Stock tips?

[Subexistence]

I'm interested in investing in the stock market. Anyone have tips I should know?

[enjoimorenow]

Invest for the long term

Buy companies that you know

Dividend stocks are good

Index funds typically outperform stock brokers/hedge funds over time

Don't automatically sell stocks if they start to go down, this essentially means they are on "sale" and it's usually better to buy more (obviously there would be times you may want to get out of a stock if company is going under, etc.)

Good to diversify but the longer you have to be in the market (younger your age) it is typically better to skew more towards stocks in your portfolio, then transition towards bonds/"lower risk" investments as you get older/closer to retirement.  

Old rule of thumb is 100 - age to see the percent of stocks you should have in your portfolio.  Now most people are doing 110 - age or 120 - age depending on your risk tolerance.  Obviously these are just a guideline, but good place to start.

There are many robo advisors now, I'd shoot for the ones with the lowest fees as that is going to be the biggest hurdle to higher earnings.

Invest in foreign stocks as well, the world is much bigger than just U.S. companies

[Anonymous]

Read about Warren Buffet's bet with the best hedge fund managers.  Over a period of years no one could beat his advice to invest in the S&P 500 index fund.  That's impressive.  This was in a news article about a month ago.  You could probably find it with google.

[bada_bing]

It is necessary to get some basics under your belt. Learning investing isn't hard, but it isn't

something you want to learn as you go. There are lots of excellent resources on the web, but

also lots of people wanting to sell something or manage money for a percentage, 

My favorite resource is the wiki at bogleheads:

Boglehead wiki

The most important concept to thoroughly understand is "the efficient market" and why stock

picking and market timing doesn't work.

[wa3more]

How old are you ?

Do you have some emergency funds set aside that you can easily access ?

Do you have any debt ?

What  is your goal ?

Will you need any of this money within the next 5 years or so ?

[Subexistence]

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@wa3more wrote:

How old are you ?

Do you have some emergency funds set aside that you can easily access ?

Do you have any debt ?

What  is your goal ?

Will you need any of this money within the next 5 years or so ?

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I'm 18 year old first year college student.

I have 12,000 in my bank account right now which I hope to put some in stocks, some as emergency savings.

I have no debt.

My goal is to make money.

I might have to buy a house of car within the next 5 years.

[wa3more]

wow, you are in a pretty good position.

Like some of the others mentioned, start off dollar cost averaging every month into a low cost S&P index fund like Vanguard has. Do this for a while while you learn about stocks,investing and cultivating the right temperment to be a successful invest.

- You need to be patient. You have many years in front of you.

- Do not follow the crowd or fads. CNBC and guys like cramer mean to create noise. You have to ignore this. Be a contrarian.

Try to achieve specific goals :

- I want to double my money in 5 years.

- I want to have 30k in five years

- I want to retire at 50 with 1m in assets. What steps do i need to do this and investments ? Most people are bad at picking stocks so.

Everyone's goal is to make money or beat the market. Few do. You know why ? They are their worst enemy. They don't have the disipline or they follow the crowd and when they lose money they say the market is fixed, the little guy has no chance.lol

[brother7]

OP, do you have any earned income? If so, open a Roth IRA at a brokerage (I recommend Vanguard) and invest in index mutual funds or index ETFs.

If you don't have earned income, open a regular brokerage account (not a Roth IRA) and invest in the same.