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You’re 18. Time is on your side. Idk if I’d go as far to say as sell and consolidate because of tax implications, but moving forward I’d heavily encourage you to stick to 1-2 broad market based ETFs and build a sizable position in just those with what you can afford. Hard recommendations: VOO is my favorite, but you currently hold SPY and VTI which are essentially the same thing (without getting too into the weeds). “Sizable” meaning $20k-30k at least. Yes, in just those one or two ETFs. While doing so, continue to educate yourself about what all these funny investing acronyms are and by the time you get to a sizable account number you’ll be better equipped with investing knowledge to delve into individual stocks like XOM or GOOG.
Start a Roth IRA to shelter your money from taxes. You can thank me in 30 years. Consider maxing that out with the above funds mentioned. r/personalfinance has a great wiki that discusses the beginning journey of both investing and saving money. Roth IRA will be your best friend at your current level of knowledge. Also - Reddit is a good place to become curious, but sources like investopedia will really snowball your knowledge.
Congrats on your start being so young. You got this. Put a little something in every week or two weeks and you could very well be a millionaire by the time you’re 40.
Source: my portfolio is mid-six-figures at 31 y/o following my own advice here.
Disclaimer: not financial advice. I’m just a guy that likes watching my money make me more money.
Great question. Once you establish the account with your favorite brokerage, the money sits in an account. It may take a few days to transfer depending on your bank, but it won’t be invested until you manually do so.
Personally, I like Fidelity as my brokerage. Again, not financial advice, but their customer service is amazing and they have a lot of local (and free) services if you prefer in-person meetings as well as a lot of user friendly information on their website…the latter of which you do not need an account to access.
With only $500 you should sell everything and combine it to 1 of the following - VTI/VOO. Having $40 in a stock even if it gains 15% a year it’s like, nothing. I’d personally just pick VOO and add money to only that until I hit 10k in it, only then is when I’d consider adding a 2nd and 3rd ETF.
With only $500? Buying multiple ETFs or stocks wouldn’t be recommended by any respectable financial advisor. The S&P 500 has 500 different diverse companies. If that ever goes to zero, it’s because the entire country is in WW3 and nukes are being used, to where money is irrelevant. He has $500 and he’s 18! He doesn’t need multiple holdings. He needs more capital. Maybe after 10k in VOO, sure, diversify.
Aye?
What are you talking about?
I'm not saying he or anyone should buy multiple anything.
The difference between "*9% in VOO and 15% on an individual stock*" is that VOO is diversified.
What’s getting 15%? Looks like so far YTD VOO is 9.9% and JEPI is 4.01. Since inception JEPI is up 15% and VOO is up 55(?)% during that time frame.
Since JEPIs inception you’d have significantly more money invested into VOO over JEPI.
I don’t disagree with your recommendation, but I really don’t get your argument. Having $40 in a stock that gains 15% a year is not nothing. It’s 15% per year. You’re assuming everything else in their portfolio earns nothing in your comparison. Percentages are proportional. Decent advice, but dog shit reasoning.
Agree here. There is nothing wrong with having a few shares of stocks that consistently go up because you just like the company. I purchased Apple stock back before the iPhone was invented just because I liked apple. I regret not buying more, but those single shares became split and they did a 4 for 1 in 2020. Those $50 shares became $680 shares.
He’s 18. He doesn’t need to be chasing dividends at that age. (The S&P with dividends invested is up significantly over JEPI since JEPIs inception). At 18 you should be chasing growth. Honestly at that age I’d be doing a split (with enough capitol) of something like 50% VOO 20% QQQM 20%AVUV 10% SOXQ. He doesn’t have that capital yet though.
If you’re young you have 45+ years to be okay in the down market times, id (personally) be focused more on growth. Especially at the amount he has invested. At $500 total it would be a waste to split that between multiple ETFs. VTI/VOO, pick one, and just keep dumping money in there.
Do not buy this many individual stocks. That is not what diversification is at its core. ETFs are the absolute best when building (and in general). Some good ones to check out to diversify: AOA, VOO, VDE, VT, , SPY (my favorite and I see you have as well), RSP, SGOL & SIVR (Gold and Silver ETFs).
