The house you live in is a different matter because it is filling a basic need. It may appreciate in value over time, but it shouldn't be purchased with the expectation of profit.

The mortgage meltdown of and the underwater mortgages it produced are a good illustration of the danger of considering a primary residence as an investment.

Many people made the error of purchasing homes that they could not afford on the assumption that those houses could soon be sold for much more. Gold and precious gemstones, Impressionist paintings and signed LeBron James jerseys, all can all be considered ownership investments, provided that these objects were bought with the intention of reselling them for a profit. Like any investments, they may rise or fall in value over time.

Tastes in art and collectibles change. Gold and gems have market values that fluctuate. From the cold-eyed view of the investor, they also have costs.

They must be insured and kept in pristine condition in order to retain their value. Lending money is a category of investing. The risks generally are lower than for many investments and, consequently, the rewards are relatively modest. A bond issued by a company or a government will pay a set amount of interest over a set period of time. The only real risk is that the company or government will go bankrupt, in which case the bondholder may get little or none of the investment back.

A regular savings account is an investment. The investor is essentially lending money to the bank. The bank will pay interest to the account holder and will earn its profit by loaning out the rest of the money to businesses at a higher rate of interest. The return on savings accounts is currently quite low, but the risk is essentially zero. In the U. Bond is a catch-all category for a wide variety of investments from U.

The risks and returns vary widely between the different types of bonds. Overall, these types of lending investments pose a lower risk and provide a lower return than ownership investments.

These are investments are "as good as cash," which means that they can be converted back to cash easily and quickly. Money market funds are similar to savings accounts and can be purchased at any bank.

The difference is that the investor commits to leaving the money alone for a period of time in return for a slightly higher rate of interest. The time period is as little Identify These Three Pieces And What Links Them (Besides The Obvious) three months and no longer than a year.

Money market funds are more liquid than other investments, meaning you can write checks out of money market accounts just as you would with a checking account. Although, once you start writing checks on it you've erased much Identify These Three Pieces And What Links Them (Besides The Obvious) its value as an investment.

Education is often called an investment and certainly, it can have lifelong rewards that include a higher income. It could be argued that we sell our education as if it was a small business service in exchange for a steady income. By this logic, we're investing when we buy a stress ball or a cup of coffee. These are Identify These Three Pieces And What Links Them (Besides The Obvious) that offer benefits but they are not investments.

Beds, cars, mobile phones, TVs, and anything else that depreciates in value with use and time, are not investments. You may spend more to acquire something of higher intrinsic value but once you've used it it's still used goods. Personal Finance. Fixed Income Essentials. Money Market Account. Your Money. Your Practice. Popular Courses. Investing Investing Essentials. Key Takeaways Stocks, real estate, and precious metals are all ownership investments. The buyer hopes that they will increase in value over time.

A lack of metacognition — or thinking about thinking — is also a major driver, making people simply overconfident. The good news is that critical thinking is a learned skill. To help people get better at it, I recently started the nonprofit Reboot Foundation. Cultivating these three key habits of mind go a long way in helping you become better at an increasingly desired skill in the job market.

I once visited dozens of stores of a retail chain, posing as a shopper. I soon discovered that the company had presumed that its customers had far more disposable income than they really had. This erroneous belief made the company overprice its clothing. They would have made millions more each year if they had sold lower-priced shirts and pants. Imagine going through your day asking yourself: Is the sky really blue? The first step in questioning assumptions, then, is figuring out when to question assumptions.

Turns out, a questioning approach is particularly helpful when the stakes are high. So if you are in a discussion about long-term company strategy upon which years of effort and expense will be based, be sure to ask basic questions about your beliefs: How do you know that business will increase? What does the research say about your expectations about the future of the market? Another way to question your assumptions is to consider alternatives.

You might ask: What if our clients changed? What if our suppliers went out of business? These sorts of questions help you gain new and important perspectives that help hone your thinking.

Years ago, I took on the task of turning around the division of a large lingerie company. The growth of one of its major product lines had been declining for years, Identify These Three Pieces And What Links Them (Besides The Obvious). No one could figure out why.

It turned out that the company had made the reasoning mistake of over-generalization, drawing a sweeping conclusion based on limited or insufficient evidence. Namely, the company believed that all of their international customers had similar preferences in lingerie. So it shipped the same styles of brassieres to every store across Europe. When my team started talking to staff and consumers, we realized that customers in different countries reported very distinct tastes and preferences.

British women, for example, tended to buy lacy bras in Identify These Three Pieces And What Links Them (Besides The Obvious) colors. Italian women preferred beige bras, with no lace.

And those in the United States led the world in sports bra purchases. For this lingerie company, improving their reasoning helped the firm dramatically improve its bottom line.

The good news is that the formal practice of logic dates back at least 2, years to Aristotle. Over those two millennia, logic has demonstrated its merit by reaching sound conclusions. Ask yourself: Is the argument supported at every point by evidence?

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