Volatility of a security or an index means the magnitude of changes in its value (price) over time. In more scientific terms, it can be called ‘dispersion’. High volatility usually indicates higher potential returns because investors can make more money with each deal but, at the same time, it implies higher risks because the direction of future price changes is unknown.

A lot of people have a misconception about the amount of capital required to start investing and they think that only the rich people can be investors and traders. Actually you can create a new real investment portfolio with a relatively small sum of money.

There are a lot of ‘animal’ slang words in finance and there are many reasons for that. One of those reasons is that investors are animals too and sometimes they behave in the irrational, herd-ish ways. Today we’ll take a look at two of the most famous ‘animal’ terms in finance: a bull and a bear market.

Investing seems like an inherently risky affair for many people but it’s not true at all, you can actually choose what level of risk you’re comfortable with. Why would you choose a higher risk? There can be only one good reason: it should give you a higher return on investment.

Diversification has been an extremely popular term in finance and investing for many years. Almost any article, video or a book about personal finance or investing mentions diversification at some point. Why the idea of allocating your capital in various assets is that popular?

In general, a portfolio is just an organized collection of data created to serve a certain purpose. This beautiful word appeared in the English language in the 18th century and it was an adaptation of a much older Italian word ‘portafoglio’ (porto folio, port folio) which means ‘to carry’ something.

There is nothing wrong with managing your financial portfolio on your own (non-discretionary portfolio), although, in some cases, it may be preferable to find a qualified professional and let him manage your money. Those professionals are called portfolio managers. A portfolio manager is someone who fully controls a portfolio and makes all of the necessary investment decisions on behalf of the portfolio’s owner.