Investment may be defined as the application of money or money's worth in a process that begets more money. In other words, the multiplication in the amount of money, as a result of channeling the same through a process that adds incremental value to the original amount.

The term non-correlated asset classes covers a whole range of potential investments, including venture capital, real estate, private equity, and commodities, but also alternative investment strategies.

 Stocks and shares scare most people, so it obviously would not be smart to invest our money in something that we don't understand or are not sure about. There are of course several safe investment areas available to us, but we are required to understand and analyse these as well before we simply invest our money. We need to be smart about our investments and put our money into investments that would give us the highest returns. While investing through big investment companies may seem like a good way to gain returns, we have no control over the gains we earn. Mutual funds performance is out of our hands, and we are unable to customise these funds according to what we need and require. There is also a high fee to pay to avail of these services and the time taken to get returns is long and uncontrollable. Even though there are several types of mutual funds available to us, the drawbacks of all are the same, so people who are looking for safe returns fast are at a loss in the mutual fund market.

First, I would like to thank everyone for their interest in the first part of this article - "The Fast Track to Your Financial Freedom Part 1 - Leveraging your Money".

Now, you may now be thinking that this whole idea of leverage is great and earning $81,000 on a $20,000 investment over seven years would be terrific. The problem with this is "IT'S STILL TOO SLOW." We can still do much better. Besides leverage, we need to add the principle of VELOCITY. Here's how it works:

 We favor investments that are low cost, tax efficient, diversified, liquid, and simple. Many investors often run into trouble when they invest in things that do not have these five characteristics. Investments with these five characteristics have been profitable over time, but typically are not very exciting. There is generally not a "hot story that you need to act on now!" associated with them. The financial services industry generally does not favor these type of investments because they generate very little profit from them. We are in the business of helping to maximize the wealth of our clients, not the financial services industry. Keep in mind that this list of investment characteristics is not comprehensive. Other factors to look for in investments might include attractive valuation, low correlation to your other holdings, a nice dividend yield or interest income, a tilt towards areas of the market that have produced higher returns such as value stocks, an appropriate risk level for you, etc.

 Stocks and shares scare most people, so it obviously would not be smart to invest our money in something that we don't understand or are not sure about. There are of course several safe investment areas available to us, but we are required to understand and analyse these as well before we simply invest our money. We need to be smart about our investments and put our money into investments that would give us the highest returns. While investing through big investment companies may seem like a good way to gain returns, we have no control over the gains we earn. Mutual funds performance is out of our hands, and we are unable to customise these funds according to what we need and require. There is also a high fee to pay to avail of these services and the time taken to get returns is long and uncontrollable. Even though there are several types of mutual funds available to us, the drawbacks of all are the same, so people who are looking for safe returns fast are at a loss in the mutual fund market.