Why Learn Investing?

On the surface, investing is allocating money to assets that should increase in value over time. You can invest in an IRA to prepare for your future or trade stocks as a Stock Broker to make money for companies. You can also invest in real estate. No matter the reason for investing, it is an important skill to learn as you become financially literate, build soft skills, accumulate wealth, and prepare for retirement. Here, you'll learn more about the careers that benefit from investing and how it can enhance your professional life.

What is Investing?

Investing is dedicating money to purchasing assets that increase in value over time. The main function of investing is to generate returns from invested assets. Investors can invest in several kinds of investments, including stocks, bonds, funds, trusts, private equity, and real estate. Investing in almost any industry can help build capital for businesses. 

Investing puts money to work. On the surface, investing can appear like saving money; however, saving money sits in an account, gaining little per year, as saving accounts have an average of 0.7% growth per year. Investors can choose to actively invest, which means they manage their portfolio or passively invest, which means they take a less involved approach to investing. They can also choose to invest in high-growth companies with higher Price-earnings (P/E) or invest in companies that have lower P/E but have higher dividend yields. Both approaches can pay large sums; it depends on how much risk they want to include in their investment portfolios. 

Read more about what investing is and why you should learn it.

What Can You Do with Investing?

When you think of investing, the image that comes to mind is Stock Brokers frantically calling in trades as they watch the numbers scroll by on the screen. Stock Brokers are a large part of the investing world. They deal with the stock market every single day. They help keep the economy moving. However, there is more to investing than just stock brokers. 

With the internet, anyone can invest in the market using mobile apps. You can also invest to save for retirement or various other reasons. When starting with investing, you want to start an investment portfolio. Often, these portfolios include bonds, stocks, mutual funds, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs), real estate, and cash equivalents. However, some people choose to invest their money in more unusual ways. One of the key parts of investing is choosing assets that will increase in value over time. Investments can be physical assets as well. One good way to invest is to buy a vacation or rental property that you can rent out. This option allows the money you used to purchase the property to bring more money back to you. Others invest in other items like cars, handbags, or even watches. Each of these items needs a lot of research to ensure they are worth purchasing and if they will bring in more money if sold later. 

Common Professional Uses for Investing

You may wonder what careers await you once you are comfortable with the ins and outs of investing and finance. Any career you pursue will require more than one skill; however, financial and investing literacy can be a fantastic stepping stone for several financial jobs. Here are a few areas you can work in once you become familiar with investing. 

• Financial Analysis: This position focuses on examining historical and projected profitability. It is a data-intensive position that requires a lot of research and analysis. Those who enter this position need a strong understanding of finance and mathematics. 

• Data Science: This position will require proficiency in computer science and programming. This position deals with understanding financial marketing, financial instruments, and investment products. Those in this position will use their programming skills and analytical techniques to seek meaningful market patterns. 

• Banking: Banking is a large financial field with many positions under its umbrella. For the most part, those pursuing their career path will be working one-on-one with their clients, trying to meet and manage their financial needs. 

• FinTech: Another field that requires proficiency in computer science and programming. Those who want to pursue FinTech will be responsible for creating new technology used in the finance sector. This technology can include investing apps, banking apps, and much more. 

Become Financially Literate

A large part of investing is understanding finances. Unfortunately, a large part of the country lacks financial literacy. The more you invest, the smarter you will be with your money. 

As you invest, you will learn the relationship between income, expenses, assets, and liabilities, as they are all a part of investing. You will need to keep track of all those things, or you might lose a large amount of money. While investing involves risk, understanding how everything in the finance world works will help limit those risks as you make informed decisions. 

Build Soft Skills

Investing is not different from other skills as it helps you develop soft skills the more you do it. However, investing is a little different in terms of the soft skills it does develop. 