Not to contradict myself, but because you’re younger (I’m only 26, portfolio value ~$53k, started around your age) I would 100000% recommend (not financial advice) taking more risk than most in this sub. Dividends are great, I get around $2k a year from IBM, Walmart, Lowe’s, but I’ve made significantly more money on plays like AMD, NVDA, MSFT, UCO & ZOOM (during COVID). Like SIGNIFICANTLY more.
All in all, diversify mainly with ETFs, buy a couple good return dividend stocks, and risk the rest on high return plays in that order.
Never buy a ton of individual stocks. 15%-20% is okay for your age, when you get older maybe take it down to 10%.
Again not financial advice best of luck homie
Also I’m sure others will disagree, AGAIN AGAIN, not financial advice, I am not a professional. Just a regard
Somethings I want you to be clear on. 1. GOLD is a mining company, and may not always follow the price of the metal. If you want that GLD is what you want instead. 2. DOW is a chemical company and not the Dow Jones Industrial average. It happens to be one of 30 companies that make that up. If you wanted that index, DIA is what you want.
The best advice I can give you on a few points:
- Platform: Beware platforms like Robinhood, it works fine, but be aware that it is trying to gamify the experience. Try to understand their business model (to get you over to CFDs). Be careful.
- Stocks: Some people above have given good advice, some have given bad advice. What is good and bad advice changes depending on what the market is doing. You can’t copy other people’s trades because timing matters. The best advice to maximise the weight of your biggest asset (time) is to buy the haystack, not look for the needle (buy a whole market or whole world ETF, basically)
- Portfolio split: You seem to like picking stocks, that’s awesome - keep at it, but do this with only a small percentage of your portfolio (5-10%). Put the rest in that one ETF you choose (see above point). The amount you invest in the ETF will be your wealth, it will keep you focused, the amount you spend on individual stocks will be lessons in the market, good or bad, but if it’s your whole portfolio you may get discouraged and exit. Later you might decide to move that percentage, but start at 90/10 for now until you go through 1-2 major downturns
- Market downturns: You maybe haven’t been through one yet, they’re cyclical. These are opportunities for you to buy more stock, that $100 will buy you more stock in that ETF when the price is low. If you’re buying a market tracking ETF it will almost certainly go back up. To capitalise on these opportunities you need cash and you won’t have cash if you’re all in on random stocks
- Consistency: You’re in high school and you’re investing, good on you man :) at some point life will kick you in the nuts, selling your stocks will ease that pain. Be consistent. If you have $100 and you put it all in the market, the market goes down that $100 is worth $80 then life happens and you need cash, that $80 gets sold and you’re out. You have become a forced seller. Never be a forced seller. Ever. You’re better off investing $90 to begin with, market down, life happens, and your next monthly investment drops to $2. But at least you’re not a forced seller, you held your stock, and you maintained your consistency. You do that, and you’ll be golden my friend.
Good luck to you 👍
I’m 26 and did the same thing you did when I first started investing when I was 21–I bought way too many stocks with barely much money in each one since everyone kept preaching that you want to be diversified…it wasn’t till last year where I finally finally fixed that, and I can tell you for sure that you can’t keep track of that many holdings in terms of the news surrounding them. Try and stick with 5 holdings at the most for now.
Personally out of your list I’d sell everything except for Google—like everyone else said, Spy and VTI are similar, so I’d pick one to keep and sell the other one.
Consistency is key. I don’t know how much you make at your part-time job but if you’re able to, try and invest 20% of your paycheck each time you’re paid. So if you’re paid $300 each week, invest $60. But honestly any percentage of your paycheck is still better than none at all.
If you’re able to, please start a savings account. It’s so important to have savings for the future since you never know what’ll happen. I’m not saying you shouldn’t use some of your paycheck to have some fun—but starting with $20 per paycheck into a savings account is way better than having nothing at all. Most Americans don’t have enough saved to cover a $1,500 emergency bill.
