Editorial Policy
Updated Nov. 26, 2024
Our mission is to simplify complex financial information and decisions so that our readers have the confidence to manage every aspect of their financial life. Your financial life is filled with personal decisions and challenges. Whether you are investing as a beginner or expert, planning your retirement, buying a home, studying for an exam in business school, or running a small business, you have questions that need answering.
For over 25 years, we’ve helped hundreds of millions of people do just that. We feel it’s important to share how we go about writing all of the articles that you depend on.
At Investopedia we aspire to provide the highest quality content produced by humans, for humans. It is against our guidelines to publish automatically generated content using AI (artificial intelligence) writing tools such as ChatGPT.
Principles
Empowering: Finance can be complex and intimidating. We provide you with information that you can use with confidence, whatever your level of experience.
Unbiased: From financial product recommendations to the financial implications of government policy we put things in context and provide all the facts. Our information is carefully researched and is not written to support any specific economic or political viewpoint.
Accurate: Having accurate financial information, presented clearly and updated regularly is of the utmost importance to us. We seek out and work with the most qualified experts across every topic we cover. Any mistakes, inaccuracies, or misrepresentations identified by our readers are investigated and corrected promptly. Please contact us at inv_editorial@investopedia.com if you have any questions or feedback.
Inclusive: We work to ensure that our content serves—and depicts with dignity and respect—people of different ages, nationalities, religions, gender identities, sexual orientations, ethnicities, relationship statuses, physical and mental abilities, and family types.
Ethics
We are committed to following the Codes of Ethics of the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing (SABEW). Our content is guided by and upholds the Society for Professional Journalists’ foundations of ethical journalism: being accurate and fair, minimizing harm, acting independently, and being accountable and transparent. We also uphold the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines on disclosures, where applicable.
Investopedia content is for informational purposes and is not intended to substitute for the advice of a licensed or certified attorney, accountant, financial advisor, or other certified financial professionals.
Editorial Process
Our staff of editors and network of expert contributors write and manage all the articles you find on Investopedia. We don’t make recommendations for you to buy, sell, or hold securities or investments. We do, however, provide relevant analysis, context, insights, and educational information to help you make smarter, better-informed decisions. Wherever possible we provide examples that help put complex topics and concepts into perspective.
Our editorial team is continually evaluating the articles across our site to flag any that contain information that is known to be or is likely to be out-of-date. Such articles are reviewed and updated or, if necessary, completely rewritten, rechecked, and re-edited. Our network of experienced experts, who uphold our process and policies, assist with our updating efforts. Articles that have been updated are date-stamped to reflect this.
Quality Standards
Every article you see has multiple people behind it, continually working to make sure that it is responsible, accurate, understandable, helpful, and reflective of our editorial principles.
Our editorial team approves all story ideas independently, and our expert contributors each have deep subject matter expertise in the topics that we assign them. Our team of professional editors, fact checkers, and producers review content to ensure it upholds our values of being empowering, inclusive, unbiased, and accurate.
All staff are responsible for disclosing any potential conflicts of interest.
Corrections
Investopedia is committed to telling readers when an error has appeared, and to correcting it. This transparency applies to small and large mistakes, including news, but only if an error was made at the time of original publication. Corrections will be clearly noted on the page. When our journalism is factually correct, but the language is not as clear or detailed as necessary, the story may be updated without an editor's note. Please report possible errors to inv_editorial@investopedia.com.
Writers
Investopedia experts are carefully recruited, vetted, and chosen. Some are experienced financial writers, others are experts in particular aspects of finance; many are both. They are selected for their knowledge and skill in communicating complex topics in clear, accessible, actionable language.
Every article’s author or reviewer is listed at the top of the page, to the left of the date, and is linked to their biography, which you can click on to learn more about their credentials, education, professional experience, and social media presence.
All writers are required to uphold the editorial guidelines listed above.