Experts investing will always tell beginners not to put their emotions into investing. Doing so can cause stress and cause beginners to make uninformed decisions that lose them money. As you learn to invest, you will gain more emotional control. Doing so will help make proper decisions. It will also help prevent burnout, as constant decision-making is already difficult enough. Keeping your emotions under control will help you make clear decisions without stress. 

Learning investing skills also requires a lot of self-discipline and time management. You must stay on top of everything while keeping an eye on the market to ensure you don't lose money. However, you must maintain self-discipline to not sell every time the market dips, as the reactionary market may fluctuate again and level out.

Earn Wealth that Outpaces Inflation

Investing money in the stock market, an IRA or real estate allows your money to grow. Doing this also means your money can outpace inflation. 

If your money sits in your pocket, it is subject to the market values at that time. It will gain or lose value depending on inflation rates. If you invest your money, it can continue to grow no matter what the inflation rates are. 

Retirement/ Early Retirement

Investing can be a great way to accumulate wealth. In doing so, you can prepare for your future. You can set up retirement accounts like IRAs that will grow compound annually, leaving you with more money to enjoy retirement. 

However, the more you invest, the more money-making potential you have. By investing, you can make enough money to retire earlier than planned and maintain your lifestyle.

How to Start Learning Investing

Learning to invest is challenging, so you may need to take structured classes to help you succeed in your investing goals. Noble Desktop provides ways to help you find the right program to fit your needs. You can utilize the school's Classes Near Me tool to locate in-person investing classes near you if you prefer to learn face-to-face. For students who prefer a virtual learning environment, you can also utilize the tool to discover live online investing courses or check out Noble's virtual investing courses. 

Of course, enrolling in a class is a large time commitment whether you choose in-person or virtual learning. It may be difficult to fit these courses into your busy schedule; however, you should still begin learning. To fit in with your schedule, you could try on-demand investing classes. On-demand options are available for all skill levels, from those who want to learn the basics of investing to those who want to learn Python and make algorithms for trading and research. Several of these courses are introductions and are free. Others require a small fee ranging from $80 to $300 or a subscription to a particular service. All these options are prerecorded and can be accessed when you have time. 

Another great way to begin your investing learning journey is to watch video demonstrations. Noble Desktop provides several YouTube videos devoted to in-depth investing tutorials covering topics like Income statements and stock exchange. You can also search for Noble Desktop's free seminars to view courses related to investing, like Stock Market Investing Fundamentals. You may also check out financial modeling to find similar courses. 

Read the full guide on how to learn investing.

Learn Investing with Hands-on Training at Noble Desktop

Noble Desktop provides an array of Investing and Financial classes that meet various scheduling requirements and learning styles. No matter how you enroll in these courses, students will learn from expert instructors in small classes. Students may attend in-person training at Noble's Manhattan campus or remotely from anywhere. In addition to the courses, all students can retake the course within one year of completing it for no extra charge, giving them more time to hone their skills. 

For those interested in beginning their investment journey, Noble offers a short introduction course, Stock Market Investing, teaching students the fundamentals of the stock market and how to invest. Students will learn what moves the stock market and how investors value stocks. Students will understand P/E ratios and DCF analysis as they dive into different financial statements. While this course does not provide enough information to start your investing career, it does provide vital information that will help you out in your career and get you on the right path. 

Students may consider the Financial Analysts Training Program to jump-start a career in the financial sector or with investing. In the program, students work with financial modeling and valuation. As students learn basic and advanced features of Microsoft Excel, they learn to utilize the program for long-term planning, financial functions, and cash flow projection. Those interested in becoming Financial Analysts may also consider the Python for Finance Bootcamp. This course teaches how to use the Python programming language’s financial libraries to gather and manipulate financial data. Both of these courses can jump-start your career in investing!

Key Insights

• Investing is challenging to learn but worthwhile 
• Become financially literate by investing
• Develop soft skills
• emotional control
• self-discipline
• time management
• Invested money typically outpaces inflation
• Build for retirement or retire early
•  You can receive comprehensive investing training through Noble Desktop with in-person or live online courses