Investment Blog (Late)

Investment Blog(late)
During the course of this investments project, I learned that you should always aside so money in case you go bankrupt. Spending money wisely is key to success in the future.

Investment Blog (Late)

Over the couple of weeks I spent completing my project, I have learned a lot about investing and saving. Many of my friends have helped me over this period of time and I would like to mention them. I would like to give credit to Sylvia for helping me with the formula, Bryan Ly, and Jason Wu. This project has given me the motive to invest and save money. Before being assigned this project, I knew of investing but I did not have extensive knowledge on the actual concept. In my project, I had kind of a difficult time choosing a company, so I decided to choose Apple, whose rate of return is 19.2%. A lot of other companies I chose at first did not meet the required 6% total, which surprised me. I also decided to start by saving $300 each month. Another thing I learned in completed my project is the huge difference between savings and investment. Saving is for more short-term goals like having emergency money. Investing is in a way for long-term goals, like saving for your child’s college education. When you invest, the money you are investing is typically not gonna come as fast as it is in a savings account, but when you save, you have access to ready cash when you need it, but there is a limit to how much you can take out. In conclusion to my report, I would like to state that opening an investment account is the better way to go in most situations, and this report has changed my outlook on investment.

Investment Project Blog Post: What I learned

Since this project, I definitely know a lot more about investing than I did before. Before this project I knew that you could invest in both banks and company, but I didn't realize how much more beneficial it would be to invest in a company. I always thought that investing in a bank would be the better, smarter, and safer choice. After seeing the difference though, I can see how sometimes a little risk can go a long way. I understand how some people may be hesitant to take the risk of investing in a company, but I believe with enough research on a company, good judgement, and sheer luck, your investment will explode in an exponential growth. My experience from doing this project is that, having investment means a lot more than it looks. Basically learning all the terms and the best technique to financially increase your money, is hard work. When first starting this project I had a minor freak out, as I'm sure many other students did. I knew the general idea of investment but I didn't realize how complicated it sometimes was, finding a good company or bank and all that. It made me appreciate the adults in my life, who are doing all the bills and stuff, a whole lot more. The idea of investing in something is still bouncing around in my head, but I'm not quite sure I'm ready to deal with money just yet. I am sure, though, that from doing this project I will be a bit more prepared, for when the time does come, to start investing money.

What did you learn?

     While I was doing my project I learned that when you invest you should invest in a company that has a high Rate of Return, I also learned that Rate of Return is also known as ROR. While not all companies have a high ROR the ones that due can be a great help if you do invest. Yes it might be risky with the stock markets and what not but its better than just putting your money in a savings account.

Investing and Interest

        I have learned much from this Investment Project about investing your money. One of the biggest things that my project had taught me was that if you want to invest never invest in banks, as in my project I had chosen Chase Bank which had given a dividend of 0.06% at the time that I checked to see what it was and within the 10 years and annual saving of $2,500 dollars, I only gained about $67 dollars from Chase Bank. While on the other hand if I had taken the money and invested it into the company I choose which was the ProAssurance Corporation which offered a dividend rate of 31.8% at the time that I had checked on their dividend rate and had found that I made a roughly 80,000 more dollars if I were to have taken those 10 years of annual savings of $2,500 dollars and invested it into the ProAssurance Corporation and another important thing that I learned was that you shouldn't invest in a company just because they have a high dividend percentage as that is a very risky move due to how it is probable for that dividend percentage to decrease and cause you to lose money. This was the case for the company I had invested in as when I went to check on the dividend percentage it had decreased by 1 percent already and if I had chosen another company which had a smaller dividend percentage it would most likely have a lower chance for the dividend percentage to decrease and a higher chance for the dividend percentage to increase and for you to make more money. What do you guys think? Should people invest in high risk companies with big dividend percentages, or play it safe and invest in companies with smaller dividend percentages?

