So you thinking about investing and don’t know where to go. There are hundreds if not thousands of platforms with even more shares and funds so how do you know which one is right for you. It comes, even more, confusing with the complex language. So we will try to unravel this.

First, I will give you a method of picking stocks and how the professional picks stocks what metrics to look at when looking at stocks within a portfolio or fund.

I will then look at picking a fund that is beneficial to you. By way of breaking down some of the key factors that are used in the fund sheet.

Afterwards, going one step further to create your own financial portfolio.

Please note this is not for short term gains and will be over the mid to long term. And is a generic fund that is not specific to your situation.

The Wording to Look Out For

P/E (Price to Earnings) ratio

P/E is the ratio of a company share price to the company’s earnings per share, which basically tells you how the market values the stock. However, you need to compare the P/E of stocks in the same sector as stocks in different sectors have different P/E benchmarks. For example, a new technology company may have a high P/E ratio due to the fact of fruitful prospects while a mature utility company may have a low P/E ratio. Alternatively, you can also compare the P/E of the same stock with its past ratio to see the stock performance and its trend. This method is used by some of the great Investors and famously used in the book by Benjamin Graham.

PEG (Price to earnings growth)

The ratio PEG is ideally you would want to look for one of less than 1. This attempt has some key aspects when used to value investing it can be less volatile.

The Sharp Ratio

This is a risk, adjusted return and measure how well a stock or fund is doing compared to its given benchmark rather and than a risk-free one that is measured towards risk-free rate of return that is usually a stable 10-year AAA-rated bond.

Although this is not without its critics as of some of the ways that it is distorted at extreme measures due to using standard deviation, therefore, if a fund has a lot of high values in consecutive periods and then a minor negative period it will penalize the fund manager (or stock) and not take into consideration about the overall mean effect results.

With this, it is a useful metric due to the reason above that it is the return that is given from a measured risk-adjusted standpoint. Also to evaluate a fund you need to know what the fund is?

There are two major types of different funds one is a closed-ended investment fund- this is called an investment trust.

Closed-ended Fund

It means that it is limited to the number of investors that it can have therefore the price of the fund is based on supply and demand rate than the value of the share in the fund this means that you can only buy shares that are available as there is a limited supply and if not you will have to wait for them to sell the shares for them to become available.

Investment trust also has the ability to invest in a wider range of asset classes that are not regulated in Open-ended funds and can borrow more money (gear) on the investment as well thus making them somewhat more complex and riskier than opened ended.

Open-ended- There are three types. An ETF that mainly tries to track a given index and follow the pricing of that by a way of methods such as picking a few key stocks or matching the risk profile or sector representation of the index. These are based on the NAV and are normally low cost and easy to manage and can track many indexes from the S&P 500 to some more niche indexes such as health care or developing areas such as India.

Open-Ended Funds

These are funds that must be regulated to be marketed to the public. They are only allowed to invest in certain funds and are single price around the Net Asset Value of the funds.

This is an example of an equity fund facts and will break down the key points

It can enable you to look and do some research on the fund manager and look at what has he done before, how have the funds performed, is he well know and what are his qualifications.

Dividend dates are the dates that the dividends are paid. And here it says that it is rationed so therefore this will be included in the year total percentage or when you withdraw the fund.

How do fund manger pick shares

There is no certain method in looking at stocks in a fund but many investors use some well-known strategies, for example, Bottom-Up or Top-Down. Then, they can utilize a range of approaches with these two strategies. Let’s understand how fund managers pick stocks to go in the portfolio (this can also be used for you when looking to pick stock).

Top-Down Strategy

Top-Down strategy starts from a look at the big picture first, how the market is going as a whole, what is Gross Domestic Product, what is the interest rate and inflation are, etc. After analyzing the market, investors will pick a suitable asset sector or a location. Then they will look at the specific stock in these sectors.

For example, the market as a whole is down (a Bear market). Investors will look for stocks that are predominantly in a safe sector such as utilities. Then they will analyse some utility stocks in the index and look for some key indicators of good stocks.

Some analyzing tools for Top-Down Strategy:

• GDP
• Interest rate
• Inflation

Bottom-Up Strategy

The bottom-up strategy focuses on specific stocks in the market and tries to see their hidden potential to outperform the market. One method is Value Investing. Investors will look for stocks that are undervalued by the market using some stock indicators. Another method is Growth Investing. Investors will search for growth stocks or companies that continue to grow at above-average stock prices compared to their market or Index piers. There is also a mixed-method called GARP (Growth at a Reasonable Price) Investing. GARP investors combine both methods together and look for companies that are growing and continuing to grow, but they are not the companies at the extreme growth.

