Investment means the acquisition and creation of resources for use in the production process: purpose of investment is the increase of the capital goods.

In private companies and public sector investment is needed to acquire or produce capital goods that can be physical (such as plant, machinery, sheds), intangible (such as research or advertising campaigns designed to produce a return of image, resources to be used in the production process as raw materials) or financial. There are also particular investments (in a broad sense) that can be considered as part of the social budget, as investment in staff training or in less polluting production systems.
Companies consider investment in terms of capital that it requires, the cost of various sources of capital, to decide between different plans for the amortization of debt incurred to make the investment and between different investments that generate different financial flows.

The investment involves some risk related to the possibility that the return on investment (R.O.I.) can be variable, depending on a number of uncertain elements (trend in securities, exchange trends, risks of a different outcome than what estimated or riskes for the occurrence of unforeseen negative elements).
To reduce the risk, investors diversify investments by investing in different types of securities (options, equities, bonds), stocks of different companies, sectors, currency and market type.