Before I Started This Project, And After

Throughout the whole time I was trying to complete this project, I've stumbled across so many complicated problems and I've also learned so many new things. First of all, I've learned that it not always so easy to find the information that you need. For example, I've had to find a new company, one after another because the rate of return percentage was lower than 6%. I had some help, from my friend Anh Lien; she told me about the website http://www.gurufocus.com/ which was completely fit for this project and was so helpful for me. However, it was not until after I found out the difference between the dividend yield and the rate of return that I moved any further in my project. I found out the hard way that the dividend yield, the one I kept looking at, was not the dividend, the rate of return that I was looking for. Instead of looking at the dividend yield, I was just to search the 'rate of return' of my company that that would've just been the end of that. I've had a lot of trouble, however, I'm relieved after completing this project! I got to experience and learn about something I would have known nothing about by the time I was an adult and in need  of money. Because of everything that I've learned from this project, I will continue to take my savings seriously and actually start thinking about and considering investing on a worthwhile company. With all that I've learned I'll actually look forward to learning more about investing on a wider scale when the time comes and I'll be prepared because I know what to expect because of this project.

Experience in Investing

When it comes to investing at a young age like ours, we usually think of college as a thing to start saving up for.  To be honest, investing doesn't come up to our minds at all when it comes to saving for college. It's just saving scraps of money you get from your allowance or a part time job. Maybe it's praying that your parents will pay a portion or all of it for you. Student loans are scary. Once in awhile, I hear a kid around our age on the news investing and getting huge amounts of money. In my mind, I'd be like, "Woah, that's cool. You do that, kid." It never occurred to me that I could do it myself. From this project, I realized how accessible investing is to people of all ages. My dad told me he started investing in his 20s to pay for his college. He didn't make much, but it was enough to not worry about student loans. Sure, it takes quite awhile to find a company that'd give you a high annual return rate, more or less, save money to invest into that company. Additionally, you have to do more math. All these numbers and charts strain your eyes and eat your soul away, but truth is that it's worth it. At the beginning, I had no clue what any of these business terms meant. I screamed to my friend, "WHAT'S A SHARE? WHAT'S A DIVIDEND? HOW DOES ONE EVEN?" It took me two hours just to find out what they all meant. After I had that all down, I started searching. It took me another 2 hours to find just the right one (I'm really picky). I started getting less and less picky as my patience diminished. "19%? Meh, that's good enough." And so I began calculating at the speed of lightning. The saddening truth, however, was that I only had a 143% increase over the next 10 years. My dad said it was good, especially in the business world. He even joked that I should go into the investing world as my career (maybe). If I were to do so, I would need to put more time into it. Investing isn't just some one day does the job thing. It takes weeks, even months, to find the right company to throw your money at and strategically get that money. I actually really enjoyed this project and would want to do it again.

Equity Dilution in Startups

One thing I learned through talking with my dad was the concept of equity dilution. Equity dilution is the reduction in stock holding of shareholders relative to a company, and happens mostly in startups. For example, if I were to start a company, I would own all the shares making me the owner. Lets say I invest $1,000,000 to start the company. Overtime, other investors will be willing to put their money into my company in exchange for shares. Now, if another person willing to invest their $1,000,000 into my company, instead of owning 100% of the company shares, I now only own half of the company. The other investor would own the other half. As more and more investors start to put their money into my company, my percent of ownership decreases unless I decide to buy more shares. It is important to understand equity dilution especially if you plan of investing, starting, or even working for a startup company because it can lead to huge rewards or potentially huge losses. 

Bank Savings vs Company Investments

Are you tired of not knowing whether you should invest in a company or put your savings in a bank? *Well never fear because this sleepy nobody is here to help! Let's start off with the annual rate of return, which is a proportion of your original investment in a percentage. Banks such as Chase and Wells Fargo usually offer you an annual rate that ranges from 0.01% to 0.5%, which doesn't even hit the 1% mark by any means. Companies, on the other hand, can range from 0.5% to 8% in annual rate, which can net you so much more money in the long run. But although companies and banks seem good to put your money into, remember that there is always the possibility of the stock market crashing or the bank filing for bankruptcy. So by investing in a company or putting your savings into a bank, you risk losing that money if it is a huge amount of it. Investments are a good and usually reliable source of earning money on the side, but remember, there's a catch to everything, so choose wisely...

*I am in no way accountable if you lose money due to bankruptcy or a stock market crash. 

Investing vs Saving

What I learned during this project is that you make more interest when you invest in a company than saving your money in a bank account. I also learned that I should invest in a company that has a rate of return of at least 6 percent or higher in order to make money. In conclusion, investing is better than saving since it has a higher growth rate.