Below are some indicators you can use to look for stocks that fit your portfolio:

• Company’s revenues
• Growth
• Cash flow

What To Look For When Picking a Fund

Now you have a rough idea, how stocks are picked here is a broader view of how to look at a fund.

I will show some data from an example fund, and show some of the key elements in a table to look out for using an example fund.  

Fundamental or Technical Analysis

Fundamental analysis is a long term approach of the company more overlooking at its standing within its sector its competitive advantage and metrics that don’t necessarily rely on numbers. This approach is more for the long term and looks at the company’s intrinsic value rather than the share price.

While technical analysis looks at the short term this is more used but not solely used by day traders and looks at the charts trends break out patterns and more numerical data.

Which one is better there is no real right answer bet the best bet is to look at them both using fundamental analysis looking at the overall position in relation to its competitors. But, not excluding technical analysis where is the price is it valued to low, and what patterns or trends does it have.

Standing Data

Example Fundsmith Global equity

STANDING DATA

Since Inception
Portfolio Manager	Terry Smith
Fund Type	UK OEIC
Launch Date	1st November 2010
Accumulation Shares	Dividends Retained
Income Shares	Dividends Paid Out
Initial Charge	None
AMC (T,R,I Class)	1.0%, 1.5%, 0.9%
Registrar	DST
Depository	State Street Trustees Ltd.

Fund Manager

Do a manager(s) background check. Does he/she have a good reputation? And what history do they have? This is important but remember that it should not be solely relied on as Neil Woodford case (a famous U.K  fund manager that funds sunk). If you have not heard of the manager look at the company does the company have a good reputation in this area with achieved results?

Fund Type

As mentioned above there are two main types of fund an open-ended investment one and closed-ended (Investment trusts), in short (more detail below) a closed-ended fund means that based on supply and demand while an open-ended means it is based on the net asset value of the stocks.

More funds tend to be open-ended funds this allowing an unlimited supply of investors to invest. Which type is best is arguable. But prefer open-ended symbolled OPIC as they are based on net asset value. While closed do have more investment choices they are based on supply and demand and are less regulated.

Dividend

Looking at the dividends may not be too crucial to the decision on picking a fund but, if you are looking at a fund with a steady income and relies on dividend payout it would be more relevant.

 Also, note that one reason stocks have a slight fall maybe because it is ex-dividend (the day after the dividend has been paid out) this meaning that it has paid out its dividend and can usually expect a small decrease in the value of an individual share price.  

Key Facts of the fund as at 31 Dec 2019 Fund Size	£18.8bn
Gross/Net Yield<	1.63% / 0.58%
2018 PTR^	13.4%
7 Day Fund Liquidity>	57%
No. Holdings	28
Average Co. Founded	1925
Average Market Cap	£113.6bn
Active Share as at 30.06.19″	92%
2018 Transaction Costs	0.04%

Fund Size

This depends on what you are looking for but would pay close attention to funding size points when looking at funds.

Especially if looking for a global equity fund (this will be different if you are looking at smaller niche funds) would look at the fund’s size, normally for major global equity funds of $100 Million (US) under management, if not $1 billion.

As not by the long way means it’s going to be a good fund but shows it has popularity and for the majority of the time, (of course not always and there are hidden gems of funds) people don’t miss a good fund. Additionally, with more money under management, therefore, will be able to employ more analysis (or better talent) to achieve better results (in theory).  

Number of Holdings

This on its own is not a clear indication of if a good fund. You need to consider the geographical split, the diversification across sectors and stock correlation and would normally look for at least 10 stocks as this shows a very well diverse fund that does not have all its eggs in one basket.

 I would also be wary of a fund that has 50 holdings or more as this will show that the fund, is too diverse and therefore may have an adverse effect on the gains. Although, a broad number would normally go for 15-30 stocks in a portfolio.

Average Market Cap

A niche fund may have a lot lower market cap than a global growth fund, if you are looking for a growth fund that has some stability, I would tend to look towards a market capitalisation of $10 billion (US) or more as large companies seem generally (but not exclusively) to be more stable than lesser market cap stocks.

