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Risk is a part of life. Everything we do has risk involved. With investing it's critical to manage the risks. The easy way to describe risk, and management of it is like this: If you put $100 into a new business, it could turn into $1,000 or zero. You don't know which of those two [...]

For the beginner series, we're discussing the various different types of investments available. Now it's time for the old stable Term Deposit. A term deposit is a deposit held at a financial institution for a fixed term, much like a special transaction account with your bank. The term generally ranges from a month to a [...]

You might know a mutual fund under many names, including a superannuation fund, but they are a collection of some amount of stocks, bonds, cash, or other securities. When you join a mutual fund your money is put together with all the other mutual fund investors. This allows the fund manager a much larger bank [...]

Hybrid securities or hybrid shares have been very popular over the last few years in Australia. They are a complex security that combines some amount of equity (stock) and debt (bond) together. A hybrid typically provides a variable interest rate return. Like a bond, once purchased the investor will receive interest payments on a regular [...]

An ETF is an investment into a fund that trades some asset. This is often a combination of shares of stock, futures, foreign currency etc. These ETFs are usually built to track an asset or index such as the ASX200 Australian share index. They allow you to invest in an asset (the ETF) that will [...]

For stocks traded on the secondary market, there are generally no minimum order amounts. For the initial offering they're usually presented in lots. There is a maximum number of stocks that can be bought, and that depends on the number of stocks on offer, and the price you're willing to pay. If you want to [...]

The basic principal with interest rates is simple. When economic growth is strong and inflation is rising, the Reserve Bank of Australia will increase interest rates in an attempt to slow the growth and ease inflation. As interest rates rise, new bonds are issued with higher coupon rates. This means that the new bonds return [...]