Perhaps the most widely practiced of all the strategies available. But there are several versions of Buy & Hold. Choosing the one that's right for you takes a little research.

The next step in the evolution of your investment strategy is to move from a pure buy & hold approach to a modified buy & hold approach. The term of art for this strategy is Dynamic Asset Allocation. What does it mean?

It means that, rather than keeping the same asset allocation over the course of your investment time horizon, you change your mix of assets to reflect your age, your financial resources, and the condition of the market itself.

It's more pro-active than a simple buy & hold strategy. It's more flexible, more adaptable, and it requires more time and effort to implement and maintain.

When you are starting out as a new investor, you presumably have a long road ahead before you will need to start withdrawing money to fund your expenses. Because of this long time frame, you can afford to take more risk than an investor who is close to retirement.

An entire cottage industry sprang up to address this dynamic, called the Target Date Retirement Fund. Essentially, a target date retirement fund takes care of all the details for you, by changing the mix of assets and the amount of risk exposure you have as the years go by. It's a great solution for investors who are either too busy to manage this process by themselves, or are just not interested in dealing with investment issues.

The problem is that these are cookie-cutter solutions that may not work for your specific circumstances. They have been criticized for being too conservative at the beginning and too aggressive at the end.

An alternate approach would be for you to create your own, custom-tailored target date retirement fund. You set the parameters, and you are in control of everything that happens.

It will be more demanding of your time, but not by that much. You will need to review and rebalance your portfolio once per year, which should only take an hour or two. Not a big deal.

Do you have the time and the motivation to try and beat the market? Then this strategy is for you. It's a tough road, but if excitement is your thing, saddle up and take the ride.

There are dozens of ways to implement this active approach to investing. If you are in an industry that you know inside out, you could buy and sell companies that you understand better than most. 

You could try factor-based investing, which screens the universe of stocks, looking for a certain characteristic like rapid growth, deep value, or high quality. It's not as complicated as it sounds, and it has proven to be a successful strategy over the last 20 years.

There is a segment of the investment world that preys on gullible and unsuspecting investors. They are expert at crafting stories of instant wealth and can't-lose investments. But they are simply flim-flam men.

For example, have you ever received a mass mailing from a newsletter seller who traffics in low-priced penny stocks? There's a huge market for this strategy, and you should avoid it. The risks are enormous and the rewards are few and far between.

Another example is day trading seminars. The pitch is very compelling. Join us for a free seminar and we'll teach you how to make a ton of money with our exclusive trading system.

It turns out to be just a sales pitch for a very expensive training program. You will spend thousands of dollars and come away with nothing useful. Buyer beware.

There are other scams out there, and the best way to avoid getting caught up in the web of deception is to ask these two questions:

If this trading system is as profitable as they claim, why are they selling it to retail investors instead of using it themselves to get rich?

And why did they have to trick me into attending a sales presentation instead of just showing me what they were selling up front?