If you’ve just made your 1st investment, congratulations! You’ve taken an important step in building the financial future you want.
Remember that investing is a journey and not a one-and-done thing. This is only the beginning, and you can stay on track by following these next moves:
1. Stay consistent with the right strategy
Patience and consistency can help you avoid common mistakes investors make. To stay consistent, having a strategy is important.
It can serve as your guide when choosing what to invest in, when to buy, and when to sell. You can be more confident about your next investing decisions when you have a plan that matches your goal and skill level.
For example, if you’re investing for a long-term goal and prefer a passive method, you can set a schedule to top up your investment every month or every payday. This strategy is also known as peso-cost averaging.
Some investing services even allow you to do this automatically. That’s why it’s among the simplest strategies that even beginner investors can consider.
2. Keep track of your progress
It’s ideal to invest with a goal in mind and a timeline for when you want to achieve it. To check if you’re still on the right path or if changes need to be made, you should know how your investments are performing.
Here’s what you can do:
- Set regular portfolio check-ups
Monitoring your investments doesn’t mean checking them every day. In fact, it can be a bad idea to look at daily price changes if you’re investing for the long haul.
Seeing a big and sudden change in price can prompt you to make rash decisions that don’t align with your strategy. Instead, you should review investments after a certain period, like quarterly or yearly.
This allows you to separate short-term fluctuations from long-term trends that might actually affect what you’ll earn when the right time to withdraw comes.
- Stay updated on important developments
It’s good to stay informed on investing news and developments, but it’s also easy to get overwhelmed by all the headlines and opinions.
Staying updated isn’t about reacting to everything. It’s about understanding why the ups and downs are happening and how they might affect you.
This can allow you to make smart decisions if needed and find opportunities that may help you reach goals.
3. Build a stronger portfolio over time
Eventually, you’ll want to expand and diversify your portfolio. This means putting money in different types of investments to reduce risk and boost your chances of investing success.
For example, if you started with higher-risk assets like stocks, you could consider adding “safer” products like bonds and money market instruments to create a balanced portfolio.
This can help protect you from big losses if a part of your portfolio doesn’t perform well. Different investments can also offer different ways of earning money.
Some may grow in value over time and allow you to turn a profit by selling at a higher price. Others provide regular income, while certain types of assets offer the potential for both growth and income.
As time goes on, your financial goals and life circumstances will likely change. Make sure your strategy and investments still align with where you want to go, whether it’s starting a family, buying a house, or preparing for retirement.
When you begin investing for multiple goals, you may even want to build a dedicated portfolio for each goal so it’s easier to view your progress.
Remember that in investing, there’s nothing wrong with starting small, and nothing wrong with starting slow, as long as you are consistent.
