Why do we invest money in a particular busines? It is a question that you should answer first before you start any kind of business. Succesful investors always remember to include every detail on their planning activities-- and they have answered every vital question that they should address first.

You invest money for profit. Thus, you need to consider investments that can give you a high return. You might consider gambling your capital in a stock market, where every cent can be doubled or tripled, depending on market conditions. Since stocks could be easily acquired and sold, it is one of the viable options that you may consider in choosing an investment portfolio.

However, a high return may also come with high risk. Do you remember the unwritten rule "high risk yet high return" and "low risk yet low return"? It is true that investing in the stock market may give you a huge profit, but expect your capital to be at a high risk. Unstable market conditions might cause you to lose all of your money.

If you do not like taking high risks, the stock market is not an ideal investment for you. You may look for an alternative that could give you the same return but with lower risk than investing in stocks. If you are under this category of investors, then you might consider investing in mutual funds.

Mutual funds are a good alternative for investors who do not want to take the risk when getting a huge profit. It is a "common fund" or amount of money pooled by a group of investors with a definite investment objective. Such pooled money would be managed by a fund manager, an individual who specializes in different types of investments, such as bonds and stocks. He would be the one responsible in managing and investing the pooled money in different securities.

In mutual funds, all profits and losses will be shared among the fund's shareholders. In other words, all profits as well as losses will be shared among the group according to the percentage of individual share in the fund. For instance, if you are a group of five investors, investing $20,000 each, making your mutual fund to be worth a hundred thousand dollars. All profits as well as losses would be distributed on a 20-percent basis, thus reducing all possible risks.

Aside from the low-risk feature of mutual funds, you need not to be an expert in stocks or other forms of securities. The fund manager would be the one to take care of it. In addition, you can diversify your capital and spread it to other types of investment. Diversification means spreading all of your money into several investments. In case one investment is down, there are other investments that you can concentrate with. Thus, you will not be losing all of your money in a single investment as well as maximizing your potential profit through other types of investments.

The mutual funds will automatically diverse your investment across bonds or other securities. Again, the fund manager would be the one to handle all transactions and determine if it is viable for you to invest on that particular security.

Form a pool of investors and combine all of your capital into a single mutual fund. Share the huge profits out of diversified investments as well as enjoy the reduced-risk feature that comes along with it.