Stocks/investments

[Biggerp73]

I've been saving and have a decent amount of money in my bank account, and I am concerned about inflation eating away at it, so I've been thinking about putting it in stocks - the duration of the investment would be somewhere between 6 months to two years. I'm open to doing trades more often, but maybe not day trading. I'm also open to investing in other things, I just don't know what.

I figure some of you guys might have some ideas about stocks, investments, etc.

For the sake of discussion let's say I hypothetically have around $20k

 

[slayer37]

You really can't go wrong with a low cost index fund like SP500 or VTSAX. In the long run, they always go up. Always.
That said, now may not seem like the best time to blow your entire wad in the market. Everything is so overvalued its bonkers. But, as Warren Buffet says, the best time to invest is whenever you have the money to do so. Timing the market is impossible.
Pick a couple of great companies with strong P&L sheets (AMZN, TSLA, AAPL), buy a few shares of those, then dump the rest in a quality index fund. With this method, in the long run, You literally cannot lose.

 

[Sixfoottwo]

If you're set on investing for 6 to 24 months I wouldn't do it now due to volatility and uncertainty. It would blow if the market goes down and in 6 months you need your money. If you can invest and leave it for 10+ years now is as good a time as any.

 

[maxmusle1]

I've been saving and have a decent amount of money in my bank account, and I am concerned about inflation eating away at it, so I've been thinking about putting it in stocks - the duration of the investment would be somewhere between 6 months to two years. I'm open to doing trades more often, but maybe not day trading. I'm also open to investing in other things, I just don't know what.

I figure some of you guys might have some ideas about stocks, investments, etc.

For the sake of discussion let's say I hypothetically have around $20k

Just a few pics for you. If the market crashes, the last pic are stocks that people double up on(not advice at all). Hope it gives you a starting point. Cashapp has partial & full stocks, ETF’s, Btc, check it out. Totally free buys for newbs

The more safe stocks
Max

 

[whacked]

^ you can buy stocks thru cash app?

 

[carnivor]

I’ve never invested short term. I’d probably do a CD or just hold onto the money. I have no confidence in my ability to predict where the market will be at any point in time.
I stick with large dividend paying stock that I’m comfortable not paying attention to.

Your mind is in the right place though. If I could go back and change one thing in my life I would have started investing earlier.

 

[old timer]

We have been in an incredible bull market that started after the housing meltdown ended in 2009. The market corrected in March 2020 due to covid but it recovered extremely quickly. It's been correcting some lately too, and at one point the S&P 500 was down 12% YTD at one point.

I took a somewhat defensive position in August 2020 and about two months ago I went took it further: I'm 100% cash. I think the market will drop between 25% and possibly even more this year.

Will you lose buying power if you put your money in the bank? Yes. Could you potentially lose a lot more by investing in stocks? Absolutely.

With that said, for long term investing, dollar cost averaging is a great tool. It would have been preferable had you been slowly investing in an S&P 500 index fund over time as opposed to putting it in the bank. Here's a chart by Professor Galloway that shows how many S&P stocks have a market cap (price) that's 10X greater than it's annual sales. The next one is the S&P's P/E as of Aug 2021 (it has since begun a return to a more historical average).

 

[nmk85roll]

Use lose 7% of your money in cash due to inflation. As stated earlier in the thread, a good quality ETF that tracks the SP500 or Nasdaq will ALWAYS prevail on a 5+ year timespan. 90% stock pickers and hedgefunds actual perform BELOW these benchmarks, let that sink in...