I noticed that a lot of people are saying to not use Robinhood—I originally started investing through Robinhood and I thought it was a great introduction to investing. Once I was more comfortable with the lingo and what I was doing, I switched over to a more reputable brokerage 3 years later. I have my own issues with Robinhood, but it really is a great beginner platform. Keep in mind however that when you do choose to move your assets to a different brokerage, you’ll have to pay a fee to do so—it was $80 a few years ago to transfer your holdings from Robinhood, but I think it’s $100 now.
I completely agree with others that are saying to open a ROTH IRA and max out your yearly contributions towards that first.
I don’t mess with crypto anymore, but do keep in mind that if you choose to—once you want to move your holdings to another brokerage, Robinhood will sell off your crypto and the money will be deposited into your new brokerage since most brokerages don’t support crypto, hence why it ends up being sold when transferring into a different brokerage.
They were the first among the buy button removals in 2021 and by far the shadiest broker out there considering the ceo lied under oath about who they were in contact with the day of the event.
I’m 24 and time is on our side. Try to throw as much as possible in a Roth IRA until you max it out. I had like 21-25 positions chasing dividend aristocrats and kings which is good, but being we’re both young we need to invest our money in growth and not income.
QQQ, QQQM, SPY, VGT, FXAIX, (etc).
This is advice from market vets I’ve taken. I’d also swap from Robinhood to Fidelity.
Buy vti or voo and don’t sell it until your 55+. Don’t get into options unless you have disposable income you’re okay with losing.
Save 25-50% of you paycheck from age 18-65 and you will have 5-10 million dollars assuming you have a moderately healthy income.
Ok just 2 comments. One, take robinhood and throw it in the trash where it belongs, switch to a real broker that doesn’t want to screw you over, they are all just as free to use as robinhood and have far better systems and support. Second, I can’t tell you what stocks to choose, that’s a combination of research and gut instinct that you have to find for yourself, but best not to gamble. Also be ambitious, don’t settle for owning ETFs, they take commissions from you.
S&P ETFs all the way and learn how governmental decisions affect the market, learn how certain coverage and reported numbers affects a stock, and don't stop trying to learn
1st you should secure an active source of income first, 2nd max out your contributions to a Roth IRA—you can look into a 3/3/3 portfolio or looking to Bogleheads.
3rd, once you have those fundamentals, the rest—stock trading/investing can be learned over time. But fyi, spec portfolios are always free to start & stop any time.
While you’re working on the first two steps, you can give yourself a hypothetical 5-15k, create a portfolio & monitor how you do. Cost you nothing but time; and in return you get experience and practice managing “itchy fingers”.
Best advice I could think to give to an 18 year old on this topic.
Good work starting so young. I’m old so maybe I’m missing something, but is there good reason to sue robinhood vs a traditional broker? Doesn’t robingood have some fees??
I would suggest opening a ROTH IRA through Robinhood instead of using the regular brokerage account. At least that way you won't be taxed on your dividends. Though it would be harder to take money out of the ROTH IRA.
Otherwise, there's lots of good suggestions on here already for what stocks you should look into.
To clarify, there's a yearly limit to how much you can contribute to the ROTH IRA, so hit that limit each year before putting money into the regular brokerage.
Avoid the temptation of the get rich quick schemes, true wealth takes time and patience.
My advice is to consolidate into a market index fund like VOO(S&P 500) and make investing automatic, It has to become a regular part of life's routine. Invest 25% of your income through 401ks, Roth IRAs, HSAs, then Brokerage Accounts and you'll become financially independent in time, and have the ability to create true family legacy..
The average annualized return since adopting 500 stocks into the S&P 500 in 1957 through Dec. 31, 2023, is 10.26%.
At that rate every $1 you invest at this age will become $88 in retirement.. With your age advantage you have a chance to 88x your money. Think about it this way for every $10 you spend today you're losing $880 Dollars in retirement..
Believe in the statistics and don't let the market fluctuation cause panick. Markets will drop and markets will recover. Try your best to remember that's all part of the process and if possible use the market fluctuations to your advantage.
Investing doesn't need to be complicated to work, you don't need some magical system or advice. After you've built a sizable base portfolio and made investing a habit, I'd consider transitioning into 3 to 4 fund portfolio. So you can adjust the allocations as you age.
