Like everyone else, you have financial goals. To help achieve these goals, you may need to invest — and when you invest, you’ll need to take on some risk.

But the more you understand this risk, and the better you are at managing it, the greater your potential for staying invested for the long term.

To begin, then, take a look at these terms:

• Risk tolerance — Your risk tolerance is essentially your comfort level with taking risk.

For example, if you have a high tolerance for risk, you may be comfortable investing aggressively. Conversely, if you tend to be risk-averse, you might lean toward more conservative investment vehicles that offer greater protection of principal.

• Required risk — While the term “required risk” may sound odd, it is actually an integral component of your ability to invest successfully.

Basically, your required risk is the level of risk necessary to help you achieve your investment goals. The higher the return necessary to reach those goals, the more potential risk you’ll need to assume.

As you invest, you’ll need to balance these two aspects of risk.

For example, what might happen if you have a low risk tolerance, leading you toward “safer,” low-growth investments, but your goal is to retire early? For most people, this goal requires them to invest in vehicles that offer significant growth potential, such as stocks. And, as you know, investing in stocks entails risk — specifically, the risk that your stocks will lose value. So in this situation, your risk tolerance — the fact that you are risk-averse — is going to collide with your required risk level, the amount of risk you are going to need to take (by investing in stocks) to achieve your goal of early retirement.

When such a collision occurs, you have two choices. First, you could “stretch” your risk tolerance and accept the need to take on riskier investments in exchange for the growth potential you will require. Your other choice is to stay within your risk tolerance and adjust your ultimate goal — which, in this example, may mean accepting a later retirement date.

Obviously, this is a personal decision. However, you may have more flexibility than you might have imagined.

For instance, you might feel that you should be risk-averse because you have seen so many fluctuations in the financial markets. But if you have many decades to go until you retire, you actually do have time to recover from short-term losses, which means you may be able to reasonably handle more volatility.

On the other hand, once you’re retired, you won’t have as many years to bounce back from market downturns, so you’ll have less “risk capacity” than you did when you were younger.

In any case, by balancing your risk tolerance and your required risk level — and by understanding your risk capacity — you can be better prepared to take the emotion out of investing.

When investors let their emotions get the better of them, they can make mistakes such as chasing “hot” stocks or selling quality investments due to temporary price drops.

By having a clear sense of what risk really entails, however, you may be able to avoid costly detours — and stick with your long-term investment strategy.

This article was written by Edward Jones on behalf of your Edward Jones financial adviser.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: FINANCIAL FOCUS: Seek to balance 'risk tolerance' and 'required risk'

CRESTVIEW — Like many people's most treasured belongings, it’s not the object's value but sentimental attachment that makes it dear.

In the case of Barbara Adams’ pendant, which she lost Tuesday, it’s also the history behind the piece. It was formed from rings once owned by the mother of one of Crestview’s most prominent early residents and mayors.

The late Purl Adams served many offices in Crestview’s earliest years, but his mother, Alma Elizabeth Moore Adams, never had the chance to watch her son’s rise to regional importance. She died of pneumonia when he was just 6 weeks old.

“Mr. Purl had kept all of his mother’s rings,” Barbara Adams said. “When Purl Junior and I were going to get married, Mr. Purl took all those rings — there were about five of them — and gave them to me. They just fit my fingers.”

RINGS TO PENDANT

Barbara Adams wore her late grandmother-in-law’s rings for many years, but over the decades, they grew brittle. Not wishing to have one break and get lost, she found a way to preserve the treasures.

“I said, ‘I know what I’ll do: I’ll have all these rings melted down and I’ll make a pendant out of it, and put one of the diamonds in the center of it,’” Adams said.

The rings' gold yielded about an inch wide — “not huge, just kind of medium sized” — round pendant, with a “beautiful diamond in the middle,” Adams said.

“People in the store or in church would say, ‘That’s the prettiest necklace,’” she said.

When she returned home from running Tuesday errands in town, she realized the pendant was no longer hanging from the necklace.

“I’ve hunted all through the house and all the places I went to Tuesday — the different little stores and the parking lots I stopped in,” Adams said.

“That was one of my most special pieces of jewelry,” she said. “I know things happen in life that we have to stand, but I hope somebody might find it somewhere.”

HOW TO HELP

Anyone who finds a pendant around the First United Methodist Church area on Texas Parkway and Eighth Avenue, in the downtown area near FAMU's College of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Woodruff Avenue, or in Northwood Plaza shopping center's north section, can contact Barbara Adams at 682-0739.

Email News Bulletin Staff Writer Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Missing jewelry has historic attachment to Crestview forefather

CRESTVIEW — Schola Cantorum's Christmas concert on Wednesday drew 50 people, its largest Crestview area audience to date.

Over the years, the Northwest Florida State College-based Schola Cantorum has stayed faithful to its north county audience, playing even when audience members could be counted on one’s own digits.

The group's performances have plenty of variety. 

 “Some of it's very old and some of it is very new, and some of it that’s very new is based on very old text,” Schola director John Leatherwood said of the concert’s selections.

