Tips to be a better investor

This time we want to share with you 5 main Tips to be a better investor, but before starting we want to make it clear that these tips do not apply to those who are looking to be a better speculator, but to those who know that the process of being an investor does not have to do with those false promises to become a millionaire in the short term.

So if you are already an investor or are thinking of being one, these 5 tips are for you:

1.- Investment horizon and amount to invest:

Before even thinking that you are going to be an investor, you should ask yourself these two questions:

· Do I need that money for the short term?

To facilitate the answer to these two questions we will give you the following observations:

· How much can I invest?

a) Define what short term means, and it is that, for the world of the stock market in the United States, short term does not mean a month, nor a semester nor less than a year, but rather means between one to three years, for So if you are thinking that you will need that money within three years it is better not to invest it.

Now, if you have realized that that money has been in your bank account for many years and you have not done anything with it and you know that US inflation is eating it, it is time to invest it.

b) The next step is to determine what amount I can invest and as you will see we use the word “I can” and the way to answer that question is as follows: First you must calculate the amount you need to cover any unexpected situation or emergency and the way to do that is the following:

You have to know approximately how much do you spend per month? we know that that is the most complex question.

Second, you must multiply that amount of monthly expense by 6, in order to cover at least 6 months of your vital expense and not invest that money.

Third, if after subtracting this amount you have a surplus, that is the amount you must invest.

2.- Diversify, Diversify and Diversify!

We are all clear that it is impossible for a person

can determine which is the winning horse every time, in every race. So what makes you think that the investment world is going to be different? It would not be better if you could buy the entire racetrack so in some opportunities the brown horse will win, in others the white one and in others the black one, but you will always win in the long term because you own each one of them.

So, the best scheme is, the one that granny always told us:

Don’t put all your eggs in the same basket!

Part of the lessons learned from the pandemic was that, at first those companies that provided fundamental services were favored and people even wondered if one day people would take a plane or stay in a hotel again and the shares of these companies fell and Nobody wanted them, but as soon as the situation began to improve, people saw that the prices of these companies began to improve, so the one that was most favored was the one that had a little of everything.

3.- The golden rule, buy low to sell high.

This rule seems to be the simplest of all, right? But let me tell you that in my more than 20 years in the investment world this is precisely the most common mistake investors make. For this, the Americans have a wonderful explanation that they describe in four letters “FOMO” or “Fear of Missing Out” or in other words the fear of being left out, which in our Latino or Hispanic culture, is summarized to the fact that nobody wants to be the fool who was left out and did not take the opportunity.

So what happens, one day we see that a friend invested in a stock or asset that has been going up a lot and of course your brain begins to say:

And are we going to stay out? look at all the money he’s making.

So we run in a herd to buy what the other person bought when capable, it is too late and we do the opposite, we end up buying more expensive and when we see that it starts to go down we run to sell cheap, being the exact opposite of what you should do.

4.- Make constant contributions over time and look for low-cost investments.

If of all the advice that we can give you, you could take one and frame it to see it every day, it would be this, several studies have shown over the years that the best investor is not the one who tries to establish the perfect time to enter in the stock market and make your investment but rather the one that invests continuously, even if it is a little each month regardless of whether the market is rising or falling, so one of the best practices is to automate these contributions and that happen like a train without them having to ask you.

On the other hand, you don’t have to be a financial genius to know that, if you manage to lower your costs, your performance will be much better, but the world of investment advisers has something totally different from other industries and that is that While you when you enter a store you ask how much it costs what you are going to buy, in our world people ask how much I earn, but not how much it costs. Please always ask how much it costs! And remember that investments do not mean that if it is cheaper it means that it is bad, rather it is the other way around: lower your cost to optimize your performance.

5.- Each investment must have a financial goal.

The best way to understand this advice is by recognizing that money is a tool that serves to achieve those goals that you have set for yourself, so when investing you should always think about the financial goal or dream you want to achieve with that investment.

Let’s look at the following example, nobody wants to be a burden on their family in their retirement years, much less now that we see that modern retirement is the period where many people begin to live those goals they always wanted and if you don’t believe me ask Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, who when he retired the first thing he did was launch himself in a rocket to the stratosphere.

So, if that money is there, it is to serve as a protection element for when you retire, let’s think about a goal like that of retirement or retirement, this allows you not to lose sleep if the markets go down along the way and you know You do not need that money for now but for the moment you retire and rather it will continue to be invested for many more years because when you retire you are not going to use it all at once, but you will gradually withdraw part of it.

One of the most efficient ways to achieve this point is to rely on a financial planner to help you visualize those goals you want to achieve and also has the necessary tools to perform different simulations that allow you to take actions today to achieve those dreams in tomorrow.

Alonso Rodríguez Segarra

Founder & CEO Advise Financial

advise-financial.com

Alonso is a “CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™” who is dedicated to increasing the Financial Well-being of nurses, physicians and successful immigrants in Florida and Texas. With more than 20 years of experience in the world of finance, always working for the best interest of his clients, under fiduciary criteria.