Third-Party Content
We do not publish third-party content on Investopedia. All recommendations on Investopedia are made by the staff editors and research analysts. Investopedia is not influenced by partnerships, companies, or third-party organizations, though we may review their information during our literature review and competitive analysis work before creating rubrics and outlines for our projects and content. Our sources for our content are primary sources and can be seen on methodology pages, and in inline citations, as well as through attribution directly in the articles. You can read more about our product and services review policy here.
Warranty and Liability Disclaimer
The comments, opinions, and analyses expressed on Investopedia are for informational purposes only and should not be considered individual investment advice or recommendations to invest in any security or adopt any investment strategy. Though we believe the information provided herein is reliable, we do not warrant its accuracy or completeness. The views and strategies described in our content may not be suitable for all investors. Because market and economic conditions are subject to rapid change, all comments, opinions, and analyses contained within our content are rendered as of the date of the posting and may change without notice. The material is not intended as a complete analysis of every material fact regarding any country, region, market, industry, investment, or strategy.
Investing in cryptocurrencies and other Initial Coin Offerings (“ICOs”) is highly risky and speculative, and cryptocurrency-related content on Investopedia is not a recommendation to invest in cryptocurrencies or other ICOs. Since each individual's situation is unique, a qualified professional should always be consulted before making any financial decisions. Investopedia makes no representations or warranties as to the accuracy or timeliness of the information contained herein.
Advertising Disclosure
Updated June 12, 2020
Investopedia accepts advertising, but maintains a strict and clear separation between advertising and editorial content. Special attention is paid to featuring advertising in a way that will not interfere with your reading experience. This relates to both page design and to the number of ads we choose to feature on a page.
Investopedia maintains a distinct separation between advertising and editorial content.
- All advertising or sponsored content on Investopedia is clearly and unambiguously distinguished from editorial content through borders or other distinguishing elements and/or identified as an "Ad," "Advertisement," "Sponsored" or a similar designation indicating that the content is being provided by or on behalf of the sponsor.
- All ads on Investopedia are labeled as an "Ad," "Advertisement," "Sponsored" or a similar designation indicating that the content is being provided by or on behalf of the sponsor.
- All "native" ads or paid content are identified as an "Ad," "Advertisement," "Sponsored" or a similar designation indicating that the content is being provided by or on behalf of the sponsor.
- Editorial content on Investopedia is not influenced by advertisements unless the content is sponsored content, in which case, the content will be clearly demarcated and identified with the title "Ad," "Advertisement," or "Sponsored", or a similar designation, indicating that the content is being provided by or on behalf of an advertiser or sponsor.
- In some cases, editorial may include links to partners for which Investopedia receives an affiliate commission (See ‘How We Make Money’ for more details). The placement of these links is not influenced by payment, and editorial reserves the right to change, modify or remove them at any time in order to provide the best experience to users.
How We Make Money
The way that we're able to offer over 30,000 articles of great content on our website for free is by partnering with advertisers and affiliate partners who are looking to reach consumers. This can take a number of different forms, and we'll walk through those below. It's important to note that we maintain strict editorial independence for all of our content, particularly on reviews and recommendations. If a product is great, we'll tell you even if we don't have an advertising relationship. If we think a product is bad, we'll tell you that, even if we DO have an advertising relationship with them. While we do recommend and review products regardless of any advertising relationships, we may not have reviewed every product available in a given category.
Affiliate Links to Advertisers
In some cases we may have an affiliate relationship with a product that we review, and so when you click on an "Open Account" button or sometimes a hyperlink on the product's name in those cases we may receive compensation either when you click on it it or if you decide to sign up for the product. Whether or not we have an advertiser in place does not change the placement of the button or whether there's a link for you to go to their website.
Comparison/Rate Tables Featuring Advertisers
On some review/recommendations we may include a comparison table of products that are offers from advertisers. While we do work hard with partners to try and surface the best paid offers possible in these comparison tables, it's important to note that they are NOT editorially selected. Here's an example of what that can look like, notice the Advertising Disclosure link in the top right corner:
Display Ads
Some review/recommendations may include display advertising on them, which will be labelled as advertisements and are easily recognized.