Investing and Saving

If you had a handful of money, how would you use it? There are three obvious choices, spending, saving, or investing it. Saving or Investing your money is the smarter choice over spending it, but the question is, what is the better choice of the two. Through this project, I've uncovered a few things. Before this project, I thought that investing in companies and saving in banks were the same thing, if not very similar. Now, I know that they are two separate things with different purposes. The savings are for, well saving and the interest is for making your money grow. They both have their pros and cons so one can't really be better than the other. The pros and cons for a savings account are quite simple, the pro is that you have a safe and secure place to store and save up your money and the con is that it does not get much money out of it without waiting for a while. Investing in a company is sort of the opposite of this, the pro is that you can increase your money really fast but, it's risky because the company you invest in will determine how much money you'll make and if you will make or lose money. The decision is really up to you to decide which choice is the better one.

Savings and investment

I learned that investing is better than savings because of the percentage of investment.The company I chose to invest was Nike as it was 6% or 0.06.I made 100 more dollars every year than saving my money in the bank.So which would u chose,SAVINGS OR INVESTMENT?

Learning about investments!

     This project has taught me that stocks are not just one item that can increase and decrease (that was all I previously knew before this project). I believed that if it was a name brand company, the stock prices would be greater and wouldn't drop. I was only half right, my uncle Ryan taught me otherwise. He taught me that you would have to save your money wisely and then make the choice of which company you would buy stocks from. He also taught me that the money increases exponentially and would not be linear if we were to graph it.

Investing your money

Before this project I didn't think this project would be more than just saving your money in a bank and let it grow from their. You taught me about putting your money in a company and it will grow much faster than just putting your money in a bank and just leave it there. But also it's not 100% that your money will grow, so it's a risk.

The Income of Young Adults Based on Education Level

Before starting this investment project, I had to find out how much money would be a good amount to save each year. According to mycreditunion.gov, young adults should save 10% of their income at minimum. I learned that the level of education that you graduate or don't graduate with affects your income by thousands of dollars.  The text from nces.ed.gov states, "In 2014, the median earnings of young adults with a bachelor’s degree ($49,900) were 66 percent higher than the median earnings of young adult high school completers ($30,000).The median earnings of young adult high school completers were 20 percent higher than the median earnings of those without a high school credential ($25,000)." This information made me value education even more. I always knew that education was an important part of your future, but not exactly how important. I will continue to learn about the importance of education to try to be successful in the future.

SOURCES:

http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/indicator_cba.asp

https://www.mycreditunion.gov/Protect/Pages/Tips-for-Young-Adults.aspx

What is the PE Ratio?

When I was researching for my investment project, I noticed that companies would use PE ratios. So what is a PE ratio? PE ratios stands for price to earnings ratio. According to Investopedia, PE ratios are used to see if a company is overvalue or undervalue. To calculate the PE ratio of a company you would get their market value per share and divided by their earnings per share. One example of PE ratio is, if the PE ratio is 10, this means investors in the stocks are willing to pay 10 dollars for each 1 dollar of the earnings the company generates(Investopedia).

P/E Ratio =	Market Value per Share
	Earning per Share

The stock market changes everyday

Before I started this project I honestly thought that the stocks of a company stayed the same, But as I was choosing the company I wanted to invest in , I saw that every time I came back to check how the stocks were doing it was either lower or higher than when I first saw it. Never did I see it stay the same. I understand now that stocks are a constantly changing thing with multiple factors like how much the consumers demand the products and etc. This may have seem like something really obvious and everyone should know but I barely found out about it during this project.

Savings vs. Investing

From this investment project I have seen a great difference in the money accumulated between saving and investing. Saving in a savings account has a low annual rate of return, 0.01% but the company I invested in had a whopping 19 and a half percent return. Investing clearly has a higher reward than saving but, is it that easy? I did some research on investing and there are risks. Lets say you are investing in a company and the company doesn't do so well and your investments go down. You can either lose some money or lose all your money. But wait, investing isn't a bad choice. Investing can give huge rewards and achieve financial goals that you wish for. It mostly depends on how you invest your money. They are different ways you can invest your money and from the research I have done, there are smart investors and investors. Wait, but what about saving? Saving your money has minimal to no risk. Savings also earn interest but low interest. When you save, you are putting a part of your hard earned cash to the side every month or so and letting it build up. Saving and investing are two different ways to help you build your money. You can either make interest or make profit. Of course, I would love to make huge amounts of money and become rich as Tai Lopez so I would choose investments over savings. What do you guys think? Investing or saving?