As seen from the example above it has a market capitalization of 113 billion (US), therefore showing the companies that it invests in is usually large and would, therefore, have more stability. 

Fund Performance Analysis

31 Dec 2019, T Class Acc	%
Annualised Rate of Return	+18.2
Best Month	+9.4 (Jan’13)
Worst Month	-6.9 (Dec ’18)
Average Month	+1.5
% Positive Months	70
Technical and performance I would on the statistic front, not take too much into the year’s performance. But would keep an eye to make sure the fund’s return has done in correlation to what it aims to are. Therefore, if saying it aims to be a growth fund make sure that it has achieved a growth target. Of an average (as seen below) of 7% gross returns (5% plus inflation of 2%). Keep in mind what the index/benchmark is doing. If it has shown, slow growth how has the market done that it is correlated to or the sectors. So would use this more in conjunction with other metrics such as the broader market. An 18.2% return may seem great, but what if it is linked to mainly U.S large-cap shares such as seen in the S and P which have done a 36.2% year to date increase. Is that good? (I am personally invested in Fundsmith so think it is a good fund but just stating). The table below looks at what you should aim for and how to balance from the finical planning guideline.

	Conservative	Moderate	Balanced	Growth	High Growth
Time Frame	2 Years	3 Years	5 Years	7 Years	10+ Years
Return Objective	CPI+ 1%	CPI+ 2.5%	CPI+ 3.5%	CPI+ 5%	CPI+ 6%
Int. Equities	21%	38%	44%	53%	55%
Int. Properties	5%	10%	14%	17%	20%
Fixed Interest	50%	38%	26%	13%	0%

To 31st Dec 2019, T Class Acc

Alternatives	0%	0%	10%	15%	25%
Cash	24%	14%	6%	2%	0%

Here is a table to show what a fund claiming to be should look to do (note CPI is at around 2%) so for the fund example, you would look for an average of 7% gross over a 5 year period.

Geographic Split

As at 31 Dec 2019, By Country of Listing	%
US	65.6
UK	17.4
Denmark	6.4
Spain	4.2
France	3.1
Finland	2.8
Cash	0.3
Geographical Split

When looking at geographic split make sure it correlates with your aims, as for a diverse fund you would look more at a range of splits between countries and not to U.S or European focused. Critics of the market today suggest that most of the western markets are too correlated and greatly factored by the U.S market movements so they may want to consider some emerging markets to add diversification. And as seen in 2008 a collapse in one major market has a profound effect on other western markets so it would keep this in mind and look at diversification of assets (talked about more below) than just equities. But, a diverse global stable equity fund ensures that it is in a range of countries,  in developed markets.

Sector Split

As at 31 Dec 2019, GICS® Categories	%
Consumer Staples	31.8
Technology	30.4
Healthcare	24.4
Industrials	5.6
Communication Services	4.4
Consumer Discretionary	3.1
Cash	0.3

This again depends on what you are looking for, but a diverse portfolio would look for a cross-section of sectors with low correlation, for example, Technology and Utility companies. This would mitigate against a potential fall in own sector through the way of diversification. If you are looking for a more stable equity fund. Stick with more established Utility companies while if looking for growth would veer towards more of a technology company.

This also so leads to the top 10 holdings this is where most of the portfolio is based so if looking for a growth fund (non-specific) make sure they are diversified across a range of sectors and countries.

Top 10 Holdings

• Microsoft
• Paypal
• Philip Morris
• Estée Lauder
• Facebook
• Amadeus
• Novo Nordisk
• Stryker
• McCormick
• Intuit

Star Rating Systems

Star rating systems, I use again but, not as a key indicator. As seen in the 2008 crisis. That these can not be the most accurate of measures but what they do act as a broad indicator as to how they are provided by the (so-called) experts.

Normally when selecting funds, I like to use at least two. I normally use S&P and Morning star. As would say the big three (Fitch, Moody’s, S&P) in my option seem to be too linked so go for a smaller one as well as one in the big three. For niche funds I don’t mind too much but I ideally want 3-star funds for global equity funds I prefer, four + stars but usually use this a loosely based preference and will make acceptations. 

Active Vs Passive & Comparing An Active Fund to its Benchmark

This is one of the most important factors and one factor that you would argue for having an actively managed fund that beats the benchmark and the risk that you take. It is worth the rewards.