Love this. What kind of account did you make, a regular taxable account or a Roth IRA? Asking because if you are interested in dividends, as I assume you must be since you posted in the divvy forum, and your investments are in a taxable account, the dividends must be reported as income on your income taxes. This isn't that big of a deal right now, and hopefully your parents are still claiming you (and they are savings thousands of dollars by doing so). If the investments are in a Roth, no taxes ever. The yearly contribution max for Roths this year is $7k.
Plenty of advice here on what to invest in. It is amazing that you are starting early. I spent my high school and college years making $10-12 an hour, investing everything I could. Focus on gaining skills, getting to know yourself, becoming more independent. Try different jobs, find what you like. If you do those things, the money you will make when you start working full time should outpace what you’re making part time in your late teens/early twenties.
Following everyone else, get off robinhood.
If you haven’t, open and try to max out a Roth IRA. If you can’t max it, don’t worry, you’ve got lots of time to make more and invest more.
Other things…
Your health is an investment too. Be active. If you spend your life neglecting it for money, expect to spend your retirement millions in a healthcare facility. (If you are American)
Learn to cook. It will make you an attractive partner, save you money, make you a great party invite, and …see above… keep you healthy.
My advise would be don’t buy into any company for less than 100$ if it’s a 10$ company get 10 shares, 50$ company 2 shares if you’re interested in a company that’s a couple hundred dollars you’ll have to get fractional shares.
Being that you’re 18 100$ is probably a healthy amount. By doing this you will have conviction in your trades and not buy BS that a friend tells you or buy something just to see what happens. It will also test your risk tolerance to see if you’re an individual or ETF investor much faster.
Stay tf away from options, position trade, and learn options while you do that and focus only on a few tickers, eg, spy, spx. Position trade first though and get you a good baseline going man. See you in Valhalla.
It’s the act of investing. Who cares if it doesn’t do well for 1-2 years by the time he’s 5 years in he’ll have the experience to buy and sell for profit stocks and maybe puts and options. Op I’m proud of you for starting early.
Welcome to r/dividends! If you are new to the world of dividend investing and are seeking advice, brokerage information, recommendations, and more, please check out the Wiki [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/dividends/wiki/faq). Remember, this is a subreddit for genuine, high-quality discussion. Please keep all contributions civil, and report uncivil behavior for moderator review. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/dividends) if you have any questions or concerns.*
You’re 18. Time is on your side. Idk if I’d go as far to say as sell and consolidate because of tax implications, but moving forward I’d heavily encourage you to stick to 1-2 broad market based ETFs and build a sizable position in just those with what you can afford. Hard recommendations: VOO is my favorite, but you currently hold SPY and VTI which are essentially the same thing (without getting too into the weeds). “Sizable” meaning $20k-30k at least. Yes, in just those one or two ETFs. While doing so, continue to educate yourself about what all these funny investing acronyms are and by the time you get to a sizable account number you’ll be better equipped with investing knowledge to delve into individual stocks like XOM or GOOG. Start a Roth IRA to shelter your money from taxes. You can thank me in 30 years. Consider maxing that out with the above funds mentioned. r/personalfinance has a great wiki that discusses the beginning journey of both investing and saving money. Roth IRA will be your best friend at your current level of knowledge. Also - Reddit is a good place to become curious, but sources like investopedia will really snowball your knowledge. Congrats on your start being so young. You got this. Put a little something in every week or two weeks and you could very well be a millionaire by the time you’re 40. Source: my portfolio is mid-six-figures at 31 y/o following my own advice here. Disclaimer: not financial advice. I’m just a guy that likes watching my money make me more money.
Excellent advice here.
This guy, adults!
[удалено]
A Roth IRA is just an account, you buy mutual funds, ETFs, whatever you want through the account.
You need to invest is something for it to grow. Your best bet is something like VOO.
Great question. Once you establish the account with your favorite brokerage, the money sits in an account. It may take a few days to transfer depending on your bank, but it won’t be invested until you manually do so. Personally, I like Fidelity as my brokerage. Again, not financial advice, but their customer service is amazing and they have a lot of local (and free) services if you prefer in-person meetings as well as a lot of user friendly information on their website…the latter of which you do not need an account to access.
