Strategic investing occurs when the investor has a written plan in place that they follow as a guide in order to reach a specific investing goal. Traditionally, strategic investing involves the help of a professional financial advisor, financial analyst or other financial advisor or professional. For individuals or consumers that have experience and knowledge in investing, they too may be able to take on a strategic investing approach.
The first step in strategic investing is to determine the goal for investing. Determining the goal allows the investor to figure out how long they have to invest to reach their goal, how risky they can get with investing the money and give them an idea of some of the types of investments to put their money in.
In short, strategic investing is a very planned and well thought out way of investing money to reach a specific goal. Strategic investing is not a process where the investor puts the money in the investments, leaves the money there and then waits until it is time to take the money out of the account to use for the purpose the account was created for in the first place.
Strategic investing is an ongoing process. Whether it is an individual consumer that is managing their own investment portfolio or a professional financial advisor managing the investments, staged evaluation of the account and individual investments is necessary. How often the account undergoes evaluation depends on the time-frame for reaching the investment goals.
If the strategic investing involves a plan where the money is not needed until the individual requires it in 30 years, then the account may be re-evaluated once or twice per year. If the investment time-frame is much shorter, such as five years, then the individual investor or the financial advisor may choose to keep a more daily, weekly or monthly check on the investments.
Strategic investing is proactive investing. It involves putting a plan in place and then following the plan. It then involves tweaking or making changes to the plan, as needed, to get the account back on track to reach the goal that was set for the investment account. Strategic investing involves instituting changes in personal situation, economic situations or the situations of the investments where the money sits as part of the decision making process to make changes, or not make changes, that keep the investment plan moving toward reaching the goal.