This being a fundamental part capital asset pricing model as to why else would you pay more for an actively managed fund if it’s doing less than the benchmark for the chosen index. This is why many sceptics (Effective market hypostasis theory believers) believe that you can’t beat the market, as all the information is already known.

This is unfortunately true in a lot of cases as have seen a lot of funds do well over the last 10,5 or even last year only to be outperformed by a bull run in the S and P 500 which last year alone (2019) did 35+% returns how many equity funds got that?

I would argue that an active fund is worth the price as well managed or a well-managed portfolio for that matter should produce inline if not better returns in a bull market (rising) but still rise in a falling market by diversifying the portfolio or changing to a different asset class.

Summary

I will finalise by summarising key points to look at:

Number of holdings – You will ideally want no more than 50 as this will give diversification but too many may impact the gains.

Market Cap – This is the size of the average company you are investing in terms of market capitalization. Ideally, if you were looking for a stable more secure fund as a general rule (although you need to factor in other aspects) you will usually want to invest in companies with a large market capitalization.

Geographical Split– If you are looking for a stable fund look for funds more in the west such as Western Europe, US & Japan rather than the emerging markets. What you are looking for here is a balanced portfolio and is not too heavily invested in one area. This means that not all the stock funds are based in Europe or the US this will give it some diversification and not be inflicted with a negative impact if a certain country is impacted by a negative outlook.

The Sector Split – This shows you how the fund is split up. Although, there is some generalisation in terms of Technology and Health Care Technology. These will potentially generate higher returns than that of traditionally more stable holdings such as Utilities or water companies.  What you want to look for regardless, is that it is showing diversification between the sectors. This will impact your fund if one large sector goes down and you do not want a knock-on effect of the rest of the sectors so for a balanced portfolio, look at how diversified the sectors are within a fund.

The top 10 holdings- This will be a bit of research to look at the stocks as these are the ones that the fund holds most of. Look at the stocks, this can be done on Bloomberg or Google and look at the analysis is saying. How have they performed so far year to date what are the key metrics (PE ratio EPS) and how is it performing to its relative sector and index.

Aim and results – The aims in correlation with what you want to achieve in the funds objective. For example, if you are looking for high growth there is no point in going for a defensive fund that aims to just beat inflation (Visa versa) do the results back this up with the 5-year returns in line with the objective above in the table?

Has it outperformed its benchmark as well?

Once you have judged, then you can make your decision on whether it is a good investment or not!

Please note that you should always seek financial advice before investing and previous performance is not an indicator of future performance.

How To Create a Portfolio of Funds

Now you have looked at how to pick funds, now we look at how do you make a portfolio out of these that is right for me?

I have been asked lots of times is “how to pick and create a portfolio”. This is subjective to your age, time and investment horizon. When working on portfolios I usually go for a textbook approach depending on your time frame for the investment horizon and risk profile. The definition of what stocks and shares you should have depends on your risk levels and do differ on each side of the Atlantic in percentage amount of international equity and alternative investments. We will keep it simple and generalize with both the American and European models.

Level of risk you can take?

First, you need to ask yourself, what is your risk profile?

This will mainly be down to how long you are looking to invest, how much you can risk losing & what your aspirations are as well as your investment knowledge and experience. Use the link below to find out your risk profile, it’s good to do this for most investments.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/SB36VNM

This will put you into set levels or risk category that is most applicable for you and use the models as a guideline. Although if you are doing this with a financial advisor or by yourself, you or the advisor should take deeper consideration about your personal situation & if you have a pension or own property or other investments.

Conservative risk profile

If you have done the test and have a low-risk profile. This is normally for older personnel with pensions funds that want something stable and looking for a medium-term investment (5-10 years). Here is an example of a conservative portfolio:

Table 1: Conservative risk profile, 70% allocation to fixed interest, 20% equity and 10% cash money markets 

As you see in the table (above) shows that this is where the majority of your money allocated to fixed income securities are mainly bonds, that give a general return and are lower risk than equity. With fixed income bonds, they can be either cooperate or government bonds with the latter being more conservative (mostly).

The typical investor in this portfolio would want to keep their money well persevered and get around 3-4% of growth per year average, this normally beats inflation in most developed countries (CPI stands at around 2% in most developed countries as of 2019) thus giving a net return of just over 2% in real terms. It’s not the most glamorous return, however, if you have a sum of money and want to preserve the wealth and maintain it in the medium to long term with some growth, it is an appropriate option.

