Are You Afraid to Start Investing?

"It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that things are difficult!"
Lucius Annaeus Seneca (5 BC - AD 65)

If you are just starting out as an investor, no matter your age, it is a bit scary!

You know you are supposed to do with your money, anything but what?

Where do you start and what really is considered safe?

First ... Relax!

Do not think you need to know everything today. It takes years to understand investing, and no one knows just exactly what is happening all the time.

So you are not alone if you feel a bit overwhelmed and under-informed. Eventually you to contact as many facts as you can mount your investment decisions, but you must realize that you never really know everything.

The best part of investing is to learn to live with the fear of the unknown!

There are always naysayers who will tell you that investing is for professionals, or that the market is too high, or it crashing!

The first statement is false! The second is relatively dependent on a lot of factors and the third is always a possibility, depending on how you define crash!

If the index goes to 10,000 and "crashes" back to 8000 and you invested in 7000 did not really suffer! Is this a crash?

Well, that depends on how you define crash. If you bought 10,000 shares, and sold at 8000, then you have experienced a "crash".

If you bought and held on, or used down market strategies you have learned to cover your investment, then you have not experienced a crash.

You've been through an educational event!

And when the market recovers and goes to 11,000 and you stayed the course, you have made some good money.

The point is to understand the purpose of the investment world, you have to go ahead and to start you must promise that you can achieve your goals.

To achieve your goals you need to learn about the markets and investing a portion of your income to get where you want to be.

It's as simple as that!

You can try and chances are that you will be happy when you are at a point a few years down the road and look at your brokerage account, you will say ...

"I did that and I'm proud!"

So, do not listen to discourage the bad vibe. Most of them said the same things as the Index was half the size it is today!

Copyright © 2006 I.E.C. Haramis

Ioannis - Evangelos C. Haramis was born in Greece in 1951 and studied in Greece, the U.S. and Belgium. He has been active in the equity markets since 1972. Since 2002 he is New Business Development Managing Director at an investment bank.