Investment planning is the process of determining how to invest
your current assets and future savings towards based your short,
intermediate and long-term financial goals, your current
financial situation, your risk tolerance and your tax situation.
A good investment plan identifies those financial goals and
assigns a dollar figure and time frame to each goal. After
defining the parameters, the proper investment instruments can
be selected to support those goals. - Short-term investments
(0-2 years) are usually best supported by high-yield deposit
accounts, money market accounts, short-term bonds and short-term
CDs. - Intermediate-term investments (3-5 years) typically rely
on intermediate term bonds, intermediate-term CDs. Stable, high-
dividend paying stocks might be appropriate for goals that are
4-5 years in the future. - Long-term investments (5-7 years +)
should be more heavily oriented towards the stock market, which
provides superior returns to bonds over extended peroids of
time, but has significantl