What are the different ways to invest?

An investment strategy should be designed around your goals, timeframes and how much money you have to invest. How you choose to execute that strategy is down to you.

Do it yourself investing

You can choose to educate yourself about investing and do your own analysis on investments that interest you.

If you choose to do your own research, you should match your goals and risk tolerance to the different investments available and make sure you understand the risk and returns of any potential opportunities you identify.

Pay for one-off advice

The Future of Financial Advice (FOFA) reforms have broadened access to one-off, or scaled, financial advice.

You can seek one-off advice from a financial adviser when you have specific needs or want help with part of your investment strategy, such as super or insurance.

If you pay for one-off advice you would receive recommendations from the adviser, but you would be responsible for investing in and monitoring your investments.

Financial advice

You can pay a financial adviser to help you establish goals, determine your risk appetite and to work with you to come up with an investment strategy that suits your needs.

The adviser can also provide access to investments but the cost of advice does not cover fees and commissions of individual investments.

While the adviser would not actively monitor your portfolio, you can seek further advice or, alternatively, set up regular review meetings with your adviser to discuss how your investments are going and whether they continue to be suitable for you.

Portfolio management

If you intend to create a large investment portfolio or have a number of different assets, you might want to form a relationship with a financial adviser who can work with you on an on-going basis and help manage your portfolio.

This arrangement may incur ongoing fees which you should make sure you are comfortable with before formalising your approach.