Investing

Many people would put their money in a savings account in the bank, Chase. The annual rate of return is 0.03%. The same company would usually have an annual rate of return of 0.01%. It is possible that some people get a higher rate than others. What these people have is a "Relationship Rate". Relationship rate is when banks sell financial products to the customer and  increase customer loyalty. (http://www.investopedia.com/terms/r/relationship-banking.asp)  Even with a rate higher than other banks, you still earn more from investing. Investing is a way people can earn more money in a faster amount of time. I saw the difference that in 10 years, the amount of money that I invested is twice as much as 10 years of saving. Even though investing is a good way to earn money, it is also a risk. Each 2 days, I have been checking the company's rate and they easily drop and rise back at times.

Shares

Shares are units of ownership in investing. You buy shares or a company or financial asset. Shares are different from stocks. The difference is that shares refer to a specific company. While on the other hand stocks are refer all shares you own. There are two types of shares, common shares and preferred shares. Most companies issue common shares, which are riskier than preferred shares. Common shares give shareholder make control over the business. Preferred shares may be less riskier but don't have the same benefits as common shares. If the company goes bankrupt and pays its lenders, preferred shareholders will receive payments before common shareholders. I know investing is confusing but it is worth it in the end!

Investing

In the world of investing you will either gain profit or lose profit. By checking online you can see a companies' investment rates. There is the company and the share holder. If the company does well and gains a profit, after paying everything, then the people that invested into the company gets a part of that profit. These people that gets part of the profit are the share holders.

This information was by Tina Chau(mom)

What is YTD?

Before starting this project, I had no idea whatsoever about investing money in companies. Slowly as I started working on this project I started to know more and more about investments and how useful they are to help you earn money with out having to work. As I was looking through the stocks of many different companies I saw some companies with a high YTD rate. Some were at 211% and some were at -11%. I thought that the YTD rate was a another name for annual rate of return or dividend rate, but I wasn't 100% sure. So I checked Investopedia, and here's what I found. YTD isn't the annual rate of return. Instead, it refers to the period of growth or decay of the company's stock starting from the first day of the calendar or fiscal year, and goes up to the current date.


http://www.investopedia.com/terms/y/ytd.asp

Graphing your interest rate with annual deposits

Although the project should have already been turned in, I leaened of an equation that could have been useful in doing the project. This equation is for graphing the compound interest rate alomg with annual deposits of whatever amount you choose to save. The equation goes as shown:

P=D(1+i)^(t)*(1/i)
P=principle
D=deposit
t=years
i=interest rate

Example:
I am going to save $2400 a year to invest in a company with a company with a %10 interest rate. How much will I have by 5 years?

P=2400([1+0.10]^[5]-1)*(1/0.10)
P=2400([1.10]^[5]-1)*(10)
P=2400(1.61051-1)*(10)
P=2400(0.61051)*(10)
P=2400(6.1051)
P=14652.24
After those 5 years, I would have $14652.24 in my account balance.

In conclusion, if you ever need to do another investment project yourself or perhaps have any other needs for it, you can easily display the your earnings over the years.

Investing!

     What I have learned from this project is that investing isn't always a good thing and it can be determined by volatility. Volatility, a measure of the separation of returns from a market record, shows how risky the security is. The higher the volatility, the more riskier a security is. According to Investopedia, they mentioned, "A higher volatility means that a security's value can potentially be spread out over a larger range of values." This shows the risk of the security on the price can dangerously go up or go down. In all, investing is a big risk depending on the volatility, but it will significantly increase your money than bank while the interest in bank will be safe. Also, this has taught me investing can help you a lot if you do a lot of research and it can help me pay for college tuition.

