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- Shares 101
- Roadmap to Wealth
- How to Select my Shares
- Understanding Investing
- Understanding Markets
- Analysing a Company
- Managing my Portfolio
- Investing in Krugerrands
- Calculators
- Shares FAQ
- Krugerrands FAQ
- Share Swarm
What are asset classes?
The term asset class refers to a set of related investments that have similar risk and return characteristics. For example, the cash category (money market accounts, bank deposits etc.) represents a group of investments that have the same characteristics, subject to the same laws and regulations; have similar levels of risk and respond similarly to market conditions. The same thing is true for the other asset classes.
| Asset Class | Brief description |
| Cash | Cash includes investments such as money market accounts, bank deposits and fixed deposits |
| Shares | The investor buys a part of a company and can expect to receive a part of the company's profits. See a detailed discussion in section Share market environment |
| Bonds | A bond is a loan made by an investor (bondholder) to a company or to the country's government (bond issuer). The bond issuer promises to pay regular interest to the bondholder and to repay the original investment on a set date in the future. |
| Property | Property investment could be in the form of your own home or through a buy-to let property. |
Generally, the best time to learn about investments is when you're young. Investments grow with time and the earlier you start, the better. A young person usually has a higher risk tolerance (an ability to handle declines in his or her portfolio) and can tolerate volatility in his or her investment portfolio in the short-term; therefore a young person should keep a large percentage of his or her investments in shares for best returns.
Whereas...
Generally, when you start to approach retirement the focus moves towards protecting your investments. Therefore, an older person should keep a large percentage of his or her investments in less volatile investment vehicles such as cash, bonds etc. or balance share investments with other less volatile investments.