If you are reading through this article, then you are most certainly looking for investment options. Mentioned here are all the important details pertaining to investment securities and how it can benefit you. In simple terms, investment securities is nothing but the documents which represent that you have lent money to certain businesses, government agencies, public authorities or real estate agencies (generally termed as an issuer), in the interest of making more returns. The issuer discusses the interest rate he will pay you, which could be a fixed percentage of the principal amount invested or the percentage of distributable profits made by the company. There are basically four types of investment securities which are as follows: 1. Bonds: Bond is a type of security for a certain period of time, which states that the issuer will pay a predetermined percentage of the principal amount invested by an individual. This interest amount can be paid periodically or as a lump sum amount along with the principal amount at the time of maturity of the bond. Meaning, bonds generate fixed amount of income in the form of interest and thus becomes less volatile. 2. Commodities: Commodities are nothing but everything we use in our daily lives. Investing in commodities involves buying and selling goods. Let us consider an example to better understand the commodities investment. Let us suppose you bought gold a year ago as an investment and want to sell it now. You will sell the gold at today’s rate, and not at the rate that you purchased a year ago. This is quite volatile, since the rate of gold can either increase or decrease in a years time. Trading commodities is quite popular among active investors who are willing to risk the market volatility to profit from global demand. 3. Equities: An equity is also know as a share, which represents the percentage of ownership you buy from a company. This type of investment in quite common among the general public. The returns from this type of investment can either be in the form of dividends, which is nothing but the distributable profit shared by the issuer or in the form of a rise in price of the share purchased, which directly adds to the capital amount invested. This type of investment is again volatile in nature. 4. Derivatives: As the name suggests, derivatives are derived from the price of underlying direct securities, such as shares, commodities, bonds, currencies etc. This also is volatile since it is directly dependent on underlying assets. Where there is money, there is always a risk of fraud involved. There are many ways one can be cheated while making an investment, and the returns can be lost along with the principal amount. The most common and obvious method followed is providing false information. There are many types of securities fraud, some are mentioned below: 1. Corporate Fraud: This can either be in the form of corporate misconduct or dummy corporations. 2. Internet Fraud: This is achieved mostly by spamming. The investment newsletters, bulletin boards that feature companies and recommend stocks can offer fraudulent information. 3. Insider Trading: This method is adopted by company officers, directors and owners who have the company’s non-public information and use it to trade stocks. This information, in most cases, have been misrepresented. 4. Ponzi schemes: This is an investment fraud in which an existing investor’s returns are paid out from the investments made by new investors, thereby leading to losses when the issuer flees with all of the money or when the issuer fails to gather more investors. Hence it is very important and crucial to be aware of the current trends of investments. In case of a fraud, the investor has every right to sue the issuer in case the information was not correctly and clearly represented.