lets not talk about you or him, just about the general investor.. the general investor will never know what he is doing so the discussion is about what general investor, who will never have the investing method, should do correct?
I agree with scat, doesn't matter much what it is, but starting early investing in anything is always a good idea. You don't need a method. By the time you have serious money you will be telling others what to do.
i see ...so summarizing you advise to the new investor: start early, you do not need a method, you will become the investment guru with time, the more money you accumulate, ok here is my advice to a novice: there are overwhelming great chances are you will never become an investment guru... the problem is you already invested you want it or not... you invested in the country where you live, in the currency in which you hold your money, you will be greatly invested in your wife (who upon divorce can leave you penniless), you will be invested in your kids... etc etc , but most of all you invested and you should be invested in yourself so starting early is good, but starting close imho is better which means invest in what you know, and that starts with yourself then look around, there will be areas in life which you may know very well, which will allow you to have some inner feeling toward what is value and what's not in this filed.. invest there... as the time pass you will accumulate some money, but much more important you will accumulate knowledge... knowledge of people so invests not in companies, invest in people... people making things happen , not companies there is always one individual who digs, everybody around him sucks in comparison... you missed gates and jobs, but there are and will be others.. invest in them and fuck the dividends: at 19 or 90 invest in the future !
One thing I agree upon is investing time in yourself... Play tennis!! Ha-ha. If you do what you think is right then you will build your intuition... This is priceless
I didn't say "investment guru" I just said by the time you have serious money you will be answering questions and giving advice to new investors. as far as "investing in what you know" you can't hardly go 24 hours without coming in contact with the 500 companies I own.(and most of them I detest and would never buy or use their product.)
Scataphagos took the words right out of my mouth. "Dollar cost averaging" Ever pay period, buy a fixed dollar amount of SPY; don't mess with mutual funds. During corrections and bear markets you're accumulating more shares at a lower price. During bull markets you're buying less shares that are more expensive. Accumulate, accumulate, accumulate! Absolutely don't do DRIPs! My wife had a bunch of them from before we were married. When she started selling some of them off the accounting was an effing nightmare. Accounting for splits, reverse splits, spin-offs, acquisitions was a total pain and took hours of research. They seem good in principle but aren't worth the headache.
the advantage to the mutual fund over spy is no commissions and automatic reinvesting of dividends, and ACH each month directly from your checking account. The Vanguard S&P 500 is the same as SPY but preferable in my opinion for dollar cost averaging. (I think the min is 3k)
This tells me you are a smart young man (i know because i was going to be an actuary, but i found it too dull, so i went into trading, anyway..). Your future career is a high paying one. Concentrate on it. Save your money in a savings account. Don't do any stock market investment...yet. Read up on the subject (I suggest Battle for investment survival as your 1st book). Being of a statistically minded person, you should get your hands dirty and really look into investment performance numbers. People expect too much from the markets. Think about moving from being an actuary into investment management, which is very possible since you are already in the financial industry. That can make you very wealthy.
Would the vanguard S&P ETF work the same as the index or the index is better? (Idk if this is the same thing lol) I was reading up a little on 401k/IRAs and the maximum yearly is only 5000, that seems like you would be better off just investing that extra money into something else that yields a better return (Unless the matching that companies do is where the real benefit is?)
Well some online brokers have Dividend reinvestment options for your portfolio, so I could purchase a diverse group of companies and just have the divs be reinvested, like I think vanguard has a drip program.