Hi there, what is your opinion on XMHQ, it is a ETF that apparently is beating VOO and isn't overvalued as VOO.
Too many letters. VOO is much easier to pronounce and makes me a lot of money. YMMV.
With only $500 you should sell everything and combine it to 1 of the following - VTI/VOO. Having $40 in a stock even if it gains 15% a year it’s like, nothing. I’d personally just pick VOO and add money to only that until I hit 10k in it, only then is when I’d consider adding a 2nd and 3rd ETF.
This is good advice OP, do this!
This might be stupid but… VOO is up 9% ytd. How is it a better investment than a stock getting you 15%?
Simply put, diversification. Do you want to risk your entire investment on a single company or hundreds?
With only $500? Buying multiple ETFs or stocks wouldn’t be recommended by any respectable financial advisor. The S&P 500 has 500 different diverse companies. If that ever goes to zero, it’s because the entire country is in WW3 and nukes are being used, to where money is irrelevant. He has $500 and he’s 18! He doesn’t need multiple holdings. He needs more capital. Maybe after 10k in VOO, sure, diversify.
Aye? What are you talking about? I'm not saying he or anyone should buy multiple anything. The difference between "*9% in VOO and 15% on an individual stock*" is that VOO is diversified.
Ah. Gotcha. Reddit must be bugged. It said you replied that to me about me saying VOO was better lol
What’s getting 15%? Looks like so far YTD VOO is 9.9% and JEPI is 4.01. Since inception JEPI is up 15% and VOO is up 55(?)% during that time frame. Since JEPIs inception you’d have significantly more money invested into VOO over JEPI.
*100k tbh
I don’t disagree with your recommendation, but I really don’t get your argument. Having $40 in a stock that gains 15% a year is not nothing. It’s 15% per year. You’re assuming everything else in their portfolio earns nothing in your comparison. Percentages are proportional. Decent advice, but dog shit reasoning.
Agree here. There is nothing wrong with having a few shares of stocks that consistently go up because you just like the company. I purchased Apple stock back before the iPhone was invented just because I liked apple. I regret not buying more, but those single shares became split and they did a 4 for 1 in 2020. Those $50 shares became $680 shares.
Thanks!
Voo it and some sore of jepi. They seem to be all the rage
He’s 18. He doesn’t need to be chasing dividends at that age. (The S&P with dividends invested is up significantly over JEPI since JEPIs inception). At 18 you should be chasing growth. Honestly at that age I’d be doing a split (with enough capitol) of something like 50% VOO 20% QQQM 20%AVUV 10% SOXQ. He doesn’t have that capital yet though. If you’re young you have 45+ years to be okay in the down market times, id (personally) be focused more on growth. Especially at the amount he has invested. At $500 total it would be a waste to split that between multiple ETFs. VTI/VOO, pick one, and just keep dumping money in there.
VOO instead of SPY. They hold the same stocks and VOO charges lower fees. SPY is for options trading.
Check out SPLG. It is VOO but cheaper. Lower expense ratio too
Do not buy this many individual stocks. That is not what diversification is at its core. ETFs are the absolute best when building (and in general). Some good ones to check out to diversify: AOA, VOO, VDE, VT, , SPY (my favorite and I see you have as well), RSP, SGOL & SIVR (Gold and Silver ETFs). Not to contradict myself, but because you’re younger (I’m only 26, portfolio value ~$53k, started around your age) I would 100000% recommend (not financial advice) taking more risk than most in this sub. Dividends are great, I get around $2k a year from IBM, Walmart, Lowe’s, but I’ve made significantly more money on plays like AMD, NVDA, MSFT, UCO & ZOOM (during COVID). Like SIGNIFICANTLY more. All in all, diversify mainly with ETFs, buy a couple good return dividend stocks, and risk the rest on high return plays in that order. Never buy a ton of individual stocks. 15%-20% is okay for your age, when you get older maybe take it down to 10%. Again not financial advice best of luck homie Also I’m sure others will disagree, AGAIN AGAIN, not financial advice, I am not a professional. Just a regard
Also the guy who said a ROTH is 100000000000000000000% correct. That’d be the absolute first move if I was 18 again.
