Thread: Investing

I'm wondering how many investors we have here. I don't like to admit it because I sort of feel like I've missed the boat, but this is something I'm very new to.

I've been learning a fair amount about the basics, although it is early days. My initial task was to put savings aside every month. I want to handle my finances better and I can put a fair amount in a savings account every month. The interest rate is quite pathetic though, so I decided to turn to the stock market.

I have a general idea at the moment. I'm going to put around 2/5 of my savings into FTSE 100 every month which is our counterpart to S&P. 1/5 will go towards high-risk/high-reward investments like startups. 1/5 will go towards other index funds or specific businesses. Finally I'll maybe use the last 1/5 on REITs. (That one may take a lot of research though.)

But to reiterate, I am a newbie and my knowledge is only scratching the surface. Am I going the right way about this by keeping most of my investments medium/low-risk and do you think it's actually a good play to keep most eggs in different baskets?

I'm not putting much money into the startups but I am being selective. There are so many that I don't think stand a cat in hell's chance of surviving the rest of the pandemic and its aftermath.

I only just started looking into stocks this year. I don't completely understand it but me and my husband do have money in crypto. We did try stocks but can't manage to pinpoint what is best to go with and why. I feel like stocks are mostly rigged in favor of hedgefund holders... Case in point, Gamestonks and that whole ordeal. But I am no expert and don't completely understand it as I said.

I've posted my advice & willingness to assist other board members get into investing for a few years now. Still holds true. I'm gonna copy & paste an older post of mine (2019 i think) which was harder to do on mobile than I expected. There's also a ~30mph wind out today:

Please notice that I even called out RobinHood 2 years early.

Yes in fact I do have a plan. This is a topic I'm rather passionate about since I'm a business consultant & have helped quite a few friends with investments in my personal life outside work. I'm not a day-trader or anything like that, i'm not gonna hype up some penny stock that I think is about to explode....but I truly enjoy helping people dip their toe into building a financial safety net. About 6 years ago (this may have changed since) I read that 40% of Americans don't have enough money saved to cover their next month's worth of expenses. That scares the shit out of me, and when I think about how many people I know who are already in their 20's without any assets makes my chest tighten up. It's not hard to get started, and help is out there from people like me. The issue is that so many people don't even have that first few hundred dollars to get started. I'm not pointing the finger at them or anything. Being that close to zero or even in debt really changes your priorities I suppose.

I can't tell you what to invest in because at the end of the day it is gambling and I don't want to be responsible for leading people into losing money. What I will tell you is that utilities/bonds represent the safest end of the spectrum. Penny stocks/developing markets/cryptocurrency are what I would consider the high-risk end. I know it can be really difficult to set money aside (much less lock it away in an investment) when you're young, but I do have a reason for pushing people a bit. Compound interest. For the average investor, $1 USD invested at age 20 is worth roughly $3 USD at age 62. In your 20's, your dollars are worth almost 3. Sure, you might be shopping at the Dollar Store, but triple that bill and that's how much money you'd have as an old fart if you had invested! Is it more worth it to spend and have fun when you're young? Not planning of having kids or an heir? Plenty of things affect the strength of my argument.

The reason I said it's not hard to do is because plenty of "robo-investors" exist now. Personally, I use Wealthfront (i can give a referral link to anyone who wants one. We both get more $ managed with no fee) but others use Betterment (almost the same as Wealthfront. Some years they do better some years they do worse) or God forbid Acorns / Robin Hood. These are investment websites/software where you set how much risk you are willing to accept and it manages all the rest for you.

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Robin Hood stole from the poor and gave to the rich. The irony is in the name LOL

Do you happen to know anything about crypto investing or do you only focus on standard stocks and trading?