 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Investor" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(March 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this message) |
| Financial market participants |
|---|
 |
| Organisations |
| Terms |
| Part of aseries on | ||||||
| Finance | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||||
| ||||||
Aninvestor is a person orentity that allocatesfinancial capital with the expectation of a futurereturn (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest).[1][2] Through this allocated capital the investor usually purchases some species of property.[3] Types ofinvestments includeequity,debt,securities,real estate,infrastructure,currency,commodity,token, derivatives such as put and calloptions,futures,forwards, etc. This definition makes no distinction between the investors in theprimary andsecondary markets. That is, someone who provides a business with capital and someone who buys a stock are both investors. An investor who owns stock is ashareholder.
There are two types of investors:retail investors andinstitutional investors.[4]
Aretail investor is also known as anindividual investor.[5]
There are several sub-types of institutional investor:
Investors might also be classified according to theirprofiles. In this respect, an important distinctiveinvestor psychology trait isrisk attitude.
Investor protection through government involves regulations and enforcement by government agencies to ensure that market is fair and fraudulent activities are eliminated. An example of a government agency that protects investors is theU.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which works to protect reasonable investors in theUnited States.[1]
Similar protections exist in other countries, including theUnited Kingdom where individual investors have certain protections via theFinancial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS).[7]
Companydividends are paid fromnet income, which has the tax already deducted. Therefore, shareholders are given some respite with a preferential tax rate of 15% on "qualified dividends" in the event of the company being domiciled in the United States. Alternatively, in another country having adouble-taxation treaty with the US, accepted by theInternal Revenue Service (IRS). Non-qualified dividends paid by other foreign companies or entities; for example, those receiving income derived from interest on bonds held by a mutual fund, are taxed at the regular and generally higher rate of income tax. When applied to 2013, this is on a sliding scale up to 39.6%, with an additional 3.8% surtax for high-income taxpayers ($200,000 for singles, $250,000 for married couples).[8]
Afinancier (/fɪnənˈsɪər,fə-,-ˈnæn-/)[9][10] is a person whose primary occupation is either facilitating or directly providing investments to up-and-coming or establishedcompanies andbusinesses, typically involving large sums of money and usually involvingprivate equity andventure capital,mergers and acquisitions,leveraged buyouts,corporate finance,investment banking, or large-scaleasset management. A financier makes money through this process when their investment is paid back with interest,[11] from part of the company's equity awarded to them as specified by the business deal, or a financier can generate income throughcommission, performance, and management fees. A financier can also promote the success of a financed business by allowing the business to take advantage of the financier's reputation.[12] The more experienced and capable the financier is, the more the financier will be able to contribute to the success of the financed entity, and the greater reward the financier will reap.[13] The term, financier, isFrench, and derives fromfinance orpayment.
Financier is someone who handles money. Certain financier avenues require degrees and licenses includingventure capitalists, hedge fund managers, trust fund managers,accountants,stockbrokers,financial advisors, or even publictreasurers. Personal investing on the other hand, has no requirements and is open to all using thestock market or by word-of-mouth requests for money. A financier "will be a specialized financial intermediary in the sense that it has experience inliquidating the type of firm it is lending to".[11]
EconomistEdmund Phelps has argued that the financier plays a role in directing capital to investments that governments and social organizations are constrained from playing:
[T]he pluralism of experience that the financiers bring to bear in their decisions gives a wide range of entrepreneurial ideas a chance for insightful evaluation. And, importantly, the financier and the entrepreneur do not need the state's or social partners' approval. Nor are they accountable later on to such social bodies if the project goes badly, not even to the financier's investors. So projects that would be too opaque and uncertain for the state or social partners to endorse can be undertaken.[14]
The concept of the financier has been distinguished from that of a mere capitalist based on the asserted higher level of judgment required of the financier.[15] However, financiers have also been mocked for their perceived tendency to generate wealth at the expense of others, and without engaging in tangible labor. For example, humoristGeorge Helgesen Fitch described the financier as "a man who can make two dollars grow for himself where one grew for someone else before".[16]
Media related toInvestors at Wikimedia Commons| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Other | |
