Is my investment protected? (2024)

FAQs

How is my investment protected? ›

Before you invest, find out if FSCS would protect your money if the investment firm failed. We can only protect you if the firm was authorised by the Prudential Regulation Authority or the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and if your investment was a regulated product.

Protected Investments (PPIs) Principal Protected Investments. combine some of the features of a fixed-income security, such as return of principal at maturity, with the potential for capital appreciation that you get from equities.

They must also have a certain amount of liquidity on hand, thus allowing them to cover funds in these cases. What this means is that even if you have more than $500,000 in one brokerage account, chances are high that you won't lose any of your money even if the broker is forced into liquidation.

If you want your funds insured by the FDIC, simply place your funds in a deposit account at an FDIC-insured bank and make sure that your deposit does not exceed the insurance limit for that ownership category.

The Depositor Compensation Scheme (DCS) will protect your money if a bank, building society, credit union or finance company fails.

A protected fund is a type of mutual fund that promises to return at least some portion of the initial investment to an investor. The protected initial investment, plus some capital gain, will be returned as long as the investor holds the original investment until the end of the contractual term.

Investors can preserve their capital by diversifying holdings over different asset classes and choosing assets that are non-correlating. Put options and stop-loss orders can stem the bleeding when the prices of your investments start to drop. Dividends buttress portfolios by increasing your overall return.

The Securities Investor Protection Corporation (SIPC) protects customers if their brokerage firm fails. Brokerage firm failures are rare. If it happens, SIPC protects the securities and cash in your brokerage account up to $500,000.

How can I check my investment? ›

Common types of securities include bonds, stocks and funds (mutual and exchange-traded). Funds and stocks are the bread-and-butter of investment portfolios. Billionaires use these investments to ensure their money grows steadily.

Protecting your assets

With our Customer Protection Guarantee, we reimburse you for losses from unauthorized activity in your accounts. We also participate in asset protection programs such as FDIC and SIPC to help provide the best service possible. See our protection guarantee and account coverage.

And the SIPC protections are activated in the rare event that a broker-dealer fails and client assets are missing. In that situation, SIPC provides up to $500,000 worth of protection against any of those missing assets, including $250,000 in cash against uninvested cash balances.

The SEC's Division of Enforcement works to protect Main Street investors by bringing cases against those who commit investment fraud.

Many people use investment products to help buy a home, send children to college, or build a retirement nest egg. But unlike traditional checking or savings accounts, non-deposit investment products are not insured by the FDIC, even if they were purchased from an FDIC-insured bank.