What is an Investment?

Investment is the investing of money or capital in order to gain profitable returns, as interest, income, or appreciation in value. [1] It is related to saving or deferring consumption. Investment is involved in many areas of the economy, such as business management and finance no matter for households, firms, or governments. An investment involves the choice by an individual or an organization such as a pension fund, after some analysis or thought, to place or lend money in a vehicle, instrument or asset, such as property, commodity, stock, bond, financial derivatives (e.g. futures or options), or the foreign asset denominated in foreign currency, that has certain level of risk and provides the possibility of generating returns over a period of time.[2]

References
1{{cite book investment is the employment of fund on assets with the aim of earning income or capital appreciation. last = Sullivan first = arthur authorlink = Arthur O' Sullivan coauthors = Steven M. Sheffrin title = Economics: Principles in action publisher = Pearson Prentice Hall date = 2003 location = Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458 pages = 271 url = http://www.pearsonschool.com/index.cfm?locator=PSZ3R9&PMDbSiteId=2781&PMDbSolutionId=6724&PMDbCategoryId=&PMDbProgramId=12881&level=4 doi = id = isbn = 0-13-063085-3}}
2 Graham, Benjamin, and David Dodd (1951). Security Analysis. McGraw-Hill Book Company. ISBN 0071448209