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Investment
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Investment or investing[1] is a term with
several closely-related meanings in business management, finance and
economics, related to saving or deferring consumption.
Investment is the choice by the individual to risk his savings with the
hope of gain. Rather than store the good produced, or its money
equivalent, the investor chooses to use that good either to create a
durable consumer or producer good, or to lend the original saved good to
another in exchange for either interest or a share of the profits.
Investment is the choice by the individual to risk his savings with the
hope of gain. Rather than store the good produced, or its money
equivalent, the investor chooses to use that good either to create a
durable consumer or producer good, or to lend the original saved good to
another in exchange for either interest or a share of the profits.
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Investment is the choice by the individual to risk his savings with the
hope of gain. Rather than store the good produced, or its money
equivalent, the investor chooses to use that good either to create a
durable consumer or producer good, or to lend the original saved good to
another in exchange for either interest or a share of the profits.
In the first case, the individual creates durable consumer goods, hoping
the services from the good will make his life better. In the second, the
individual becomes an entrepreneur using the resource to produce goods
and services for others in the hope of a profitable sale. The third case
describes a lender, and the fourth describes an investor in a share of
the business.
In each case, the consumer obtains a durable asset or investment, and
accounts for that asset by recording an equivalent liability. As time
passes, and both prices and interest rates change, the value of the
asset and liability also change.An asset is usually purchased, or
equivalently a deposit is made in a bank, in hopes of getting a future
return or interest from it. The word originates in the Latin "vestis",
meaning garment, and refers to the act of putting things (money or other
claims to resources) into others' pockets. See Invest. The basic meaning
of the term being an asset held to have some recurring or capital gains.
It is an asset that is expected to give returns without any work on the
asset per se. |
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Finance |
In finance, investment is the buying
securities or other monetary or paper (financial) assets in the money
markets or capital markets, or in fairly liquid real assets, such as
gold, real estate, or collectibles. Valuation is the method for
assessing whether a potential investment is worth its price. Returns on
investments will follow the risk-return spectrum.
Types of financial investments include shares, other equity investment,
and bonds (including bonds denominated in foreign currencies). These
financial assets are then expected to provide income or positive future
cash flows, and may increase or decrease in value giving the investor
capital gains or losses.
Trades in contingent claims or derivative securities do not necessarily
have future positive expected cash flows, and so are not considered
assets, or strictly speaking, securities or investments. Nevertheless,
since their cash flows are closely related to (or derived from) those of
specific securities, they are often studied as or treated as
investments.
Investments are often made indirectly through intermediaries, such as
banks, mutual funds, pension funds, insurance companies, collective
investment schemes, and investment clubs. Though their legal and
procedural details differ, an intermediary generally makes an investment
using money from many individuals, each of whom receives a claim on the
intermediary. |
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Real estate |
| In real estate, investment money is used to
purchase property for the purpose of holding or leasing for income and
there is an element of capital risk. |
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Residential real estate |
| The most common form of real estate
investment as it includes property purchased as a primary residence. In
many cases the buyer does not have the full purchase price for a
property and must engage a lender such as a bank, finance company or
private lender. Different countries have their individual normal lending
levels, but usually they will fall into the range of 70-90% of the
purchase price. Against other types of real estate, residential real
estate is the least risky. |
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Appreciation |
Appreciation is a term used in accounting
relating to the increase in value of an asset. In this sense it is the
reverse of depreciation, which measures the fall in value of assets over
their normal life-time.
Appreciation is a rise of a currency in a floating exchange rate.
In times of high inflation, appreciation will be common to all balance
sheet assets. Generally, the term is reserved for property or, more
specifically, land and buildings. In any viable modern economy, such
property tends to increase in value over the years - if only because of
the scarcity of usable land forces its price in a competitive situation.
However, this belief has often caused speculative bubbles to arise.
There are considerable difficulties in assessing the increase in value
of any particular asset. This is principally because of the variety of
interpretations that can be attached to the word value itself and due to
the various instruments and methods used in the valuation process. |
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Diversification (finance) |
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- Diversification in finance is a risk management technique, related
to hedging, that mixes a wide variety of investments within a
portfolio. Because the fluctuations of a single security have less
impact on a diverse portfolio, diversification minimizes the risk from
any one investment.
