Are Your Investments Protected?

Are you one of millions of people who have made financial investments? If so do you know if any of your investments are protected. When your money is in your bank account you know that through FDIC you money is insured and protected in case of theft or fraud. When you make stocks, bonds and other investments do you know that they are safe? When you hear the term Investment Protection, this is a rather broad statement and it refers to a type of guarantee or insurance that promises that investments may not be lost through fraud or other activities. New York State has a Dept called the Investment Protection Bureau that ha seen appointed to protect the public from fraudulent activities by monitoring and limiting investment.

Before you can call for investment protection, it may be a good idea to really understand what it means. Some first time investors think that if they lose money on a stock that is losing its value they can ask for investment protection to stop them from losing money. However this is not the case, if your stock is losing money then you can call your broker and have words with him. When you are going or open an account in a local brokerage house, make sure that they are a member of SIPC, which stands for Securities Investor Protection Corp.

One of the roles of the SIPC is to protect your investment in the event that the brokerage goes into bankruptcy. In case this happens, the investor will receive all cash or stocks that were put into investments within their firm. If you have assets within the brokerage, you have to file a documented complaint in order to retrieve those assets. It is really only cash and stocks that are really protected under the SIPC.

Most of us have seen FDIC on all of our banks, this stands for Federal Deposit Insurance Corp, and this is a separate agency of the United States Government that insures the majority of bank and savings associations. The FDIC will insure $ 100,000 of your deposit at each place where FDIC is available. Some things covered by the FDIC are:

• Deposits made in the United States
• All deposits such as savings deposits, checking and CD's
• Cashier's Checks, Officer's Checks and Loan Dispersement
• Certified Checks, Letter of Credit and Traveler's Checks

Not covered are:

• Annuities
• Mutual Funds
• Stocks
• Bonds
• US Treasury Securities
• Municipal Bonds
• Government securities

When you are about to make an investment, ask your broker to explain what happens if situations come up and your investments are in danger of being lost, how are your stocks protected. What kind of protection does their brokerage firm offer? These are things that you need to consider when you are investing with a company. Remember it is your money and you want to make it last as long as you can in order to make a profit.