Many clinicians turn to investing money as a means of achieving additional financial success outside the realm of medicine. Unfortunately, as founder of Career Money Moves, LLC, Atelisha “Lisha” Taylor, MD, MPH points out, a fair share of clinicians actually don’t know how to effectively invest their money. Dr. Taylor successfully employs six investment types and recommends that other clinicians consider following suit.
Dr. Taylor chooses to invest in index mutual funds, a collection of stocks or bonds characterized by predefined standards that fit into an organized index. With the benefit of investing in all U.S. stocks via a single fund, the total stock market index fund allows clinicians to invest their money without requiring the knowledge of how each company might make out at any given point.
Dr. Taylor prefers to also include the total international index fund in her investment portfolio, allowing her to further diversify by taking part in the global economy. Depending on the year, sometimes international companies have brought in bigger profits for Dr. Taylor than have the solely U.S. based total stock market index fund companies.
Another fund that Dr. Taylor recommends investing in is the small cap value index fund. Investing in such funds involves the mindset that smaller companies have more rapidly paced growth potential than some giant companies like Amazon, which struggle to rapidly grow because of their size. In other words, smaller and lesser-known companies might offer investors a faster and bigger capitalization on growth. Dr. Taylor currently invests 10% of her money in the small cap value index fund.
Dr. Taylor also invests 10% of her money in a real-estate investment trust index fund, which automatically places the investor’s money in low-risk various real estate and housing options.
According to Dr. Taylor, an excellent strategy for lowering investment risk is to put money in a total bond index fund. Whereas the prices and values of stock-based index funds can change on a yearly basis, a total bond index fund is more stable, automatically placing investor money in various US bonds