A simple example of diversification is the following: On a particular
island the entire economy consists of two companies: one that sells
umbrellas and another that sells sunscreen. If a portfolio is
completely invested in the company that sells umbrellas, it will have
strong performance during the rainy season, but poor performance when
the weather is sunny. The reverse occurs if the portfolio is only
invested in the sunscreen company, the alternative investment: the
portfolio will be high performance when the sun is out, but will tank
when clouds roll in. To minimize the weather-dependent risk in the
example portfolio, the investment should be split between the
companies. With this diversified portfolio, returns are decent no
matter the weather, rather than alternating between excellent and
terrible.
There are three primary strategies used in improving diversification:
- Spread the portfolio among multiple investment vehicles, such as
stocks, mutual funds, bonds, and cash.
- Vary the risk in the securities. A portfolio can also be
diversified into different mutual fund investment strategies,
including growth funds, balanced funds, index funds, small cap, and
large cap funds. When a portfolio includes investments with varied
risk levels, large losses in one area are offset by other areas.
- Vary your securities by industry, or by geography. This will
minimize the impact of industry- or location-specific risks. The
example portfolio above was diversified by investing in both umbrellas
and sunscreen. Another practical application of this kind of
diversification is mixing investments between domestic and
international funds. By choosing funds in many countries, events
within any one country's economy have less effect on the overall
portfolio.
Although diversification reduces the risk of a portfolio, it does not
necessarily reduce the returns. As a result, diversification is referred
to as "the only free lunch in finance."[1] Statistical analysis shows
that there may be some validity to this claim.[2]
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Return expectations while diversifying |
| The average of all the returns in a diverse
portfolio can never exceed that of the top-performing investment, and
will almost always be lower than the highest return. This is
unavoidable, and is the cost of the risk insurance that diversification
provides. However, strategies exist that allow the portfolio's manager
to maximize returns while still keeping risk as low as possible.
Although detailed calculations are beyond the scope of this article,
these strategies seek to maximize returns by giving different portfolio
weights to investments based on their risk and return expectations. |
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Types of investments |
| The term "investment" is used differently in economics
and in finance. Economists refer to a real investment (such as a machine
or a house), while financial economists refer to a financial asset, such
as money that is put into a bank or the market, which may then be used
to buy a real asset. |
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Business management |
The investment decision (also known as capital
budgeting) is one of the fundamental decisions of business management:
Managers determine the investment value of the assets that a business
enterprise has within its control or possession. These assets may be
physical (such as buildings or machinery), intangible (such as patents,
software, goodwill), or financial (see below). Assets are used to
produce streams of revenue that often are associated with particular
costs or outflows. All together, the manager must determine whether the
net present value of the investment to the enterprise is positive using
the marginal cost of capital that is associated with the particular area
of business.
In terms of financial assets, these are often marketable securities such
as a company stock (an equity investment) or bonds (a debt investment).
At times the goal of the investment is for producing future cash flows,
while at others it may be for purposes of gaining access to more assets
by establishing control or influence over the operation of a second
company (the investee). |
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Economics |
In economics, investment is the production per unit
time of goods which are not consumed but are to be used for future
production. Examples include tangibles (such as building a railroad or
factory) and intangibles (such as a year of schooling or on-the-job
training). In measures of national income and output, gross investment
(represented by the variable I) is also a component of Gross domestic
product (GDP), given in the formula GDP = C + I + G + NX, where C is
consumption, G is government spending, and NX is net exports. Thus
investment is everything that remains of production after consumption,
government spending, and exports are subtracted.
Both non-residential investment (such as factories) and residential
investment (new houses) combine to make up I. Net investment deducts
depreciation from gross investment. It is the value of the net increase
in the capital stock per year.
Investment, as production over a period of time ("per year"), is not
capital. The time dimension of investment makes it a flow. By contrast,
capital is a stock, that is, an accumulation measurable at a point in
time (say December 31st).
Investment is often modeled as a function of Income and Interest rates,
given by the relation I = f(Y, r). An increase in income encourages
higher investment, whereas a higher interest rate may discourage
investment as it becomes more costly to borrow money. Even if a firm
chooses to use its own funds in an investment, the interest rate
represents an opportunity cost of investing those funds rather than
loaning them out for interest. |
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Personal finance |
Within personal finance, money used to purchase shares,
put in a collective investment scheme or used to buy any asset where
there is an element of capital risk is deemed an investment. Saving
within personal finance refers to money put aside, normally on a regular
basis. This distinction is important, as investment risk can cause a
capital loss when an investment is realized, unlike saving(s) where the
more limited risk is cash devaluing due to inflation.