Investment Project: What I Learned

     Before I knew anything about investing in companies, I thought that putting money in your bank account and just leaving it there will give you big bucks! Doing this project, I found that those who take risks and invest in companies can earn a lot more money. While doing this project, I asked my sister how much money I should save and which bank account I should invest in. She simply told me that saving $600 a month, which would be $7200 a year, would be a great start. Since my sister has a Chase Bank account, she wanted me to pick Chase. I did some research on their website: www.chase.com/savings/savings-account-rates and found that Chase's annual savings interest was 0.01%. Later on, I was looking for a company that I liked and could invest in. I decided to pick Pepsi. On this website: http://csimarket.com/stocks/at_glance.php, I found out that the return on investment was 12.56%. After finding all my information, I did the math, and the graphed it. Looking at the graph, there was a huge difference between the savings with the bank and investing with a company. 

     Doing this project made me realize that taking a risk, and investing in a company would make me a lot more money. In the near future, I would definitely invest in a company to make money for my future kids. 

Why is Investment important?

Some people think of investment as just putting money into something and then it starts growing. Well in some ways they are correct, but there is much more than that. Such as the rate of return or what to invest in or what to do with that money when you are done investing. Some people say that after they are done investing, they would open a company or a business. Investment is very important if you want to do that. Opening or starting a company requires a lot of money to start. Such as hiring workers and keeping the company up itself. This is why investing is important. Not only that, but you can invest just to save up money towards a future goal in something. Of course, this is just my opinion in why investment is important. Many people have their own opinion and this one is the one I'm sharing to the world.

Investing makes you more money

Before doing this project, I thought that letting your money sit in a savings account and you can get a lot of money from that. But when I researched the bank's annual rate of return, I found out that the annual rate of return for Wells Fargo was 0.01%. I found it on  https://www.wellsfargo.com/savings-cds/rates/. When I did my calculations, it showed me that you will never make a lot of money by letting your money sit in a savings account. Then I found out about investing. Investing in companies and businesses with a high rate of return will make you big bucks. I learned that if you find a company with a really high rate of return and you invest in that company, you will make a lot of money. You can literally make money while you are sleeping. You can also invest in the wrong company and lose a lot of money. Overall, you should invest in a company that has a high annual rate of return and make sure that its stocks don't drop a lot.

What I've learned from this project and how it has affected me

Before I did this project I thought that I should just put my money into the bank, so it can grow itself and continue to deposit money into the account every month. This project changed my whole entire perspective of what I use to do and what I want to do now. The annual rate of return that most banks give us is mostly 0.01%. Before I was like "this is normal, it cant be that bad" , but now that I saw that it didnt even earn me a dollar the whole entire year, it just didn't seem worth it. I have never thought of investing in my life, but now this has definitely changed. I saw the growth of my money in a savings account and the money I earned in my investment. THEY WAS SUCH A BIG DIFFERENCE IN MONEY. Now I just wonder to myself "WHY HAVEN"T I FOUND OUT ABOUT THIS SOONER?" As much as I don't really like math... I actually enjoyed this project due to this might being something I might do in the future and earn a lot of money.

investing or saving?

In this project I came across a huge difference in a savings account and investing in a company. Bank of America's annual rate, 0.01%, was quite low. The company that I invested in was Apple inc, a technology company, which had a 19.63% annual rate. A company's annual rate is way higher than a bank's annual rate. Doing this project, I also learned that people invest in many companies so that they can get income during retirement. The work I did can show how you want your money in the future to grow. I prefer investing since everyone would like to grow their money quicker than a savings account. Don't you like money? Choose investment if you do. It is always safe to have a savings account, just encase your company that you invest in falls apart. 
HAVE A HAPPY HOLIDAY AND INVEST SO YOU CAN BUY EVERYONE PRESENTS!!

Choosing a Good Annual Rate of Return

For this investment project, I learned the importance of choosing a good annual rate of return for investing in a company.  A good annual rate of return for a company would be approximately 15%.  However, when investing, one must consider other factors when choosing an annual rate of return.  Inflation is one of the factors that can work against you, and this means that after each year, your money would be worth fewer and fewer.  Another important factor is paying taxes if a person wants to sell their investment.  This means that they have to pay taxes on profit that they have made from their investment.  Ultimately, a good annual rate of return, is one that beats out inflation and taxes.  

Pros of Investing

In this project, I learned how to grow my money in the future. It showed me that you need to invest in a company with a 8% or higher annual rate of return in order to make money. In addition, investing is better than keeping your money in a savings account because investing is an exponential growth while the savings account has a linear growth. However, in order to invest you need to start with a decent amount of money or money won't grow as fast.

