast.

Sure, saving money is the safe way to go, but how safe is it really? Consider that money you are saving may be getting 3% or 5% interested, but you're probably actually losing money due to inflation and cost of living increases.

Investments on the other hand work a little different. As mentioned previously, although investments comes wiht some risk, wiht proper risk analysis and careful planning, you can stay ahead of inflation and cost of living increases with greater return on your monry.

You don’t need a lot of money to invest. There are a many options available through stocks, bonds on government securities and offer ever better returns due to their liquidity. Lets look at one stock option, in 1999 NCB was trading for about 0.99. Today NCB, in a market that is considered to be bear, is tarding at 23.00. Now if you took $10,000.00 In 1999 to buy NCB, that would today have been about $232,323.23 (did not calculate the cost of the transaction nor the dividends you would have earned)

Of course you might today end you with 50% of your initial principal if you had made bad investment decisions. But lets say your had walked in to an Investment adviser, the picture would have been way different. With diversification and proper analysis, over the long run, your investment would have yielded you a higher return than the saving accounts.

Hind sight is 20/20, however, what’s true is that the rich stay wealthy by investing, the poor gain wealth by deciding to invest, the poor who stay poor, they only saving and those who don’t…well they can’t even afford to read my article.

Anyone with an interest in finance or investing has heard of 'Forex Trading', or, as it is more commonly heard of, online currency trading. But what is the Forex trading system, and how does it work? Where can you go to learn more about forex trading?

Well, you've come to the right place.

The first thing you need to understand is the terminology and trading strategies. There are many companies on the internet that provide forex trading tutorials online that revolve around real time forex trading. Using these tutorials will provide you with the fundamental knowledge you need in order to begin taking part in trading forex.

In addition to the tutorial training, there are also some basic trading tips that all beginnings find useful when they begin to trade forex. One of the most important tips to remember is to always place stop loss orders. This important strategy will help you to limit and even prevent possible losses.

Another great beginner's tip in forex training is to take profit orders when you place you stop loss orders. You do this by using the OCO order function that is usually available in most web basted forex trading systems. If you use take profit orders, you help to reduce the risk of locking into a profit too soon.

Also, your should make sure that you always use a positive risk/reward ratio. In order to do that, you should choose the amount that you would like to make on your forex trade ahead of time and it should be more than or equal to the amount that you are willing to loose. If you want to be successful in forex trading, this tip is essential.

Keep in mind that forex trading should be considered a long term investment, and that patience is required. It takes risk analysis and very disciplined forex trading coupled with an abundance of patience in order to be profitable in forex trading. It is important to continue to research and go though forex tutorials, even after you grasp the fundamentals, so that you will continue to learn new tips and new strategies.

For the past few months, there has been a new “fad” that is taking over Jamaica. Indeed this is a VERY profitable fad for many people, as you are guaranteed to make a profit. A lot of questions are yet to be answered though, a lot of rumors are going around and a lot of money has been appearing literally out of nowhere.

First thought, what is an investment club?

* An investment club a group of retail investors who pool some of their money and make joint investments. Investment clubs attempt to enable individuals to become individual investors by pooling their funds in small groups and collectively deciding how to invest the money.

For a more detailed definition see here

Great, now that we have an idea of what I’m talking about i can share with you what i found out. Desperately trying to learn all i can about these investment clubs popping up all over corporate Jamaica, i turned to my best friend (google) to find answers before i offer up my piece of cake to the pot.

Cash Plus is a well known investment club with great offers and a terrific interest rate. People have been asking how is cash plus able to guarantee 10% interest per month. Well this is what i have heard so far:

They are in:

* Buyouts
* Expanding Companies
* Telecommunications (Megaphone, Freepaid Limited)
* Real Estate
* Executive Hotels in Kingston, Montego Bay and Ocho Rios
* Owners of Jack’s Hall Estate
* Owners of Golden Seas hotel in Oracabesa
* Farms