One of the ways to prepare for retirement is to invest in financial securities. And the best time to invest is now.

Investment expert John W. Rogers Jr., chairman and chief executive officer of Chicago-based Ariel Capital Management, Inc., which has over $10 billion in assets, tells JET that knowledge dispels fear when beginning investors gain a general knowledge of the stock market and understand it's normal for stocks to rise and fall.

"It's of critical importance to get comfortable with the jargon [of investing and the stock market] and get comfortable with the stock market," says Rogers, who is also the adviser to Ariel Mutual Funds. "A good many corporations have done away with pension funds and replaced them with 401(K), and so that puts a real onus on individuals and African-Americans in general to really think about how to successfully save [and/or] invest some of their 401(K) plans, because you have to make these choices early and make them right, or we as a community will have a hard time retiring comfortably when the time comes."

Ariel has been working hard over the last 5 years to shine a light on the fact that African-Americans have typically not been comfortable investing in the stock market ... [but] it's important to get started early with your 401(K) plan and put money away for your child's college tuition as soon as they're born."

We've been out there passionately trying to encourage people to save and invest more. I think [investment concerns] have been heightened because of the severe downturn in the stock market that's now 2 1/2 years old, and a lot of investors have suffered tremendously. They've seen their 401(K) plan retirement dollars devastated because of the lack of diversification as well as a downturn in the general market."

Rogers goes on to add that he knows since 9/11 stocks have been extremely volatile, but such occurrences--while not normal in this instance--are typical with the NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange. "[So] we try to remind people to think long-term and that over a 3-5 year period stock prices will recover."