Perhaps the biggest job that any investor has is managing risk. If you take too much, you could be flirting with disaster; if you take too little, you could cheat yourself out of the returns you need to take care of yourself, your family and your heirs. Let's see how to get this important equation right.

Most economists agree that we’ve now been in a recession for a year. So now the question is, what sectors of the economy are going to be the “ones to be in” when things turn upward.

Certain sectors will lead us out of this mess and you need to know which ones they are so that you can invest in stocks that will go up as the economy improves. This way you will get an “earlier start” than others in the recovery of your account balance which means you will get in before stock prices start going up.

This modern portfolio theory statistic measures a fund's volatility relative to a broad benchmark, commonly the S&P 500 index. Although betas are normally associated with stocks, they are also used for bonds.

Dividend reinvestment plans are custom-made for long-term buy-and-hold investors. Instead of sending participating investors cash dividends, the company applies those dividends to the purchase of additional company shares.

There are several advantages to stock market investors who participate: Dividend payments are put to work, transaction costs are eliminated or held to a minimum, and the additional shares are purchased gradually over time—an easy-to-implement form of dollar cost averaging.

Here are several tips on how to get started investing and begin building your wealth.

• Successful Investing Tip #1: First build up and maintain a cash reserve to meet short-term emergencies and other liquidity needs.
• Successful Investing Tip #2: Try to develop an overall investment strategy that you are aiming for, even if you can't implement the strategy immediately.
• Successful Investing Tip #3: Select mutual funds that meet your investment strategy first; use the minimum initial investment as a secondary consideration.