An investor is any person or other entity (such as a firm or mutual fund) who commits capital with the expectation of receiving financial returns. Investors rely on different financial instruments to earn a rate of return and accomplish important financial objectives like building retirement savings, funding a college education, or merely accumulating additional wealth over time.

Investors use different financial instruments to earn a rate of return to accomplish financial goals and objectives.

Investment securities include stocks, bonds, mutual funds, derivatives, commodities, and real estate.

Investors are not a uniform bunch. They have varying risk tolerances, capital, styles, preferences, and time frames. For instance, some investors may prefer very low-risk investments that will lead to conservative gains, such as certificates of deposits and certain bond products.

Investors may also adopt various market strategies. Passive investors tend to buy and hold the components of various market indexes and may optimize their allocation weights to certain asset classes based on rules such as Modern Portfolio Theory's (MPT) mean-variance optimization. Others may be stock pickers who invest based on fundamental analysis of corporate financial statements and financial ratios—these are active investors.

A personal investor can be any individual investing on their own and may take many forms. A personal investor invests their own capital, usually in stocks.

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