Here are some of the portfolios that have been used previously for conservative investors:

*Note this is for GBP, it is not applicable for USD or EUR but is used as an indication and was a model portfolio that was previously designed for an individual for his/her personal circumstances so it will not be applicable to anyone else*

Table 2: Shows the funds used in the conservative portfolio

Funds Name	Fund Type	%	YTD return (as of Dec 2019)
Vanguard UK Government bonds index (Acc)	Fixed Interest (Onshore bonds)	25%	1.18%
M&G Global Macro	Fixed Interest (Offshore bonds)	20%	4.59%
Fidelity Money Builder income (Acc) GBP	Fixed Interest (Company bonds onshore)	15%	9.69%
Investec Diversified Income (GBP)	Mixed Assets (30% equities 70% global bonds)	10%	4.88%
Fundsmith Global Equity (Acc)	Equity (global)	25%	24.64%
Cash	Cash	5%	0%

As shown from the table, this was an example of a U.K client with money in GBP, as you can see it nearly fits the assets allocation for a conservative risk profile used in the chart above. I prefer to have less money devoted to cash as some of the equity and mixed assets classes will hold a proportion of their fund in cash (varying to what they expect from the market). As well as this it has several, fixed interests across a number of asset classes thus giving an alternative to home countries government bonds with a range of European and American with a minority of developing countries, such as Brazil, Indonesia in the Investec bond. These normally give higher returns than the developed country-specific bonds. This is seen in the M&G global macro bond returns compared to the Fidelity U.K bond returns.

The equity in this particular portfolio is higher than that that has been advised, however, underline that for a risk-reward trade-off and the client was happy to do so. If you are looking after a pension fund or want something more stable you may consider putting more into fixed interest across a range of different sectors.

Aggressive portfolio

The aggressive risk is normally for someone who wants to get higher than average returns, this is looking more into the longer-term period and higher returns and can be used for a younger investor. This will take the ideology of looking for higher returns of around 6-8% per year & the asset allocation that I personally use (but does vary for each individual) is as follows.

Table: Shows the allocation of an aggressive portfolio

As seen from the chart above, this has a majority in equities and I have taken it down into sub-sections on how the asset allocation has been distributed.

Again this is for a U.K client so therefore the majority of the assets that take place are done in global equities, this is done in mainly the U.S, Western Europe and in large market capitalization companies. The same to a lesser degree of the U.K equities. With the emerging markets, this takes around 20% of the portfolio and gives access to the developing markets to give a higher growth than that of the developed indexes, this selection has picked a highly rated Asian bond by JP Morgan giving access to developed large companies in Singapore and fast-growing countries in Indonesia, Thailand & Vietnam. This particular portfolio is on the aggressive end and was done for a specific need, however, if wanted to make it less aggressive I would add more bonds and for the alternative, I would go into a gold ETF to give some diversification from equities.

Here is a GBP portfolio that was made from this, when selecting the funds I went for those with a high market capitalisation & made sure it was a major name and 3+ star-rated for every fund by at least 2 independent rating agencies with the global equity looking 4/5 stars. I used Morningstar and S&P, but I do prefer Morningstar.

Table 4: Shows the rating and the fund type rating and size of the fund selected with the return to date.

Fund Name	Fund Type	Morningstar Rating	Fund Size (Million)	Year to Date return (2019)	Why Selected
JP Morgan Fund Asian Equity	Emerging Markets	5	841 (USD)	9.27%	An above-rated fund with a presence in South East Asia market withholding in major cooperation in the region for diversification and growth
Black Rock Euro bonds funds	Fixed Interest	5	5513 (Euros)	8.06%	Another larger fund from a well-respected company with a good track record and highly rated with stability for the fixed interest and diversification from equities.
Fund Smith Global Equity	Global Equity	5	17546 (GBP)	27.85%	A good global equity fund with a track record in performance and manager. highly rated and a good range in global developed markets.
Fidelity Global Health care fund	Specialist/ Alternative	5	909 (Eur)	24.49%	An alternative investment vehicle with large market cap exposure. With a majority of its holding in developed markets in Eurozone (Inc U.K) Americas and Australia
iShares Physical Gold	Alternative	N/A	6765 (USD)		Diversification to the equity model

Portfolio Weighting	Percentage
Fundsmith Global Equity	37%
BlackRock Eurobonds	10%
Ishares Physical Gold	10%
Fidelity Health Care Fund	20%
JP Morgan Asian funds	20%
Cash	3%

