Best Places to Invest Your Money in 2014

Happy New Year to all the Readers of OCAAT. Its Bill Achola once again. And am happy to talk to you in 2014. Before I start I’d like to start with a funny story.

There was this child who, as a student, had always wanted some extra money for those “emergencies” in school. He actually had enough, but seeing his parents struggle to make ends meet, he decided to take matters into his own hands. Everyday, he bought this pack of chocolates which he sold retail to his classmates. He kept a small notebook, recording his purchases and “gains” for the day.

Little did he know that at that young age, he was already being introduced to the basic principles of accounting and investments. In today’s world, it would have to take a thousand packs or boxes of chocolate candies to realize some form of “decent profit”. In fact, with the growing number of retail consumer companies, competition would be so stiff that you would have to think twice about entering that route to investing.

Well,

In this article we’ll talk about how you can take advantage of investing in Gold IRA and Stock market.

From my own experience these are the best places where you can get a solid return from your investment.

At the end of the article if you’ve any burning question, suggestion or feedback kindly leave your comments and I’ll be more than happy to answer your question.

Ok?

Let’s start…

What Then Are the Best Places to Invest Your Money On?

Gold IRA Investing

Investing in Gold IRA is one the best form of investing especially if you are on the verge of retiring.

When you check our society of retirees you’ll see most of them are not financially secured and others still depend on there working children.

One way to secure your financial freedom is by investing in Gold, this is because wealth is totally measured by Gold.

Once you’ve decided to invest in Gold, then you should look on how to transfer your retirement account into IRA.

Stock Investing

Stocks have seen dramatic gains in recent months. Because of this, a number of investors have been wary about going in because they are expecting a pullback or correction.

However, corrections, if ever they do happen, may be short lived and shallow, as these same investors are just waiting for the right time to get in. So the time to get in is now.

For stocks, it would be wise to temporarily veer away from those that normally make a killing on bull runs such as technology and manufacturing stocks.

Healthcare and consumer staple stocks (as these are basics and would not be really affected drastically by movements in the economy) would be your best bets at this point.

One must also check out stocks that regularly pay a dividend. Year-on-year, investors make more money on companies that pay regular dividends as compared to those who just rely on trading gains.

However, care must also be taken as rising interests may shift money from stocks to bonds and may cause your stock price to tumble.

What Would Be My Strategy?

First, you should put in your money little by little on regular intervals. By doing this, you can balance out any losses, should the stocks tumble in the short term.

Also, by doing this, you can cash out on stocks that you have bought on a bargain if the market shows some signs of correction.

Diversification does not only mean investing in different industries. Check out balance sheets of companies that belong to countries of good governance. They may help even out your risks should the local economy experience sudden drastic movements.

Although directly investing in perceived “good stocks” may be tempting, the stress it gives you may not be good reason enough to invest your money in these.

Rather, you can leverage on the expertise of fund managers and invest in mutual funds which will give you a pretty good return on your investments. As they say, you can have your cake and eat it, too.

Realign your income targets taking into account new tax laws. There is a new tax law that has been recently been passed taxing income of more than $400,000 a whopping 39.6%.

This should be taken into consideration as increasing your investment income further could just be eroded by the high income taxes that will be levied on these.

With the dollar experiencing gains in the past months, expect some weakening of the currency in 2014.

Looking for stock investments outside of the US could help you balance your portfolio just in case these instances do happen.

Holding on to your money while waiting for the markets to move could lead to opportunity losses for you.

Scout the market for consumer friendly stocks which, though may not give a sizable income, can still outdo rates given by traditional investments.

Don’t Stay Inert: Act on Market Changes

2014 promises a lot of movement in terms of investments. As stocks have made a killing in the past months, we saw a lot of movements from the government bonds and notes.

Newly enacted government laws play a big part on changes that happen in the economy, what with the new tax laws on healthcare issues.

Only time can tell when interests would again go back, moving investments to long term bonds.

In the meantime, make good use of the opportunities that are available as these are the best places to invest your money in 2014, making sure you gain headway, even very little, with each move.

I hope you’ve enjoyed the good run of the article and I hope you’ll implement what we’ve just talked about. As I said earlier if you’ve any feedback leave your thoughts below and I’ll answer them.

Last but not the least; I’d be more than happy if you can share the content to your friends and potential young investors so that they can get the benefit of investing in 2014 and beyond.

About the Author: Bill Achola is a financial analyst who writes practical investment content that helps young adult to invest. For more information on the best place to put your money, read his popular article on: 50 best places to invest your money in 2014 and beyond.

SB’s thought

I see that Bill didn’t mention P2P lending. So here I am cheeping in, I’d like to brag about my decision to invest in P2P loan instrument in 2012. P2P loans are investment you make by lending money to individual borrowers. The same way you loan out to relatives and friends. The difference is, you give small amounts to various borrowers, which is managed by loan brokers (Prosper, lending Club, etc). Brokers take commission on every sale and also a percentage of lender’s earning.

My Investment with Prosper grew by 6.72% in last one year. Compare that with savings account rate of less than 1% or a three year CD rate of 1.6%. P2P lending is little more riskier than those options but it’s not as much as in stocks. Below is the snapshot of my Prosper investment gain. If you are interested, apply for a Prosper loan here.

A high return investment without a risk of losing your money is a must have in every investment portfolio. You can start with a little money, I started with only $500 and let it be there for 3 months before raising to $1000. It took almost 6 months to invest $5000. We just got our first home, that’s why I can’t investment more money right away.

Now what you think readers? What are other smart ways to invest your money this year?