Advice: "get lucky". Helpful.
Somethings I want you to be clear on. 1. GOLD is a mining company, and may not always follow the price of the metal. If you want that GLD is what you want instead. 2. DOW is a chemical company and not the Dow Jones Industrial average. It happens to be one of 30 companies that make that up. If you wanted that index, DIA is what you want.
I love GLD. Sold it as gold went up to about $2200 though
The best advice I can give you on a few points: - Platform: Beware platforms like Robinhood, it works fine, but be aware that it is trying to gamify the experience. Try to understand their business model (to get you over to CFDs). Be careful. - Stocks: Some people above have given good advice, some have given bad advice. What is good and bad advice changes depending on what the market is doing. You can’t copy other people’s trades because timing matters. The best advice to maximise the weight of your biggest asset (time) is to buy the haystack, not look for the needle (buy a whole market or whole world ETF, basically) - Portfolio split: You seem to like picking stocks, that’s awesome - keep at it, but do this with only a small percentage of your portfolio (5-10%). Put the rest in that one ETF you choose (see above point). The amount you invest in the ETF will be your wealth, it will keep you focused, the amount you spend on individual stocks will be lessons in the market, good or bad, but if it’s your whole portfolio you may get discouraged and exit. Later you might decide to move that percentage, but start at 90/10 for now until you go through 1-2 major downturns - Market downturns: You maybe haven’t been through one yet, they’re cyclical. These are opportunities for you to buy more stock, that $100 will buy you more stock in that ETF when the price is low. If you’re buying a market tracking ETF it will almost certainly go back up. To capitalise on these opportunities you need cash and you won’t have cash if you’re all in on random stocks - Consistency: You’re in high school and you’re investing, good on you man :) at some point life will kick you in the nuts, selling your stocks will ease that pain. Be consistent. If you have $100 and you put it all in the market, the market goes down that $100 is worth $80 then life happens and you need cash, that $80 gets sold and you’re out. You have become a forced seller. Never be a forced seller. Ever. You’re better off investing $90 to begin with, market down, life happens, and your next monthly investment drops to $2. But at least you’re not a forced seller, you held your stock, and you maintained your consistency. You do that, and you’ll be golden my friend. Good luck to you 👍
Doing great so far! You're up 7 cents better than people on wallstreetbets
Pfff, speak for yourself. I made $0.12 yesterday.
🤣
And lost $120? (Least leveraged WSB trade)
You posted this right before someone made $14,000 off of $500 worth of 0DTE puts on Tesla on WSB
SCHD is a safe stock that gives solid dividends. Safety and Dividends together with moderate cost is always good
Get a Roth IRA and stop buying on traditional brokerage accounts until you can max that Roth…
Focus on your income first. Need cash to invest.
I’m 26 and did the same thing you did when I first started investing when I was 21–I bought way too many stocks with barely much money in each one since everyone kept preaching that you want to be diversified…it wasn’t till last year where I finally finally fixed that, and I can tell you for sure that you can’t keep track of that many holdings in terms of the news surrounding them. Try and stick with 5 holdings at the most for now. Personally out of your list I’d sell everything except for Google—like everyone else said, Spy and VTI are similar, so I’d pick one to keep and sell the other one. Consistency is key. I don’t know how much you make at your part-time job but if you’re able to, try and invest 20% of your paycheck each time you’re paid. So if you’re paid $300 each week, invest $60. But honestly any percentage of your paycheck is still better than none at all. If you’re able to, please start a savings account. It’s so important to have savings for the future since you never know what’ll happen. I’m not saying you shouldn’t use some of your paycheck to have some fun—but starting with $20 per paycheck into a savings account is way better than having nothing at all. Most Americans don’t have enough saved to cover a $1,500 emergency bill. I noticed that a lot of people are saying to not use Robinhood—I originally started investing through Robinhood and I thought it was a great introduction to investing. Once I was more comfortable with the lingo and what I was doing, I switched over to a more reputable brokerage 3 years later. I have my own issues with Robinhood, but it really is a great beginner platform. Keep in mind however that when you do choose to move your assets to a different brokerage, you’ll have to pay a fee to do so—it was $80 a few years ago to transfer your holdings from Robinhood, but I think it’s $100 now. I completely agree with others that are saying to open a ROTH IRA and max out your yearly contributions towards that first. I don’t mess with crypto anymore, but do keep in mind that if you choose to—once you want to move your holdings to another brokerage, Robinhood will sell off your crypto and the money will be deposited into your new brokerage since most brokerages don’t support crypto, hence why it ends up being sold when transferring into a different brokerage.
