In these troubled financial times we all could do with finding an investment strategy that is proven to work. It is so easy to invest money at totally the wrong time during these periods, leading to losses entering the thousands. So what is the answer? Should we steer clear of stocks and shares at the moment and put our money into more safer havens such as deposit accounts?

The credit crunch is hitting hard, there is no doubt more bad news to come, I personally feel that these are the periods where a great deal of profit can be made, by investing wisely and by having the correct strategy.

All of what I am about to write is my personal investment strategy, it is not advice as I am not qualified to offer this, it is merely the way in which I attempt to make money out of stocks and shares.

In these turbulent markets it can be extremely risky to investment huge lump sums into one stock or fund, unless you are able to do so on a regular basis. At the end of a twelve month period you could well be looking at some quite severe losses. I would also be looking to spread the risk by investing in a range of funds, rather than just the one.

Each month I save a set amount into a number of different funds under the wrapper of an ISA. At the moment these funds are as follows:

The Latin American Fund
The Asian Fund
The China Fund
The Emerging Markets Fund
The UK Smaller Companies Fund

As you can see this is quite a broad range, some would say that these areas are quite risky, China for example. By investing in a number of regions and on a monthly basis (gaining the benefit of pound cost averaging) I personally believe that the risks are quite low. This strategy has proven to be very profitable for me over the last eight years.