Is there such a thing as investing without losing money?

Daniel Kline thinks that when it comes to investing, it's important to realize that risk and reward tend to move in opposite directions. If you take more risks, you run a larger chance of losing your money, but you often have a higher upside.
It's possible to invest without losing money. In the current market, where interest rates are very low, any investment guaranteed to not lose money will have a very small return.
For most people thinking about investing, the goal is to minimize the potential for losses while maximizing how much you might make. Exactly how you do that -- and where you put your money -- depends a lot on what type of investor you are, and what your goals are.

• There is no one answer. A 67-year-old looking to live off his or her investments has different needs from a 22-year-old planning to work about 45 or so years. In addition, someone with a lot of excess income has different needs from someone struggling to make ends meet.
• How to be safe. The safest way to invest without losing money is buying cash equivalents. Money markets, Treasuries, certificates of deposit (CDs), and corporate bonds offer generally stable returns with very limited risk, and in some cases no risk at all. The problem is that safety comes with a price.
• Ask yourself if the stock market safe. IInvesting in individual stocks comes with risks. A company can lose value, or it can even go bankrupt. In the long run, however, the market itself has steadily gone up.
• Take time into consideration. Time is your friend. If you have money you expect to need in the next 12 months, keep it in cash, ideally in an account with no fees that pays interest, even though the amount paid will be tiny. Even that seemingly safe investment runs the risk that your cash will lose buying power because of inflation, but in that scenario, you've lost value but haven't technically lost money. Find out more...

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