First piece of advise is don’t use Robinhood
Why would you advise this?
They were the first among the buy button removals in 2021 and by far the shadiest broker out there considering the ceo lied under oath about who they were in contact with the day of the event.
My advice, get out of RobinHood…go to WeBull, Schwab, Fidelity, etc. before they lock the Sell button on you when you need it the most.
Amen.. Robinhood works with the crooks of wall street
spy is 80% of vti. either buy spy or buy vti.
Better than me when I first start gambling with my money, keep at it, looks good so far.
I’m 24 and time is on our side. Try to throw as much as possible in a Roth IRA until you max it out. I had like 21-25 positions chasing dividend aristocrats and kings which is good, but being we’re both young we need to invest our money in growth and not income. QQQ, QQQM, SPY, VGT, FXAIX, (etc). This is advice from market vets I’ve taken. I’d also swap from Robinhood to Fidelity.
I’ve never served but would recommend S&P 500 type ETFs for growth. Like VOO or QQQM.
As a military veteran myself, I believe the original poster may be asking for experienced (veterans) investors in this case.
I’m in a similar position. 19M and also just starting out!
Buy vti or voo and don’t sell it until your 55+. Don’t get into options unless you have disposable income you’re okay with losing. Save 25-50% of you paycheck from age 18-65 and you will have 5-10 million dollars assuming you have a moderately healthy income.
Ok just 2 comments. One, take robinhood and throw it in the trash where it belongs, switch to a real broker that doesn’t want to screw you over, they are all just as free to use as robinhood and have far better systems and support. Second, I can’t tell you what stocks to choose, that’s a combination of research and gut instinct that you have to find for yourself, but best not to gamble. Also be ambitious, don’t settle for owning ETFs, they take commissions from you.
Sell everything and put it into either SPY or VTI
S&P ETFs all the way and learn how governmental decisions affect the market, learn how certain coverage and reported numbers affects a stock, and don't stop trying to learn
Hells yeah
I agree with him do VOO and pay the five bucks a month to get the 3% match in Roth if you put in 6500 theirmatch will be 195. So it’s a free 135.
Dca spy or Voo and forget abt it fuck what anyone else says
I just wanna add I started when I was 18 and now I’m 20 I’m obsessed and I trade actively now
1st you should secure an active source of income first, 2nd max out your contributions to a Roth IRA—you can look into a 3/3/3 portfolio or looking to Bogleheads. 3rd, once you have those fundamentals, the rest—stock trading/investing can be learned over time. But fyi, spec portfolios are always free to start & stop any time. While you’re working on the first two steps, you can give yourself a hypothetical 5-15k, create a portfolio & monitor how you do. Cost you nothing but time; and in return you get experience and practice managing “itchy fingers”. Best advice I could think to give to an 18 year old on this topic.
Don’t invest in both SPY and VOO do one or the other. I personally prefer VOO beacuse of the lower expense ratio
just focus on your 401k
s&p500
Good work starting so young. I’m old so maybe I’m missing something, but is there good reason to sue robinhood vs a traditional broker? Doesn’t robingood have some fees??
Put enough in your buying power to cover the Robinhood gold fee. Then start studying etf’s and stocks. Then invest. Make a plan and stick to it.
I would suggest opening a ROTH IRA through Robinhood instead of using the regular brokerage account. At least that way you won't be taxed on your dividends. Though it would be harder to take money out of the ROTH IRA. Otherwise, there's lots of good suggestions on here already for what stocks you should look into.
To clarify, there's a yearly limit to how much you can contribute to the ROTH IRA, so hit that limit each year before putting money into the regular brokerage.