"Beating the Market"

 "Beating the Market"

"Beating the market" is a common phrase in investment. It could mean two things, according to http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/03/100903.asp. One meaning is an investor fund or other other investment specialist produces a better return than the market average, whileas another means a company's earnings, sales, or some other valuation metric is superior to that of other companies in its industry. Of course, it would be pretty cool to be able to say that you've beaten the market, but there is a low chance of getting there. On this website, http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/12/beating-the-market.asp, it states this, "Yes, you may be able to beat the market, but with investment fees, taxes, and human emotion working against you, you're more likely to do so through luck" Since there is a low chance of "beating the market," it would be awesome to accomplish it. If you would like to know abit more of this, check out investopedia, "beating the market".

How Investor Choose What Company to Invest In

If you ever watch the show Shark Tank, do you notice that the sharks ask questions like what does your business do? How will you use our investments to expand the company? Well, to understand why they ask these questions let's actually take a closer look at what is happening in these investors mind. In short, there are many different ways investors look at companies and decide which one to invest in. One way though is to look at it in 3 different stages. The first stage is to decide which group or industries to invest in based on the economic environment.  For example, some industries may benefit from the Trump presidency while others won't. As an investor, you would choose among these group. This lead us to the second stage where an investor would compare companies among each other. In other words, investors look at the company that has an edge over others. In the third stage, an investor would look closely at the short list of companies and analyze it in 3 parts: what the company's plan, its management, and its financial analysis. Through this way, the investor would be confident about their choice with their company they invested in.
To find out more, you can visit http://stockcharts.com/school/doku.php?id=chart_school:overview:fundamental_analysis.

How to start investing?!

You might be wondering why most people don't start investing in a company. Here are some of the reasons. They either don't want to take the risk of losing their money or they don't even know how to invest at all. According to the video I saw, here are some of the way to start investing. First of all, you got to start saving your money because if you don't have money, you are going no where. This is the most important and hardest step of start investing because "people in general love to spending their money" said Harmonie Bassette. Step 2, sell something to earn the money you need to start investing. Step 3, talk to your accountant to legally pay less taxes because you want to pay as less taxes as possible. Step 4, try to find ways to increase your income like to get a second job or get a higher position in your job. Step 5, try to get funds from somewhere else, not just from your own pocket. Step 6, use equity to start your investment. During my research in investment, I learned what equity, asset, and liabilities are. Equity is the value of a business or property after its debt and liabilities is payed. An asset is a resource with economic value. They can be like a bank account, car, or house. And liabilities mean a company's financial debt or obligations that arise during the course of its business operations. There are many other ways to start investing, but these are the 6 steps on how to start investing. In addition, when you start investing, it's very important to choose the right company to invest in. You don't want to invest in a company that is falling with high risk, you want to invest in a company that is growing with the least amount of risk involve.



Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKFyiQhnvbc
Source: http://www.investopedia.com/<---where I got the definition.

Stocks

After doing some research on investments on, I'll simpify for everyone that stocks is a small piece of a company that you own. Stock prices changes everyday, because if more people want to buy that company's stocks than sell it, then the prices go up(vice versa). The reason why companies issue stock instead of keeping their profit to themselves is because at some point they will need to raise money, which is especially true for smaller the companies. There are two basic types of funding available that a company can use - debt or equity finacing. Debt finacing is when a company borrows or loans from a bank or by issuing bonds and equity finacing is when a company sells its stock to investors, which is also called issuing stocks. Equity financing is benefical to companies because it doesn't require them to pay back their money with interest. The risk of buying stocks is that a stock can go bankrupt, which means that your investment will mean nothing.

Sources:

http://www.investinganswers.com/financial-dictionary/stock-market/equity-financing-1523

http://www.investopedia.com/university/stocks/stocks4.asp

http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/1112/small-business-financing-debt-or-equity.aspx

http://www.investopedia.com/university/stocks/stocks1.asp?ad=dirN&qo=investopediaSiteSearch&qsrc=0&o=40186

Difference Between Dividend Rate & Dividend Yield

While looking for a company to invest in for my project, I stumbled upon a problem. I was trying to find a dividend rate of 7% or more, but every time I hopped on to a financial website, the dividend rate was represented by an amount, in dollars. But the only thing represented by a percentage was the "dividend yield". So I looked up the difference on Google and found this website: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/difference-between-dividend-rate-dividend-yield-56992.html.
The rate is how much the company will repay you per share. The yield is the percentage of the money invested that the company will repay you.

