(NB: Since writing this site, I have become a licensed financial planner. The FAQ is still little more than a hobby project and should not be relied on for specific personal financial advice, though I am doing the best I can to correct any errors I find that are inconsistent with my professional knowledge. This web site has not been subjected to rigorous compliance reviews and hence is not "professional quality", in particular I am now so busy with professional obligations that even when I do find things I want to correct it may take me many months to get around to publishing a correction. - TM)

All information has been written here in good faith, I am not selling anything, you don't have to pay attention if you don't want to and at any rate I strongly advise you to only use this site as a springboard for further homework and specialisation. This site was written as a general resource to help new investors and traders to get off to a good start, to form an education center so that those that stumble into aus.invest asking simple questions can be set straight with a single link.

(Ok, now that I am a financial planner I guess you could say that I am selling something, if you want to use me as your financial planner I'll be happy to talk to you -wherever you are in Australia. This FAQ is just a giant set of study notes, every time I read a book or learn something new I write it in a notebook, sooner or later this info makes its way into the FAQ. It doesn't mean this site already has everything I know, but given enough time for me to type it out one day it will. Someone once said that to pinch the ideas of one person is plagiarism, to pinch the ideas of many is research. I read on average two investment books a week (though sometimes I read one book twice) and take something away from nearly all of them, this is in addition to the various materials I now read in my daily business as an FP, some of which have been assimilated into this site. With this extensive plagiarism I guess you could say this site is extremely well researched. :-) - TM)

If you only take one thing away from this entire web site, I hope it will be the idea that investment is within the reach of almost anyone of even modest means and that the best get-rich-quick scheme is a good education and lots of hard work. You don't have to be wealthy to be an investor, but you do need to concentrate hard on being the best investor that you can be.

Do your own research. A good investment advisor can be a very useful source of information to get you started, and will explain to you many of the finer points of investment that you may ask about, or let you know how to find out. A bad investment advisor is a salesman with a license to deal in securities and will give ill considered advice that is mainly in the interests of the advisor. How will you know which is which unless you try to understand at least the basics? A lot of stockbrokers and real estate agents pose as investment advisors while handing out a prospectus or showing a property, but are often just angling for a big commission. There are plenty of both kinds of advisor out there, so self education is important while you are shopping for a good advisor.

The popular press is a generally dismal source of information, newspapers are full of absolutely worthless investment information by journalists who know little about the topic, and bestseller lists are full of garbage like Rich Dad, Poor Dad and Who Moved the Cheese? As unsexy as it sounds, sooner or later you are going to have to learn some basic accounting skills, identify the types of investment and figure where they may be useful.

If you doubt that the popular press is really such a dumb place to pick up investment advice, try following the stock market reports every night for a couple of weeks, and note how contradictory the commentary is from one night to the next. After you become dissolusioned with that you can then turn your attention to back issues of Shares magazine to see how badly their stock picks always work out, or maybe look up the fortunes of a once-famous guru and see if the guy everyone admired in the 80s and 90s still can draw an audience.

In addition free seminars, while occasionally good, are often a bait and switch, it turns out when you get there that the topic of the night's entertainment is not a general educational seminar, but a sales pitch delivered by smooth talking salesman who know that in a thing like this there probably won't be any experienced investors, and that even if they are then they probably won't say anything much. Read about gurus in the shares section and the ripoffs section.

There is another FAQ, while the one you are reading is (as far as I know) the only general, free and reasonably comprehensive FAQ for investment in Australia, an American site that is particularly good is http://www.invest-faq.com. It isn't exactly the same as this FAQ, certain sections which I think are very important have been left out of this site because the US site already covers them, and I don't really have much to say on top of what the US site says. Read both FAQs for a comprehensive grounding. Ignore the tax sections of the US site and you'll probably find the real estate section isn't much good either... in USA a lot of mortgages are written by private "note" investors, instead of bank finance people just write up a bond document. This hardly happens at all in Australia, so forget about it.

The FAQ is divided up into a number of sections, including shares, futures, bonds, real estate, collectibles and thrift. Thrift????!!! Yeah, thousands of people think they can't invest any money because they don't earn enough. You don't need to earn six figures to invest, someone who earns just a few hundred dollars a week has enough to get started, so try finding a few hidden dollars by not wasting them and then you can move on to proper investing. One of the best books ever written on how to become very wealthy is The Millionaire Next Door, a book which talks a bit about investment strategy and a lot about how to make your money go further so as to bring greater rewards later. Rather than reading the piffle with the catchy names written by guys who made all their money churning out piffle with catchy names, read this book and then start on studying the methods of Warren Buffett. His ideas of investing in secure, well run companies that are selling for less than they are worth should be a general principle to guide you through all investment, whatever the vehicle you choose.