Indian Journal of Fundamental and Applied Life Sciences ISSN: 2231– 6345 (Online) An Open Access, Online International Journal Available at www.cibtech.org/sp.ed/jls/2016/02/jls.htm 2016 Vol. 6 (S2), pp. 33-43/Karimi and Dabbaghi Research Article © Copyright 2016 | Centre for Info Bio Technology (CIBTech) 33 ASSESS AND IDENTIFY THE MOST APPROPRIATE INVESTMENT OPTIONS AND FINANCIAL ASSETS IN IRAN (THE PERIOD OF 2001-2010) Mohammad Sharif Karimi 1 and Nishtman Dabbaghi 2 1 Department of Economics, Faculty of Social Science, Razi University, Iran 2 Department of Executive Management, Islamic Azad University of Sanandaj, Iran *Author for Correspondence ABSTRACT If the definition of investment is cancelling the current consumption to access consumption possibility in future, the recognition of opportunities that an investor could scarify a certain value from them to get a certain value which is suitable makes the high importance in investment affair. In the research, it was calculated and compared the return and risk of 4 opportunities in known investment (stock, housing, gold and foreign exchange) during 2001-2010 by using from the taken data from central bank and Iran statistic center. The data from SPSS was analyzed by suitable statistical tests execution. The results show that investment in stock had the most return and also the highest risk for investors in the period. The financial evaluation index conclusions (Sharp & Treynor) explain more desirability of stock index in compare with the other opportunities. Keywords: Investment, Return, Risk, Stock, Housing, Gold, Foreign Exchange, Sharp Index, Treynor Index INTRODUCTION Capital is counted the most limited of economic sources in countries and always for this reason, economists and some experts in financial affairs follows ways to desired use from that in order to provide investors. Thereby, what needs to review and consideration is credit of policies that is used for favorite allocation of sources and saving of society in effective and efficient activities to lead to social and economic growth and public confidence in suitable use of their capitals. Importance of investment for social and economic development and growth is significant enough to reach to development as one of the strongest lever. But it should be noted that just as attention to this affair could be caused to economic growth and prosperity by falling in a positive cycle, inattention to it could be caused to economic slump and roll down to a decline process and negative cycle, too. Therefore, it must be said that economic growth and increase of common wealth in long-term is impossible without paying attention to investment and available important factors in the investment environment which effects on it. So, appropriate choosing and selection for investment requires more scrupulousness and consideration to obviate investors' the main disturbance that it is the reasonable profit obtaining/ acquisition or at least maintain the value of money. According to the necessity, in the present study by consideration of 4 main bazaars in investment of Iran country consist of stock, housing, gold and foreign exchange during 2001-2010, a comparison has performed from their return, risk, trey nor and sharp index and has been identified according to the mentioned index the most suitable choice for investment. Research Problem Expression Problem Expression of Research Investment process has caused to inefficient capital intensity and to direct them to economic productive sectors in the one hand and according to the investor's decision basis on the risk and return, capitals will be driven into industries which enjoy adjusted return by the higher risk in the other hand and this will provide the field of optimal resources allocation (Islami Bidgoli, 2006). Investment postpones the present consumption to reach to possibility of more consumption in the future (Zandi Haghighi, 1987), thus it must be expected value of earned funds from the delayed consumption would be more than value of the same fund at the present to encourage people toward investment, at the