Investing in Equities & Derivatives have an edge over simply saving money in the bank account. It gives you an opportunity to beat the inflationary pressure by delivering a higher returns and increasing the value of principal invested. In addition, capital gains and regular dividend income is the revenue source generated from the equity investments.

A stock is like a small share of a company. Owning a share is like owning and claiming yourself as a part of that company’s assets and earnings. Stocks have historically outperformed other investment options in the long run. The two ways by which you can participate in the stock market are: “buy and hold” and “short-term speculation”.

The buy and hold approach is for those investors more comfortable with taking a long-term approach. The goal is to find and invest in quality stocks that are going to provide a return or dividend for the long haul. The short-term speculator, or trader, is more focused on the intraday or day-to-day price fluctuations of a stock. The goal is to buy low and sell high for a profit quickly. They may also participate in “shorting” a stock, which allows them to sell a stock they don’t actually own.

Commodity trading is another essential part of the financial market that provides investors the opportunity to rule out market volatility and make profits. Markets across the globe offers a wide variety of commodities for trading. Commodities are traded in futures, where future contracts are traded and not commodities itself.

A commodity is a group of raw goods that are important in everyday life and are used in business. Each commodity, when traded on an exchange, must meet standards and grades. They may each be slightly different, however, ultimately are the same amongst all producers. Some of commodities can be classified as precious metals (Gold and Silver), base metals (Aluminum, Copper, Lead etc.), energy (Natural Gas, Crude Oil, Coal) and agro-based (Coffee, Wheat, Corn, Rice, Rubber etc.) commodities.

Trading in commodities offers various benefits. One of the major benefits is that it is traded in form of commodity future contracts, in which one can make profit without actual possession of the commodity. Few other benefits are diversification, protection from inflation, high return potential and hedging against event risk.

As the world’s most-traded financial market instrument, foreign exchange presents a wealth of opportunities for those who can harness its inherent volatility. The Forex Market is the largest and the most liquid market in the world, with over 25 Million Traders, more than 7 Trillion Dollar daily turnover, unaffected by most of the temporary news & regional events, and not influenced by any individuals, companies or rumors. It’s a very interesting market to dive in, provided you are either guided or well aware of the overall market.

Forex trading is a very powerful hedging and investment tool. Foreign exchange (forex, or FX for short) is the marketplace for trading all the world’s currencies and is the largest financial market in the world. It’s a contract wherein two currencies can be exchanged at a future date at a specific rate. The most common traded currencies are US Dollars, Euro, Great Britain Pound and Japanese Yen.

There are many benefits of trading forex, which include convenient market hours, high liquidity market (as you can buy and sell currencies at ease), ample arbitrage opportunities, the ability to trade on margin and a powerful hedging tool (hedge foreign exchange risk by currency trading).

A mutual fund is an investment vehicle which pools money from many investors and invests the money in securities such as stocks, bonds, and short-term debt. Experienced Mutual Fund managers invest the collected funds in diverse asset classes. Investors buy shares in mutual funds where each share represents an investor’s part ownership in the fund and the income it generates.

Mutual funds are a popular choice among investors because they generally offer affordability as most mutual funds set a relatively low amount for initial investment and subsequent purchases, diversification which helps in lowering the risk, liquidity as the investors can easily redeem their shares at any time and experienced fund managers who research, select and monitor stocks and their performance for their investors.

Ways in which Mutual Funds make money are through Dividends – an income from dividends on stock or interest on bonds; Distribution of Capital Gains – The increased price of the securities in a fund when sold results in capital gains and Increased Net Asset Value – The increased market value of a fund’s portfolio after deducting expenses.