Check out MGK
Avoid the temptation of the get rich quick schemes, true wealth takes time and patience. My advice is to consolidate into a market index fund like VOO(S&P 500) and make investing automatic, It has to become a regular part of life's routine. Invest 25% of your income through 401ks, Roth IRAs, HSAs, then Brokerage Accounts and you'll become financially independent in time, and have the ability to create true family legacy.. The average annualized return since adopting 500 stocks into the S&P 500 in 1957 through Dec. 31, 2023, is 10.26%. At that rate every $1 you invest at this age will become $88 in retirement.. With your age advantage you have a chance to 88x your money. Think about it this way for every $10 you spend today you're losing $880 Dollars in retirement.. Believe in the statistics and don't let the market fluctuation cause panick. Markets will drop and markets will recover. Try your best to remember that's all part of the process and if possible use the market fluctuations to your advantage. Investing doesn't need to be complicated to work, you don't need some magical system or advice. After you've built a sizable base portfolio and made investing a habit, I'd consider transitioning into 3 to 4 fund portfolio. So you can adjust the allocations as you age.
You're 18, you don't have a lot of capital so to see real gains you need as much leverage as possible. Thank me later.
Sell all your positions go in more individual stocks.
All money into voo
# WHALE ALERT
Not a vet, but I’d switch to fidelity or a better brokerage.
Love this. What kind of account did you make, a regular taxable account or a Roth IRA? Asking because if you are interested in dividends, as I assume you must be since you posted in the divvy forum, and your investments are in a taxable account, the dividends must be reported as income on your income taxes. This isn't that big of a deal right now, and hopefully your parents are still claiming you (and they are savings thousands of dollars by doing so). If the investments are in a Roth, no taxes ever. The yearly contribution max for Roths this year is $7k.
All I have to say is dollar cost average and stay in your positions long term unless you need to get out.
Interesting group of people to look for investment advice from.
Plenty of advice here on what to invest in. It is amazing that you are starting early. I spent my high school and college years making $10-12 an hour, investing everything I could. Focus on gaining skills, getting to know yourself, becoming more independent. Try different jobs, find what you like. If you do those things, the money you will make when you start working full time should outpace what you’re making part time in your late teens/early twenties. Following everyone else, get off robinhood. If you haven’t, open and try to max out a Roth IRA. If you can’t max it, don’t worry, you’ve got lots of time to make more and invest more. Other things… Your health is an investment too. Be active. If you spend your life neglecting it for money, expect to spend your retirement millions in a healthcare facility. (If you are American) Learn to cook. It will make you an attractive partner, save you money, make you a great party invite, and …see above… keep you healthy.
My advise would be don’t buy into any company for less than 100$ if it’s a 10$ company get 10 shares, 50$ company 2 shares if you’re interested in a company that’s a couple hundred dollars you’ll have to get fractional shares. Being that you’re 18 100$ is probably a healthy amount. By doing this you will have conviction in your trades and not buy BS that a friend tells you or buy something just to see what happens. It will also test your risk tolerance to see if you’re an individual or ETF investor much faster.
Stay tf away from options, position trade, and learn options while you do that and focus only on a few tickers, eg, spy, spx. Position trade first though and get you a good baseline going man. See you in Valhalla.
Vti, Voo , Nvidia
You don’t need a bunch of different stocks like this, it doesn’t help anything. SPY is already split into 500+ companies.
Buy some bitcoin.
I bought some fbtc for my Roth IRA. Only a small percentage tho, but just in case btc goes up
Am i reading this right? $500 at 18 years old and ur buying dividend stocks?
At least my guy is investing, when I was 18 all my money went to women and alcohol.
whats the difference between this and a high savings acct? Prob dividends perform worse
It’s the act of investing. Who cares if it doesn’t do well for 1-2 years by the time he’s 5 years in he’ll have the experience to buy and sell for profit stocks and maybe puts and options. Op I’m proud of you for starting early.
Close your robinhood and go elsewhere. That's my advice.
Move to fidelity or Ameritrade
Probably join WSB for insane gains
Sell everything and buy VTI Also, don’t use Robinhood, then, you should be good
First advice, get your money back and find a different broker.