Best Low-Risk Investments

Life is full of risks. Walk out your front door, and there’s a small risk that—KABLAM!–you’ll be vaporized by a falling meteor. Unfortunately, you will never be able to fully eliminate risk from your life, but when it comes to investing, there are ways that you can reduce your risk to the point that it will be as likely you’ll be killed by space junk as lose your money.

Background to low-risk investments

Truly low-risk investments are fantastic to preserve capital but by and large, they’re not going to provide particularly robust returns on your investment. Like they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. Those with long investment horizons should look at devoting a substantial part of their portfolio towards stocks, which historically have provided great returns for those willing to ride out the volatility. Lots of investors, however, don’t have the luxury of time and need to preserve capital rather than grow it. Low risk investments are ideal for the kind of investors that understand that stuffing cash in a mattress is not a sound strategy–if mice don’t eat the cash, inflation will essentially do the same thing by reducing its value over the long term.

Low-risk investments are ideal for a variety of investors, like…

• Someone savings for a big ticket item in the near future, like a down payment on a car or house, or university tuition.

• Someone who is either retired or nearing retirement and will need to access their funds soon.

• Someone who is creating an emergency fund with enough money to pay their expenses for a period of three to six months in case of unexpected job loss, health issues, or other unforeseen events.

Best low-risk investments

Understanding that the word “best” is a subjective term, and that there’s really no such thing as one size fits all answers to complicated financial questions, we’re going to provide you with as attractive an array of investments as you’ll find in the not-very-sexy world of low-risk investments.

High interest savings accounts

This is about as safe an option as you’ll ever find. The high interest savings account has much in common with the savings account into which you might have deposited lemonade stand earnings or birthday money as a kid that might earn you a few pennies a month. The government guarantees savings deposits up to $100,000 should your bank go bust. Typically, banks have offered pretty paltry interest rates on savings, but some newer players on the financial scene have disrupted the savings account market and may offer interest rates as high as 2% annually. Funds in savings accounts, unlike some of the options discussed below, are totally liquid and can be withdrawn at any time with no penalty.

Money market fund

Money market funds are low risk mutual funds that invest in high quality, short-term government and corporate bonds. They are considered safe places to park money, however, unlike savings accounts or GICs, they are not guaranteed by the the government in case of bank failure. Because, like other mutual funds, money market funds carry with them management expense ratios, they’ve of late fallen out of favor with personal finance experts since their returns will not often rise much above the cost of holding them. Stable value funds . Money market funds should not be confused with money market accounts, which are hybrid checking/savings accounts common in the US.

Stable value funds

Stable value funds are a type of investment commonly available in 401(k)s, other defined pension plans as well as 529 education plans. Stable value funds are intended to counteract the volatility of other investments and indeed, during 2008’s global financial crisis were the only part of 401(k)s that produced positive returns. Stable value funds are not as liquid as many other low risk investments because they’ll often come with a required holding period of between six months and a year. Stable value funds invest primarily in the most high quality short and intermediate term government and corporate bonds. So what makes stable value funds different from run of the mill bond funds? They are very similar, but unlike bond funds they’re insured by the issuer so that fund investors are guaranteed to never lose capital or interest. In the last decade, stable value funds have offered about 2 to 3 percent annual returns.

Term deposits or GICs

Term deposits (also known as guaranteed investment certificates or GICs), are a cousin of the savings account, but not as liquid. While term deposits generally offer a higher interest rate than savings accounts, they also require depositors to commit to a specific period of time, known as a “term,” that may be as short as a few months and as long as several years. Typically with term deposits, the longer the term, the higher the interest rate. At the end of this period, the term deposit will mature and you’ll be able to access your principal and interest. Should you need to break open a term deposit before the end of that term, you’ll lose interest and may be assessed an early withdrawal penalty, so term deposits are only good for patient types who won’t need to access their funds for a period of time. Like savings accounts, term deposits of five or fewer years are guaranteed by the Canada Deposit Insurance Corporation for up to $100,000 should the bank fail.

Corporate bonds

Just as the government issues bonds to cover their obligations, corporations to the same in order to cover the cost of variety of things such as business expansion, capital improvements, buying back their own stock, or paying dividends to stockholders. Corporate bonds are classified by their maturity dates. Short term bonds mature in fewer than three years, medium term mature in four to ten years, and long term bonds mature in more than ten years. Generally, the further out the maturity date, the higher the risk and the more they’ll pay bondholders. Bonds are also rated by independent agencies according to how likely it is that they’ll have the cash to pay back their bondholders. Bonds with at minimum BBB ratings are called “investment grade” bonds. So those investors primarily interested in the lowest possible risk might look towards short term investment grade bonds, though they in many cases won’t pay much, if anything, more than similarly safe government bonds.

Dividend paying stocks

Dividends are one of the more dependable parts of equity investing; they’re a regularly-issued taste of a company’s corporate profits paid on a per-share basis regardless of whether a stock happens to be up or down. For this reason, many investors seek out long term positions in stocks with dividend yields and depend on the income dividends offer to finance their lifestyles, especially in retirement. But there are many pitfalls that can befall dividend investors, and any stock investment comes with significant risks, so at the very least, anyone considering a dividend-centric financial plan should read this article, How to Invest in Dividend Stocks.

Low-risk investment portfolio

Generally, investment portfolios range from very aggressive all the way down to conservative, a scale that generally corresponds to the mix of equities (stocks, which tend to be volatile) to fixed income (bonds, which are a lot less so.) An investor seeking to play it safe may decide to seek out an automated investing service that offers conservative portfolios that are overwhelmingly tilted to fixed income (like 70% or more.) The portfolios offered by the best robo-advisors will provide ample diversification through stock and bond ETFs that will maximize upside while minimizing risk.