Making Your First Investments

Step 6: How Do I Get to My Allocation Goal?

If you are starting an investment program from scratch, keep these points in mind:

• First build up and maintain a cash reserve to meet short-term emergencies and other liquidity needs.
• Try to develop an overall investment strategy that you are aiming for, even if you can't implement the strategy immediately.
• Select mutual funds that meet your investment strategy first; use the minimum initial investment as a secondary consideration.
• Select a balanced fund (for less aggressive investors) or a broad-based index fund (for more aggressive investors) for your initial investment, and build from there.
• The minimum initial investments of the funds that you have selected will set the investment savings goal that you are trying to achieve.
• The percentage commitment to each stock market segment will determine when you should start adding funds to your initial investments.
• Don't agonize over small deviations from your overall allocation plan. For instance, if a minimum investment in a small stock fund results in a 12% or 13% commitment to small stocks, rather than 10%, go ahead and make the commitment. Your overall allocation goal is only a rough guide.