2008-01-02

Building Wealth: A Wealth Building Strategy Is More Than Simply Diversifying Your Investments

In order to build wealth there are four simple things you must do:

1) Control your spending.

2) Pay off debts that don't produce some form of income to you.

3) Create or acquire wealth building assets or income streams.

4) Acquire the knowledge to learn how to leverage your TIME and your ENERGY.

Try seeing "diversification" in an entirely different light.

As an example, David Futrelle, Money Magazine, wrote a great piece on this entitled “Build Wealth in any Market.”

In it he discusses that diversifying investments in your own country’s stock market may not be diversified enough.

“More than half the world's stocks are traded outside the U.S. We think it makes sense to keep at least a quarter of your stock money in foreign equities.” David Futrelle, Money Magazine, August 12 2004.

Futrelle goes on to give tips on diversification

This is a good exercise in building wealth in the unstable world of stock investing.

Additionally, think of how you can diversify the following sets of capital:

1) Human Capital (your job and career),

2) Physical Capital (your house and other possessions) and

3) Financial Capital (those stocks, bonds and cash).

All these components should work together in your wealth building portfolio.

Diversifying financial assets alone will not offer you enough protection without understanding what kind of diversity offers true protection against avoidable losses.

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