Table 6 shows a pie chart of the weighting

Disclaimer

*Please note again that this is just an example of a portfolio and how we have selected for an induvial and the model based on personal aspirations. This may not be applicable for you and would seek financial advice before making any decision on investing.*

How I benchmark My Portfolios

	Conservative	Moderate	Balanced	Growth	High Growth
Time Frame	2 years	3 years	5 years	7 years	10 years +
Return Objective	CPI+ 1%	CPI + 2.5%	CPI + 3.5%	CPI + 5%	CPI + 6%
Int. Equities	21%	38%	44%	53%	55%
Int. Properties	5%	10%	14%	17%	20%
Fixed Interest	50%	38%	26%	13%	0%
Alternatives	0%	0%	10%	15%	25%
Cash	24%	14%	6%	2%	0%

This is the model that I use when deciding how to do a portfolio on the basis, of how long that you are wanting to invest to what your risk is, based on how many years you are looking to invest and your risk profile (based above).

I have written three portfolios depending on the level of risk. 

The first is a defensive model this is more suited for a stable pension fund investor this is geared towards someone with low risk potently a pension fund that is looking just past the level of inflation.

See that this model is more geared towards fixed interest than the volatility of equities.

Model Portfolios: Defensive

SECTOR	INVESTMENT MANAGER	INVESTMENT NAME	PERCENTAGE %
Global large-cap blend equities	Morgan Stanley	MS Global Opportunity	15
Asia fixed Interest	Franklin Templeton	FT Asian Bond	6
Fixed Interest Global	Pimco	PIMCO Global Bond	15
Fixed Interest U.S	Pimco	Pimco U.S high yield	18
Property indirect  global	Henderson	HEN Horizon Global Property	5
Mixed Assets	BlackRock	BR Managed Index Portfolios – Defensive	16
U.S Equity	Ishares	iShares S&P 500	5
Fixed Interest Europe	Morgan Stanley	MS Euro Bond	15
Cash	Cash	Cash Access	5

*Note that this is selected from a restricted fund choice but have equated enough portfolio to adequate a risk-averse portfolio

This is a defensive portfolio, that has been selected with the funds available, not that it has an element of developed fixed assets around the developed world. With a small proportion of developing (Asian funds) as well as this it has an element of global Equity to assist with the growth of the fund, as well as property. All the funds selected are major funds in their selected and used the approach used above as well have used a tracker fund as still believe in having a tracker as a proportion of the portfolio. 

Balanced Model Portfolio

SECTOR	INVESTMENT MANAGER	INVESTMENT NAME	PERCENTAGE %
Global large-cap blend equities	MorganStanley	MS Global Opportunity	20
Equities technology	Franklin Templeton	FT Technology	10
Fixed Interest	Pimco	PIMCO Global Bond	15
Alternatives Emerging Markets	IShares	iShares MSCI Pacific ex-Japan	10
Property indirect global	Henderson	HEN Horizon Global Property	14
Mixed Assets	BlackRock	BR Managed Index Portfolios-Moderate	16
U.S Equity	Ishares	iShares S&P 500	8
Fixed Interest Europe	Morgan Stanley	MS Euro Bond	5
Cash	Cash	Cash Access	2

Growth Portfolio

SECTOR	INVESTMENT MANAGER	INVESTMENT NAME	PERCENTAGE %
Global large-cap blend equities	Morgan Stanley	MS Global Opportunity	20
Equities technology	Franklin Templeton	FT Technology	18
Fixed Interest	Pimco	PIMCO Global Bond	10
Alternatives Emerging Markets	IShares	iShares MSCI Pacific ex-Japan	20
Property indirect  global	Henderson	HEN Horizon Global Property	20
Mixed Assets	BlackRock	BR Managed Index Portfolios – Growth	5
US equity	Ishares	iShares S&P 500	5
Cash	Cash Access	Cash Acsess	2

Key Words

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – the total value of goods produced and services provided in a country during one year. Compare with the gross national product.

Interest rate is the amount of interest due per period, as a proportion of the amount lent, deposited or borrowed (called the principal sum).

Inflation is a sustained increase in the general price level of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.

Growth at a Reasonable Price (GARP) is an equity investment strategy that seeks to combine tenets of both growth investing and value investing to select individual stocks.

The price/earnings-to-growth (PEG) ratio is a company’s stock price to earnings ratio divided by the growth rate