Highlights from Wednesday's concert included the traditional “Masters In This Hall,” Uma Jolly’s solo on Robert Farrell’s “Oh, Sleep Now, Holy Baby,” and J. William Greene’s contemporary “Gates and Doors,” featuring soloist Sara Florence.

Robert Lehman performed the traditional Irish “Wexford Carol," and "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” included the evening’s oldest text “but probably the most current setting,” Leatherwood said.

The concert concluded with two American spirituals, “Glory to the Newborn King,” featuring a solo by Greg Parry, and “Go, Tell it on the Mountain."

Carolyn Schlatter provided piano accompaniment, with Carole Hayes on violin and Robin Horne on flute.

Email News Bulletin Arts Editor Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Schola Cantorum's Christmas performance draws largest audience

Warren Buffett, the “Oracle from Omaha,” is considered one of the most successful investors in history.

Yet while the investment world may seem complex, Mr. Buffett’s advice is actually pretty simple. Here are a few Buffett quotes, along with some suggestions on putting them to use:

•“Whether we’re talking about socks or

stocks, I like buying quality merchandise when it is marked down.”

Essentially, this means you should look for good investment vehicles whose price may have dropped.

A “bear” market tends to drag down many stocks — even those with strong fundamentals and favorable prospects. These stocks might then be considered “bargains.”

One way to determine whether a stock is “expensive” or “cheap” is by looking at its price-to-earnings ratio (P/E). For example, if Company “A” has a share price of $20 and earnings per share of $4, then it has a P/E of 5. On the other hand, if Company “B” has the same share price of $20, but has earnings per share of $2, its P/E would be 10. So it would be considered more expensive than Company “A.”

Be aware, though, that the P/E ratio works better as a measure of cost when you are comparing two companies in the same industry.

• “Time is the friend of the wonderful business, the enemy of the mediocre.”

Be prepared to own quality stocks for the long term; over time, your confidence may be rewarded. On the other hand, if an investment is not of high quality, its flaws will be revealed over the years.

• “If investors insist on trying to time their participation in equities, they should try to be fearful when others are greedy and greedy only when others are fearful.”

Trying to “time” the market — that is, attempting to buy when prices are low and sell when prices are high — is a difficult task. Too many people do just the opposite: They try to “cut their losses” by selling when the market is down and then go after the “hot” investment whose price may already be as high as it’s going to go. Mr. Buffett clearly is not in favor of a market timing approach, and those who try to do it, he says, are probably better off by going against the crowd. Keep in mind, though, that even when holding investments rather than trying to time the market, investing in equities does involve risk, including potential loss of principal.

• “When we own portions of outstanding businesses with outstanding managements, our favorite holding period is forever.”

When should you sell good investments? Never, according to Mr. Buffett. And while this endless holding period may not be possible for all of us, you get the idea: the longer you keep a good investment, the better off you may be when you do sell.

“The line separating investment and speculation, which is never bright and clear, becomes blurred still further when most market participants have recently enjoyed triumphs. Nothing sedates rationality like large doses of effortless money.”

The lesson here? Be an investor, not a speculator. A long run-up in the market can increase your wealth, but it may also make you prone to risky behavior if you think that all your investments will rise indefinitely.

As an investor, you may well want to consider Mr. Buffett’s ideas — after all, they’ve sure worked well for him.

This article was written by Edward Jones on behalf of your Edward Jones financial adviser. 

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: FINANCIAL FOCUS: What we can learn from Warren Buffett

CRESTVIEW — The Schola Cantorum community choir, based at Northwest Florida State College, performs its Christmas concert “The Marvel of This Night” in Crestview this evening.

From the opening “Bells at Speyer” to the American spiritual “Go, Tell It on the Mountain,” the 15-voice choir presents a program of sacred and secular, traditional and contemporary Christmas music.

The group is directed by John Leatherwood, a member of NWFSC’s performing arts faculty, who took the concert’s title from composer Carl Schalk’s lyrical “Before the Marvel of This Night.”

Familiar selections include the 14th-century German carol “In Dulci Jubilo,” the traditional Irish “The Wexford Carol,” and “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel.”

Schola Cantorum will also perform the traditional “Masters in This Hall” carol, released by Mannheim Steamroller on their 2012 album “Christmas Song,” and two movements from Richard Shephard’s “Mass of the Nativity.”

Accompanists include Carolyn Schlatter on piano, Carole Hayes on violin and Robin Horne on flute. Admission is free, and donations are accepted.

Last week, the group performed “The Marvel of This Night” at St. Simon’s on the Sound in Fort Walton Beach, and will perform its concluding concert 7 p.m. Dec. 17 at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Shalimar.

WANT TO GO?

WHAT:"The Marvel of This Night," a program of sacred and secular, traditional and contemporary Christmas music.

WHEN: 7 p.m. Dec. 10

WHERE: First Presbyterian Church of Crestview, State Road 85 and Courthouse Terrace

COST: Free, donations accepted

Email News Bulletin Arts Editor Brian Hughes, follow him on Twitter or call 850-682-6524.

This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: ‘The Marvel of This Night’ concert this evening in Crestview