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Table of Contents

1. Federal Government Securities
2. Mutual Funds
3. Bonds
4. Municipal Bonds
5. Preferred Stock 
6. Equity
7. Options
8. Gold and Real Estate
9. Other Services

    T. Bills - T. bills, notes and bonds have no risk compared to other securities.  US Treasury Bills are issued on a discount basis with maturities of up to fifty two weeks and in denominations of $10,000, some times at $1,000. An investor may enter a bid at 98.625.  If the bid is accepted, the investor will pay $9862.50 for each $10,000 of face value.

   T. Notes - Maturity 1 - 10 years. US Treasury Notes are issued in denominations of $1,000 or more.  They are in registered form, the current owner is registered with the Treasury which send him or her each coupon payment when due and the principal value at maturity.  When it is sold, the new owner's name and address are substituted for those of the old owner on the Treasury's book 

    Bonds - Longer than 10 year maturity. US Treasury Bonds are also currently being issued in registered form.  Denominations range form $1,000 upward. Also note that T-Bonds have call provisions that allow them to be called  during a specified period.

Is an investment company or a corporation, and in it is represented by share of stock.  If the assets under management increase in value the investor's capital will increase accordingly. Should the assets' value decline, the prorated net value of each share will likely decline. A mutual fund investor is an owner, not a lender; he or she shares in the profits and losses and in the income and expenses.

Close-End - In a publicly traded fund, the number of share to be offered for sale is fixed at the outset; the fund operators may not create new shares on demand.

Open-End - They may create and sell its shares on a continuous basis; if an investor wishes to purchase fund shares, the new shares are created as needed.

Open-End funds fall into two major categories: load funds and no-loads.  Load funds are sold with a sales commission (the load) which can reach as high as 8.5 percent.

Some of the advantages mutual fund include:

Types of funds:

Balanced fund - This fund invests in a combination of stocks and bonds, with typical combination being 55% stocks and 45% bonds.

Index fund - A fund that tries to mimic the performance of a sock-market or bond market index by buying all or many of the securities that make up the index.

Money-market fund - A type of mutual fund that invests in stable short-term securities.  Money funds are designed to be easily converted into cash and are structured to maintain an unchanging value of $1 a share.

Hedge fund - A little regulated, private investment partnership that invests huge sums in global currency, bond and stock markets in search of profit. 

 In order to avoid regulation a mutual fund in the U.S., such funds must have 99 or fewer U.S. investors.  Therefore, they are private investment clubs for the well to do although some hedge funs trade publicly abroad.  Hedge funds typically require large minimum that could start in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.  Recently this minimum have been lowered.

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Bonds are no more than credit instruments, and merely represent a loan by the investor to the issuing company. 

One way to value a bond would be by calculating the yield to maturity  is the single interest rate that, if paid by a bank on the amount invested, would enable the investor to obtain all the payment made by the security in question. 

Bonds have different types of risk which have to be considered for example a T bond has no risk compared to a corporate bond and like so a T bond does not pay as much interest. There for balancing the risk return scale.

Bond Ratings have three categories:

Investment grade bonds - Ranked one of the top four ratings AAA -BBB by S&P and Aaa - Baa by Moody's.

Speculative grade bonds - BB and below by S&P and Ba and below for Mood 

Junk bonds 

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A share of a common stock has some type of value to you and the company.  The company uses it to raise capital. You use it as an investment into the company without any corporate liability attached to you.  Some shares have voting rights such as the accounting firm, merger proposal, and some times you are entitled to receive dividends.  The corporation is not obligated to send you those dividends unless it is preferred stock. You also have the right to keep the same proportional interest in a corporation.

Income stock is equity that provides additional income, (dividends) and have a potential for increasing their future dividends increases as opposed to the fixed returns of a bond or preferred stock. ex. Electric utilities and Water company.

Growth Stocks are stock of companies who generally offer products and services with particularly favorable long term growth potential.  Management are usually more aggressive and consistently search for new products and new markets.

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