• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

I need help: just started investing

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
I just started investing through the Robinhood app... I bought a few stocks already... Nothing big... All under 10 a piece... Trying to make sure they're in different industries so one or more doesn't bring everything down.

What stocks should I buy? (Keep in mind, I'm on a strict budget and earn less than $30k/yr)

What stocks/companies are looking up?

What companies are stable performers?

I'm new to this so I can't think of every question I'd need to ask and have answered.

Thanks in advance!

P.S... this is my Robinhood link if anyone wants to join and get a free stock

Your free stock is waiting for you! Join Robinhood and we'll both get a stock like Apple, Ford, or Facebook for free. Sign up with my link. (referral link removed)
 
Last edited by a moderator:
If this is intended as a long term investment, I would open up a Roth IRA at Vanguard and start buying ETFs. You might have to save a little to get some of their better ones (which can be $100-$300 a share) but you will be immediately diversified versus trying to buy individual stocks. TBH, I don't think anyone who has less than $50,000 expendable cash and a bunch of free time should fiddle with individual stocks - it requires too much time, research, and money to be properly diversified and keep up with news on different sectors.

You can put up to $6000 a year of your after-tax income into it, and the earnings in that account will be untaxed when you reach the proper age to withdraw them. Your goal is probably to make more when you retire than you do now, so a Roth is the best vehicle.

In case of emergency, you can also pull out up to the amount you have put in without additional penalty, although earnings on that amount (calculated proportionately) will be taxed and you cannot put that amount back in later. Some uses also let you make early withdrawals without any penalty or tax (IIRC school and home purchases).
 
Sony, AMD. Great combo, but you should have jumped on AMD when it was around 40 bucks. It is still going to shoot up. I think it will probably reach close to the hundred dollar mark.
 

mickaus

Member
If robinhood has access to some bond ETF's that could be useful. I told my Dad to switch his retirement account (Superannuation in Australia) to bonds about a year ago when interest rates were just going down all the time, then last quarter (Jan-Mar) instead of losing around 25% because of the Australian stock market, he gained a little because of the bonds. I think having a mix of stocks and bonds (or something similar like Gold) is usually a good idea for when stocks crash bonds and gold are usually stable and if you need the money it is better to have lower returns then take a large capital loss in my opinion.
 

longdi

Banned
Dont use robinhood.
There are now more reputed brokers with zero commission, Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade and Interactive Brokers
 

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
Dont use robinhood.
There are now more reputed brokers with zero commission, Charles Schwab, TD Ameritrade and Interactive Brokers

Like who/what? I don't have a ton of money to pay people to invest for me. Robinhood is a cheap entry point for me... All stocks are under $10 each. In the case of Ford, under 1 dollar.
 

Amory

Member
Dang! Almost all my stocks are down at the moment... Is that normal?
You picked a pretty volatile time to start investing, particularly in individual stocks. But yeah, obviously stocks go up and down even in the best of times. Invest in companies that you believe will be strong over time, and mostly ignore the daily ups and downs.
 

Super Mario

Banned
Investing can be a gamble. Some will give better advice than others. Some of it is luck.

One of the best principles is diversify. Do not put all of your money into one investment, in case it crashes. Lots of stuff in the S&P probably will be a decent bet. Some stocks will even pay dividends from holding them. Now is also a great time to buy as many things are way down. That is assuming everything bounces back, which it likely will
 

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
Investing can be a gamble. Some will give better advice than others. Some of it is luck.

One of the best principles is diversify. Do not put all of your money into one investment, in case it crashes. Lots of stuff in the S&P probably will be a decent bet. Some stocks will even pay dividends from holding them. Now is also a great time to buy as many things are way down. That is assuming everything bounces back, which it likely will

I have Ford, LG Display, a cannabis company... An iron company... Looking to get GE later... And maybe one of the cryptocurrencies which I've seen at a low price... But not all are created equally.

I knew to diversify... Just trying to get the best returns on investment...
 

Amory

Member
What's your strategy, OP?

That's an interesting group of companies. Ford, LG, and GE have performed poorly the last 5 or so years in terms of share price. They do each have a pretty nice dividend, but if you're interested in dividend stocks why not just do a dividend ETF (like SPYD) to diversify automatically and reduce your risk?

I mean, I'm a moron so don't listen to me. I'm just curious how you chose those particular stocks.
 

Belmonte

Member
IMHO, the financial crisis is just in the beggining. Many markets are artifially inflated by low or even negative interest. Many should not even exist in a healthy environment. Since I'm also a noob and not knowledged enough to understand which market will grow and which ones won't, I'm buying gold. Yeah, I know...."not an investment". But the currency in many coutries are getting nuked by governments priting money, I expect the gold value will increase. At least the currency of my country is getting destroyed each day.

I'm reading this book about investing: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FC12C8/?tag=neogaf0e-20

Many recommends this book, including Warren Buffet . It was written by his mentor.
 
Last edited:

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
Investing is a long-term strategy (the most reliable ROI in the stock market long-term is with products like Vanguard ETFs that reflect the market). If you're concerning yourself a lot with day by day market shifts, you're taking more of a swing trader approach, in which case you'd try to buy when the market is down and sell when the market is up over a timeline of days or weeks, but that's very risky.
 

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
I have no strategy at the moment... But I'll definitely look at the book Belmonte Belmonte suggested!

ETFs... I'm going to look into those. What about cryptocurrencies? Are those safe investments? I'm such a noob.
 

EviLore

Expansive Ellipses
Staff Member
I have no strategy at the moment... But I'll definitely look at the book Belmonte Belmonte suggested!

ETFs... I'm going to look into those. What about cryptocurrencies? Are those safe investments? I'm such a noob.

There’s nothing safe about crypto investing. Crypto isn’t backed by any government and is only worth something as long as other crypto investors think it is. It’s extremely volatile and can go to zero at any time. Also, Bitcoin is very high right now, generally not a good time to get in.
 

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
There’s nothing safe about crypto investing. Crypto isn’t backed by any government and is only worth something as long as other crypto investors think it is. It’s extremely volatile and can go to zero at any time. Also, Bitcoin is very high right now, generally not a good time to get in.

Thanks man! Staying away from Crypto for now then.
 
Top Bottom