At this time of the year, the first month of January, all the business magazines offer ideas of what to invest in the year, expecting you would buy and hold. You should do one of them, what are your best ideas for the year? This will tell you if you believe the glass is half full or half empty. Using your best ideas, will also tell you if during the year you are right or wrong. If you are wrong, then you lost no money and it suggests you should keep money in index funds or mutual funds which allow for diversification. If you are right, as you cash accounts allow you to invest perhaps that would be a good place to park some of your money. With investing, the only method you will know if you are right is looking back, but there are methods to employ to ensure you lose less or even make money.

Linking to dividend paying companies, one method which has shown to be successful is invest in profitable companies. If the companies are profitable, they can pay a dividend and you will make money two methods – on the dividend and on capital gains as more people wish to buy the stock of a profitable company. There are endless ideas and that is terrific on how to invest, keeping it relatively simple is often best for you for you will know what to do if something is not right. Markets will go up and down and ideally in the long run they go up, but along the way there will be fluctuations.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions