Invest in transparent and fair products

I advocate straight forward products - equity, bond, currency, deposits - that are transparent and fair to consumers.

It is all right to take risk, such as investing in equity or foreign currency, provided that you get both the upside and downside of the investment.

Here are the methods to reduce risk:
> diversify, i.e. invest in a fund containing many investments
> invest for the long term, to average out the good and bad years

You can reduce the risk (through diversification and long term averaging) and get the higher return from equity or foreign currency.

I advise investors to avoid all types of structured products (e.g. capital guaranteed, credit linked notes, dual currency investments), as they are structured to hide high expenses and profit margins and give a poor return to the investor.

I also advise investors to avoid investing in most types of life insurance products (i.e. whole life, endowment, investment linked policies) for the same reasons (i.e. high charges, poor return to policyholders).

You should avoid all types of investment products (i.e. bank or insurance products) that are marketed to you by sales representatives, as they have high charges to pay the distributor and to make profit for the product creator.