A new year is a good time to reflect on the lessons learnt in the year that went by. The age-old saying, ?buy low and sell high?, is quite the opposite of what most investors went through in 2009. While chasing returns, many investors inadvertently ended up ?buying high and selling low?. This reflected the basic human psychology and the tendency to follow the herd.

While stocks were at their record lows, many individual investors panicked and sold out or simply refused to invest fresh money in the market. The market has since recovered by leaps and bounds and now the small investor feels that s/he might have missed the bus and wants to enter the market just because everyone seems to have made money in the last couple of quarters.

Investors need to realise that emotional investing does not lead to wealth creation over the long run. Relying on emotions is a sure-shot way to ?buy high and sell low?. People tend to give into greed when they see everyone making money in a specific asset class, be it stocks, gold, real estate or anything else. This year many investors may figure out that the most important lesson learnt was the value of persistence. Those investors who persisted with their systematic investments through the downturn and the rebound that followed will definitely be happier than those who bought high and sold low. Here I have tried to put down a short list of ?investment to-dos? for 2010 and beyond:

* Get yourself a financial planner: As an investor, you need to set your long-term goals and formulate a healthy investment plan to attain it. Disciplined investing is the key. An ideal financial plan should give you a complete picture of your life goals and the means to achieve these goals. This could be buying a car or a house, planning an international holiday, your child?s education or building a retirement fund. You need to understand your risk appetite which is dependent on various factors like your age, disposable income, etc. Decide on your asset allocation based on your risk appetite; this involves allocating your resources to various investments to achieve your goals. Ideally, you need to engage the services of a competent advisor and get him or her to do this for you.

* Diversify: This involves matching your investment vehicles with your investment goals. Your investment choices should be based on your age, portfolio, personal situation and level for risk tolerance. Diversification is the key to minimising risk. You should not put all your eggs in one basket.

Whether this means you invest in domestic mutual funds, international feeder funds, stocks, bonds or real estate depends on your individual risk profile. Within the mutual fund space, I would recommend a healthy mix of domestic and international equity funds as there are various other global markets apart from India that have performed exceedingly well in the last 12 months.

* Start investing system-atically: SIPs are a proven option when it comes to disciplined investing and reinforce the ?value of persi-stence?. They also eliminate the need to time the market; something that takes away a lot of productive time and effort.

* Tax planning: You could choose a good ELSS scheme and either invest a lump sum or start an SIP. This not only helps in planning your taxes better but also enables you ride the ups and downs of the market by investing for a longer term and is also an ideal way to save taxes.

* Start preparing for 2011: The investment mantra, going forward, should be systematic investing. The last two years have taught us that the only thing predictable about the market is that it is unpre-dictable. Investing system-atically is an ideal way to ride the volatility. It eliminates the need to time the market while your investments grow steadily.

Like most event-based learnings, the lessons from the meltdown are the same, only that they just get reinforced. The only thing that one can say about a growth economy is that the next high will be higher than the previous one, and that there will be more volatility than in a mature or stagnant economy. Therein lies the opportunity and the trap.

(Views are personal and are not investment advice)