It's my pleasure to welcome you to a special edition of the Clark Howard Show where instead

of our normal range of topics, we're drilling down to your specific questions about the

proper ways for you to save for retirement.

This is about the concept of investing.

That was not part of what we did for so long, but now is very much a part of what we do

on our show, even though we're not an investment show, just because so many of us are putting

a position where we're forced to make decisions and choices that we were never trained for.

You know, employers eliminating pensions, substituting instead of 401k, and you're like,

what do I do with this thing?

So let me deal with some really simple concepts first.

Investing is when you're putting money into things that in the short term, at least,

you could lose some much, most, or all of what you invest.

So I tend to be all about widely diversified investing where you could have ups and

downs, but you're not going to lose everything.

And over time, you should make a decent return on your money.

Buying individual stocks is something a lot of people love to do, but that's where

the risks are greater.

And the rewards potentially greater too.

You think about somebody who went early into any of the tech companies how amazingly rich

they'd be now from even a small investment.

But none of us are capable before it happens of knowing what those successes are going

to be, only after the fact can you look back.

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