If you will not be actively managing your money, all your money should be in index funds. don't be tempted to jump on the next "hot" stock pick because by the time you find out about it, all the alpha will be sucked out of it. What level of risk are you willing to take on with this money? Just because you're investing doesn't mean you're going to stay in the black so you should have your assets mixed across classes so that your asset allocation matches the level of risk you are willing to take. the name of the game here is diversification. the more diversified your portfolio the less risk you will take on. avoid putting all or most of your eggs in one basket. and by that i mean avoid putting all or large chunks of your money in a single stock. that is how you lose big. index funds are an exception to this as they are actually many stocks so don't worry about over loading that way. The problem you can run into there with diversification is that most funds represent a certain chunk of the market: large cap, mid cap, small cap, growth, value, domestic,, stocks, bonds, etc. so try to get an array of different funds. Also, get funds from different companies as well. All companies use the same internal research done by their analysts to make their picks so by only going with one company's funds you open yourself up to the errors their individual analysts may make. if you have anymore questions, PM me.