An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest).
[3] Types of investments include equity, debt, securities, real estate, infrastructure, currency, commodity, token, derivatives such as put and call options, futures, forwards, etc.
Therefore, shareholders are given some respite with a preferential tax rate of 15% on "qualified dividends" in the event of the company being domiciled in the United States.
[8] A financier (/fɪnənˈsɪər, fə-, -ˈnæn-/)[9][10] is a person whose primary occupation is either facilitating or directly providing investments to up-and-coming or established companies and businesses, typically involving large sums of money and usually involving private equity and venture capital, mergers and acquisitions, leveraged buyouts, corporate finance, investment banking, or large-scale asset management.
Personal investing on the other hand, has no requirements and is open to all using the stock market or by word-of-mouth requests for money.
[11] Economist Edmund Phelps has argued that the financier plays a role in directing capital to investments that governments and social organizations are constrained from playing: [T]he pluralism of experience that the financiers bring to bear in their decisions gives a wide range of entrepreneurial ideas a chance for insightful evaluation.
For example, humorist George Helgesen Fitch described the financier as "a man who can make two dollars grow for himself where one grew for someone else before".