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Beginner's guide to investing

Curious about investing? Get started with our guide to the basics.

A beginner’s guide to investing

So you're curious about investing? That's great. By learning about ways to invest your money now, you could be giving your future self a powerful gift. 

Before you invest your money, it's important to invest some time into learning the basics and understanding the risks. With that in mind, we've demystified the jargon and unpicked the detail to bring you a no non-sense guide that takes you through everything you need to know and how to get started.

4 key things to remember

  1. Save up an emergency fund of 3 to 6-months' worth of living costs before you invest.
  2. Think about starting small and watching your investment to see how it goes.
  3. Be prepared not to touch your investment for at least 3-5 years.
  4. Get advice from one of our Wealth Advisors at no cost to help you decide on what’s right for you.

What is investing?

Investing is a way of setting aside some of your money for the future by putting it to work for you. When you invest, you're buying something that you believe will increase in value over time.

What can you invest in? Well, from the more common types of investments – such as gold, bonds or shares, to the more unusual – such as coins, comics or cryptocurrencies, the answer is almost anything.

Rather than baffling you by describing the entire investment universe, let's focus on the 2 most well-known ways to invest: shares and funds.

Everything you need to know about Investing

How to get started

So you've carefully assessed your situation and decided investing might be right for you. Now what?

  1. To invest with HSBC, you need to be a current account customer, a Bermuda resident and over 18 years old. 
  2. Book an appointment with one of our wealth advisors. If you have a Premier account, tell us more about your interest in investments, and your Relationship Manager will be in touch.Take the time out to understand the risks.
  3. Take the time out to understand the risks.

Understanding the risks

It is important to understand is that no investment is risk-free. You're putting your money into something you believe will go up in value but there are no guarantees.

You'll be exposed to the uncertainties of the markets, which means the value of your investment can and will jump around so you could get back less or more than you put in. Your expected returns can also fluctuate. This is all normal and to be expected. With investing, risk and reward go hand in hand

As a general rule of thumb, higher-risk investments have the potential to give you higher rewards while lower-risk investments tend to equal lower rewards. 

Taking a small amount of risk could be a good way to dip your toe in the water. Then you can watch what happens to your investment – and increase your level of risk later if you want to.

You can talk to one of our Wealth Advisors to help determine how much risk if right for you.

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Disclosure

Issued by HSBC Bank Bermuda Limited, of 37 Front Street, Hamilton Bermuda, which is licensed to conduct Banking and Investment Business by the Bermuda Monetary Authority.

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