In many instances the terms saving and investment are used
interchangeably, which confuses this distinction. For example many
deposit accounts are labeled as investment accounts by banks for
marketing purposes. Whether an asset is a saving(s) or an investment
depends on where the money is invested: if it is cash then it is
savings, if its value can fluctuate then it is investment. |
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Commercial real estate |
| Commercial real estate consists of multifamily
apartments, office buildings, retail space, hotels and motels,
warehouses, and other commercial properties. Due to the higher risk of
commercial real estate, loan-to-value ratios allowed by banks and other
lenders are lower and often fall in the range of 50-70%. |
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Capital accumulation |
Most generally, the accumulation of capital refers
simply to the gathering or amassment of objects of value; the increase
in wealth; or the creation of wealth. Capital can be generally defined
as assets invested with the expectation that their value will increase,
usually because there is the expectation of profit, rent, interest,
royalties, capital gain or some other kind of return.
The definition of capital accumulation is subject to controversy and
ambiguities, because it could refer to a net addition to existing
wealth, or to a redistribution of wealth. If more wealth is produced
than there was before, a society becomes richer; the total stock of
wealth increases. But if some accumulate capital only at the expense of
others, wealth is merely shifted from A to B. In principle, it is
possible that a few people or organisations accumulate capital and grow
richer, although the total stock of wealth of society decreases. Most
often, capital accumulation involves both a net addition and a
redistribution of wealth, which may raise the question of who really
benefits from it most.
In economics, accounting and Marxian economics, capital accumulation is
often equated with investment of profit income, especially in real
capital goods. The concentration and centralisation of capital are two
of the results of such accumulation (see below).
But capital accumulation can refer variously to
- working and consuming less than earned (saving or accumulating the
residual)
- relying on the effects of compound interest to increase initial
capital
- real investment in tangible means of production.
- financial investment in assets represented on paper.
- investment in non-productive physical assets such as residential
real estate that appreciate in value.
- consuming less than produced by productive assets like farm
land--saving or accumulating the residual
- "human capital accumulation," i.e., new education and training
increasing the skills of the (potential) labour force.
Non-financial and financial capital accumulation is usually needed
for economic growth, since additional production usually requires
additional funds to enlarge the scale of production. Smarter and more
productive organization of production can also increase production
without increased capital. Capital can be created without increased
investment by inventions or improved organization that increase
productivity, discoveries of new assets (oil, gold, minerals, etc.), the
sale of property, etc.
In modern macroeconomics and econometrics the term capital formation is
often used in preference to "accumulation", though UNCTAD refers
nowadays to "accumulation". |
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Horizontal diversification |
| Horizontal diversification is when a portfolio is
diversified between same-type investments. It can be a broad
diversification (like investing in several NASDAQ companies) or more
narrowed (investing in several stocks of the same branch or sector). In
the example above, the move to invest in both umbrellas and sunscreen is
an example of horizontal diversification. As usual, the broader the
diversification the lower the risk from any one investment. |
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Vertical diversification |
Vertical diversification is investment between
different types of securities. Again, it can be a very broad
diversification, like diversifying between bonds and stocks, or a more
narrowed diversification, like diversifying between stocks of different
branches. Continuing the example from the introduction, a vertical
diversification would be taking some money from umbrella and sunscreen
stock and investing it instead in bonds issued the government of the
island.
While horizontal diversification lessens the risk of investing entirely
in one security, vertical diversification goes beyond that and protects
against market and/or economical changes. |
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What is a market? |
| A market is the means through which buyers and sellers
are brought together to aid in the transfer of goods and/or services.
Several aspects of this general definition seem worthy of emphasis.
First, a market need not have a physical location. It is only
necessary that the buyers and sellers can communicate regarding the
relevant aspects of the transaction.
Second, the market does not necessarily own the goods or services
involved. When we discuss what is required for a good market, you will
note that ownership is not involved; the important criterion is the
smooth, cheap transfer of goods and services. In most financial
markets, those who establish and administer the market do not own the
assets. They simply provide a physical location or an electronic
system that allows potential buyers and sellers to interact, and they
help the market function by providing information and facilities to
aid in the transfer of ownership.
Finally, a market can deal in any variety of goods and services.
For any commodity or services with a diverse clientele, a market
should evolve to aid in the transfer of that commodity or service.
Both buyers and sellers will benefit from the existence of a market.
Basically, we take markets for granted because they are vital to
a smooth-operating economy. Still, it is important to recognize that
the quality of alternative markets can differ. |
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