The stock market is a place where goods and services are sold every day. People own small slices of a company’s wealth, known as “stocks”, which they can buy, sell, and trade. Owning a stock in a company means owning a small part of that company; the more stocks you own, the bigger slice of the company that you control.

There’s a lot of risk involved in the stock market, and if you’re considering an investment, you should understand how that risk works. One general principle to live by is that you should never risk more money in the stock market than you can afford to lose. People can win big or lose hard in the market depending on the successes and struggles of the businesses they choose to invest in.

If you’re just getting into the market, you should consider hiring the assistance of a professional stock manager. These individuals will assess your current wealth and make suggestions to you based on what money you have and are willing to invest.

Remember that nobody can be certain of the future. Even the most stable companies could experience catastrophic failure, and smaller businesses could make it big at any time. Paying attention to current events and politics will help you understand a little bit more about the way the public is leaning towards one thing or another. If there’s turmoil in the economy, certain stocks will go down, for example.

The stock market is an exciting opportunity to invest money—just know what you’re getting into before you dive in!

The first and most obvious question is how comfortable you feel with managing your own money. If you think that you understand the ins and outs of the situation and feel that you have handled your expenses appropriately in the past, it may be the case that you don’t need an adviser to help you iron out the details of your finances. It’s also completely possible to get good advice without spending money on an adviser—friends, family members, the Internet, and other resources all have a lot of input to offer on things that might help you make a better decision.

That being said, financial advisers do have their benefits. Those who pursue the help of an adviser are said to earn as much as 3% more profit than those who did not. Having an objective outsider with experience in the field taking a look at your finances certainly won’t hurt; the question is simply whether or not it would be worth the cost.

Advisers are most useful at helping you responsibly handle your savings at key points in your career. Setting aside the appropriate amount of savings from your 401(k) while you’re still working greatly benefits you later in life. Advisers are also helpful with deciding how much savings to take out once you are nearing retirement. If you don’t feel fully comfortable managing your money at these important times in your life, consider investing in a financial adviser to move forward with more confidence.

It may be more advisable to consider the fees before the returns. Because of natural and inevitable fluctuations in the market, returns can be very difficult to measure, and it’s much more reliable to base your decisions on how the fees will affect you first. If a fund’s costs are high at present, you can expect them to be high in the future. Low fees, similarly, are more likely to remain low. The same consistency can’t be said for returns; the result of a great risk could push returns to one extreme or to another.

With new requirements on fee disclosures, it will become much easier for investors to evaluate fees for 401(k) funds. More transparent fees will also produce greater competition between providers to offer lower prices.

It is still necessary, of course, to evaluate a fund’s performance and reputation. You want to consider the risks they take and the success they have or have not experienced as a result. Different funds have different things to offer you, and it’s understandable to be hesitant about making a decision. As a general rule, though, you should weigh your means against fees when deciding in the end.