How to become a Do-It-Yourself investor
Want to get your own investment started but have concerns about the advisor fee? It’s a good time to become a Do-it-yourself investor. In recent years, the advent of discount brokerages and the multitude of online investment tools have made Do-it-yourself investing more popular. It allows you to have full control of your own investment and save money on getting financial advice. A 1.3% annual fee-paying to the advisor can accumulate to 32% of your wealth over 30 years. Here are some tips and steps to help you start your own investment.
Learn before you start
You don’t need to be professional to start your own investment, but there are a few things you must learn. You don’t have to know everything about tax and investing. You need to know the part that applies to you. Another important aspect is that you need to learn market history. It’s not surprising when the market goes down 10% or 20%. Corrections and bear markets occur occasionally.
Determine the objectives
Decide the objective that you want to accomplish: savings for children’s education, comfortability after retirement, or a financial legacy. Also, you need to have a little plan, like the earning and savings in the future, the time period that you want to save, the age you want to quit working, and the risk-averse that you prefer. After you have all of these in mind, test-drive a few financial-planning calculators, such as financial calculators from the big fours. The calculation would not be precise as job losses, market gyrations and inflation can easily alter it, but it will give you an idea of how you need to allocate the assets.
Decide and implement your target asset allocation
Build a portfolio that can be easily maintained with low cost, diversified, and with an appropriate level of risk- high enough that it will reach your goals and low enough that you can tolerate the volatility. Be tax-smart with your investment, have a study on the tax policies that apply to you, and choose the taxable account that is relatively tax-efficient.
Maintain and rebalance the plan
Maintaining the plan is as important as making the right investment. Make the required contributions to your account each year and purchase additional shares if needed, and rebalance your account from time to time. Maintaining does not always mean making a change in your investment plan, once you have a reasonable investment plan, you need to stick to it. Fluctuation in the returns does not necessarily mean there’s a problem with your plan. But always remember, if you are having trouble with your investment, it’s always worth the money to get help from an investment advisor, good advice at a fire price is always favorable!
All contents presented in this blog have been prepared for informational purposes only, and are not intended to provide, and should not be relied on for any personal investment, tax, or accounting advice. You should, before making any decision regarding any information, strategies or product mentioned on this blog, consult your own financial or accounting advisors to consider whether the product is appropriate for you, based on your own objectives, financial situations and needs.