Two Different Rate of Return

Besides learning that investing in a company is way more helpful than putting my stack of cash in a savings account, I also learned about the difference between different rate of return. When I started researching for the annual rate of return of the company I wanted to invest in, forward rate of return popped up. I thought they were the same until I looked up what they both meant. Forward rate of return is what kind of return you would expect from the stock performance of a company (www.gurufocus.com). Annual rate of return is the profit from an investment in the time period of a year. Forward rate of return usually have a higher percentage than annual rate of return.

Basic Types of Investments

Google defines investment as something the action of process of investing money for profit or material result. I was still confused after knowing this definition so I decided to read more into investments. I learned that there are three basic types: ownership, lending, and cash equivalents. Ownership investments are the ones that come to many people's minds first when they hear the word "investment." You are the one spending your own money, hoping for it to grow over the course of time. The second type of investment is lending. This type allows you to play the role of the bank. Despite being safer than ownership, this way earns you less money. You allow others to borrow your money, with the expectation that they will be returning it along with interest and any other fees. The last type is known as cash equivalents. This type of investment can be easily converted back into cash, thus giving it the name, "cash equivalents." These investments have a very small return as the risk is also small.

Phrasing and getting information

I've learned that phrasing searches makes a big difference in finding certain resources for the project. An example was when I was searching for information on Disneyland and it's annual rate of return. When I kept searching, I couldn't find anything on the topic. Then once I asked Ms.Bassette for help, she showed me that instead of searching for Disneyland, I should be searching for Disney. The reason was because Disneyland is a branch of Disney, therefore in order to find the rate of return the best way would be to find the origin of the company.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4TzfPfLMB4

This video taught me that there are three types of investments called Asset Classes.

One of the classes are called "stocks"

Though there are many definitions of "stock," but they're two major ones are, market capitalization and company location. (Is also referred to equities or securities) All stocks has a level of riskiness. You can either lose or gain money. When you own a stock, you're basically owning a part of a company (A very small part of the company) . Thus, if the value of the company increases, your profit also increases. Vice versa. Another way to gain money is the annual profit (dividend). Stock princes can fluctuate or go up swiftly, making it one of the most perilous types of investments, but can be the most rewarding. 

The other two types of investments are bonds and cash.

Asset Allocation

In order to gain a broad understanding of investments, I read an online article, http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2014/09/05/10-financial-terms-every-investor-should-know, regarding financial terms. One word I found interesting was asset allocation. I learned that asset allocation was an investment strategy aiming to balance risk and reward by distributing a portfolio's assets based on an individual's goals. There are 3 general categories in which money can be stored: cash, bonds, and stocks. Considering each class has a unique level of risk and reward factor, each will behave differently over time.

Investing For Beginners/Teens

I learned from two YouTube videos "Investing For Beginners" and "Investing For Teenagers" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gG60m9HuUYQ) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxlOzNa_lzk). While watching "Investing For Teenagers", I have learned that you want to manage your money because you need to have a certain amount of money for banks and companies to take you seriously when investing. Because we are under the age of 18, we need to have a joint account, or an account in the name of two individuals who equally share its liabilities and rights, according to BusinessDictionary. The video suggests to use Vanguard, an investment management company, because it has the lowest fees and it is not owned by a shareholder. In order to use Vanguard, you need at least $1000. A fund is a collection of stocks that you actually invest in. It is suggested that you do not invest with all your money in case the company goes bankrupt and you lose the money you invested with. In "Investing For Beginners," I have learned how much money you should invest with and the definitions between stock, a mutual fund, and an index fund. According to experts(not specified), it is suggested that you invest with 10-30% of your income. A stock is like owning a part of a single company, where as a mutual fund is having a person picking hundreds of companies for for you to invest in. In a mutual fund, the person who helps you decide the companies, may charge you a heavy fee. An index fund is when you invest in multiple companies at once, where there is no human interventions. I learned that investing may be risky, and there is a possibility that you many lose your money.

