Back to Basics: What is investing?

The simple way to describe investing is, making your money work for you to grow and help you reach your financial goals. Those goals could include buying a home, retirement, or sending your children to university.

Through your own research or advisement, investing can include putting your money into investment vehicles such as stocks and bonds, or investment products like mutual funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs). You could also invest in real estate, commodities, collectible or a business. By investing your money your hoping for it to grow overtime.

You invest to make money, but you shouldn’t confuse it with a get-rich-quick scheme or gambling. Investing often takes times and patience and won’t make you rich overnight. Like gambling all forms of investment have risk and do not guarantee you will make money. However, unlike gambling investing does not rely solely on chance and luck.