Often, investors get so caught up with how much money they expect to make in their portfolio that they forget about protecting what they already have. As an investor, your first priority should be to protect your capital, once that’s sorted out you can focus on putting your money to work for you.

Protecting your property or privacy is a natural instinct. There are many things we do as individuals to protect our property, but one thing very few people do is protect the value of their portfolio. We put our money in the bank or in a safe deposit box, without a second thought to how inflation and market risks will affect its value.

Market risk is a risk you take when you invest in the market. If the particular market you have invested in (stocks, real estate, bonds etc.) crashes, the value of your investment will drop. This risk can be reduced by spreading your money around in different markets, this way you reduce the exposure of your portfolio to any one market. If one or two markets experience a crash, the value of your portfolio will suffer less.

Inflation risk is another risk the value of your portfolio faces. Inflation decreases the buying power of your money. As inflation continues through the years, every $1 you own will be worth less and less, reducing the value of your savings and investments. If you have invested conservatively and have a large amount of your capital in bank accounts, CDs and bonds, even though it will appear that you are making money, with the effect of inflation you may actually be losing money.

Inflation and interest rates affect the Forex market in a pretty predictable way. If one countries interest rate less inflation is higher than another’s there’s a very good chance the value of the currency in that country is going to go up. This occurs as international investors seek to invest their currency where it can gain the most, placing more and more demand on the currency which pushes the value up. You can use this predictable pattern to profit from the Forex market.

Most investors choose a selection of investments from their home country for their portfolio. This does make sense, after all, investing in a market you know little about can add additional risk. There will also be a lot more information available for markets close to home than further away, and the availability of relevant timely information is very important for decision making. The end result however can be that all your entire investment portfolio will be held in a certain currency, if you’re from the U.S most of your investments (the stock market, bonds, real estate) are probably in U.S dollars.

The disadvantage of this is that your portfolio is also exposed to currency risk, if the value of the U.S. dollar goes down, the value of your portfolio also declines. If your home currency is worth less, the price of imported products is likely to go up and your purchasing power for an international holiday will also be less. You can reduce your exposure to currency fluctuations by taking out a hedge in the Forex market.