Investments VS Savings, A better understanding of the project

In this project, I learned that there is a difference between saving your money in a savings account and investing your money. A savings account earns you less money than investing into a company because the annual rate of return is low in comparison to investment accounts. After looking at all the blog posts, I can conclude that most local banks, such as Wells Fargo and Chase have a low annual rate of return of about 0.01%. You earn a lot more money in investment accounts mainly because the annual rate of return is higher than a savings account. It is also easy to distinguish between the two because a savings account pretty much earns about the same amount of money every year, which is linear. On the other hand, an investment account earns you more money every year (if it doesn't require any risks), exponential. In this project, we assume that the company has the same annual rate of return every year.
However, in real life situations, your money in a local bank is a lot safer than investing your money. Why? The stock may drop dramatically at a certain point, where you can lose all your money, but if it succeeds or if the company does well, you will earn lots of money, something you'd never get from a local bank.

Investing in a Company!

Doing this project, I learned that if you want to invest in a company, you should always have money saved and it should be a decent amount of money. Also, the percentage of forward rate of return should at least be 8% or more. Investing in a company will increase your money, because it will grow exponentially.

IRAs & CDs

I learned from investopedia.com that IRAs stand for Individual Retirement Account which basically means a savings account with big tax breaks, making it an ideal way to stock away cash for your retirement and is just a way to keep your stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, and other assets. 

On the other hand CDs are not what you think it is just a certificate of deposit, which is a special type of interest-bearing account, a way to earn interest on your money, that you can open at financial institutions such as banks, credit unions, and savings and loan associations. CDs are a common alternative to a standard savings account. 

Great article about investments and rate of return

Here's a link to an article that explains more about investments and what a healthy rate of return is and why.
https://trendshare.org/how-to-invest/what-is-a-good-annual-rate-of-return

Guide to Investing for beginners

I learned from www.thebalance.com When opening a new account, the minimum investment is usually ranging from $500-$1,000 and even lower.The first thing you have to do is to open a brokerage account. A brokerage account is a type of taxable account that you can open with stock brokerage firm. You deposit cash into the account, once the cash is deposited you can use the money to acquire many different types of investment. These accounts allow you to purchase stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other investments. Time is your biggest asset!

Difference between average annual growth rate and rate of return

I did not understand the difference between average annual growth rate and rate of return. So I emailed Mrs.Bassette and asked for help. So, she emailed me back telling me what Investopedia said. Investopedia said,"Average annual growth rate (AAGR) is the average increase in the value of an individual investment, portfolio, asset or cash stream over specific interval of time. Rate of return is a profit on an investment over a period of time, expressed as a proportion of the original investment." (Both definition came from Investopedia) Furthermore, Mrs.Bassette explained it to me in a more simplify way. She told me that "(AAGR) means average growth rate over many years." "(Rate of Return) means growth rate over most recent year."

Once you read this, you'll see investing in a whole new way.

You might wonder, and ask "is there a possibility that I can plant this one dollar bill, and get a money tree?" Well the answer is no, you can't, duh, but there is something kind of similar, and that's investing! When you invest, you gradually generate money! So what is the term "investing" mean? Well, when you invest into a company, you dedicate your time and money into it and get money back. So what's in it for the company you might ask, but don't worry, you're not a parasite. Companies sell shares to people because they also need money! They use this money to introduce a new product, advertise, and to buy materials for their products. And in return for you helping them, for a certain percentage of how much they make on their products, and how many shares you buy, will be given to you as money!!! Plus, the longer you have the shares for, the money continues to generate!!! It's that easy..... but, there is a condition though. If the company does poorly, and doesn't do successful with their products, you get less money. So this is what I learned when doing my project. Thank you for reading my post, and have a wonderful morning/ evening/ night! :D

What I Learned About Investments

              I learned from Investopedia.com that when you want to invest in a company, you need to wait until the company's lock up period is over. A lock up period is when people who already own stock in the company aren't allowed to sell it. Usually it lasts for 90 to 180 days. It helps stabilize the stock price and when the stock's price and demands are up, it makes more money. It also helps the market to not disproportionately increase the supply, preventing the decrease of the stock's price.