Many people who have never invested their money before are nervous about the very proposition, and have many questions about how to proceed. "What if I make the wrong investment? What if I get ripped off? Is it better to invest through a manager or on my own?" If that's you, and you're nervous about losing your hard-earned money in a bad investment - or of putting your money into an investment with practically zero return - you may want to think about seeking professional advice from an investment manager.
A novice investor can start investing on his or her own. This path offers the invaluable wisdom of first-hand experience and the kind of market awareness that only time in the trenches can bring. The downside to being a self-taught investor is that, unlike so many other endeavors, investing carries with it the serious risk of losing money. For many people this is an intolerable fear, because the money being invested took so long to earn, and at great sacrifice.
The alternative to investing on your own is to consult with an investment manager or broker. He or she spends all day and every day analyzing investment opportunities, and have (what is hopefully) a significant amount of expertise in their chosen profession. You give them your money and they invest it for you, for a fee. Of course, there is no guarantee that your financial adviser or broker is going to make you money, or even prevent you from losing any: Investing, no matter how stable and staid the investment vehicle, always carries an element of risk with it. Put another way, that means a broker or other financial adviser can make bad judgment calls too.
One way to strike a balance between investing on your own and going through a broker is to delegate the majority of your investing to a financial advisor, broker or manager whom you trust, and then experimenting with a portion of your money on your own. That way you'll be working with an expert while at the same time learning about investing on a first-hand basis.
