Are you in it for the long run or the quick buck? That’s the question you as an investor have to ask yourself before putting your money to work. Just like the hare and the tortoise, a steady pace will often outpace the rushed approach.

In fact, there are various ways of investing your hard earned cash; from speculative to risk-averse, from seconds to minutes and days to years. Some investing strategies even combine the advantages of the pace of both hare and tortoise. Whatever approach you favor, there are advantages and disadvantages.

The power of dividends

A dividend is a percentage of the profit the company you have invested in has earned over the last financial quarter, six months, or year. When and how often a company pays a dividend depends on their dividend policy. Some companies only pay once a year, while others pay every 3 or 6 months. In order to find out, all you need to do is go on a company’s investor relations site that is accessible for free and to everyone through the corporate website.

How much do brokers charge for a trade?

Some brokers will charge you a flat fee for each trade, regardless of the trading size. In other words, you can trade as little as €/$/£ 5 or as much as €/$/£ 1,000,000, the trading costs remain the same.

Other brokers might charge you a percentage of your trade, for instance, 2.5% of the trading sum. You need to think about what works best for you, but in general if your trading value is a couple of €/$/£1,000s, a flat fee is likely to be the cheapest option.

Friends and colleagues frequently ask me about shares; primarily about how and what to buy. Particularly now in times of low interest when the search for good investments resembles finding the famous needle in a haystack. The question is indeed a pressing one; who would not prefer higher returns than those minuscule interest rate for most savings accounts?