Whether it’s financial freedom, a secure retirement, or a luxurious lifestyle, we all have multiple financial goals to achieve. So, merely saving money is not enough. Investing is an essential part of building wealth for your future. The UAE market holds tremendous potential for keen investors. As a resident of UAE, you can choose from a multitude of investment options to meet your financial goals.

Here are some simple investment tips that will help you choose the right investment instruments and build a good portfolio.

Create an investment plan

A carefully devised investment plan will be instrumental in helping you achieve your short- and long-term financial goals. Embarking on an investment journey without a plan could be risky as you may end up generating unsatisfactory returns or withdrawing from investments out of fear during market volatility. With a solid investment plan, you can stay focused on your wealth objectives and remain confident even when the market fluctuates.

Understand your current situation

Reviewing your current financial situation is an essential step in creating an investment plan. It will be helpful to consider the following:

• Your existing assets, including properties, savings, stakeholder shares in a company, and any investments.
• Your existing debt, including mortgage, various loans, and credit card debt.
• Your monthly income and expenses

Once you’ve achieved clarity on your financial standing, you can have a better understanding of how much you can put towards investments, and what you need to do to achieve your financial objectives.

Invest according to your financial objectives

To get the desired returns from stock market investments, it’s important to invest according to your financial goals. You can choose different instruments for your short term and long term goals. For e.g. for your retirement, you can invest in stocks and bonds as a long term investment. On the other hand, for your short term goals, look for instruments that allow you to withdraw in a short period of time. You can choose short term investment options which provide you safety, liquidity and better returns on your investments.

Choose instruments that sustain the market volatility

AE residents have numerous investment options. However, before choosing an investment option, ensure that you fully understand the risks associated with it. While looking for investments in stock market you can opt for defensive sector stocks which acts as safety nets during a bearish market and can balance your portfolio in a retreating market. They are also beneficial as an investments as they pay annual dividend thereby reducing your initial cost. In the UAE market, while looking for defensive sectors you can include telecom and banking sectors in your portfolio. Moreover, apart from these you can also invest in pharmaceutical, healthcare and education stocks which grow rapidly in their initial years and develop into defensive high yield stocks.

Look for diversification in your portfolio

Diversifying your portfolio goes a long way in giving you good returns. Risks and investments go hand in hand. Hence, as an investor, it’s important that you do not put all your eggs in one basket. You can diversify your portfolio by investing across various types of different investments of varying risks and returns such as mutual funds, bonds, stocks and ETFs. It is because, when one of them underperforms, there’s a chance that another asset class will perform well and balance out the resultant losses. Diversification helps smooth out the volatile roller coaster of investing and helps you stay invested with stable returns.

Invest in mutual funds

As a beginner, if you wish to invest in equities but lack the required knowledge and experience, you can invest in mutual funds. Mutual funds are professionally managed investments funds that pool money from the investors to purchase securities across different companies and asset classes. Mutual funds are a diversified basket of instruments that help you invest in schemes of varying returns and risks. As these are diversified, the loss of one instrument is neutralised by the profit of other, thus reducing the risk factor of your investments.

If you wish to invest in real estate with the benefit of market returns, you can opt for Real Estate Investment Trust or REIT. Currently there are two listed REIT on NASDAQ, Emirates REIT and Emirates NBD REIT.

Apart from following the investment tips discussed above, don’t forget to regularly review your investment plan and objectives to account for any changes and ensure that your strategy remains aligned with your goals. You may also wish to engage a financial advisor if you require professional assistance in your wealth management journey.