[Poll] What percentage of your net worth do you have in investments?

If you don't know what you're doing and can't afford to buy enough individual stocks for diversity, but still want to experience the Stock Market, then go with Mutual Funds and "index funds" in particular. The Vanguard family of index funds are highly recommended by various investment magazines for having very low fees. If you don't have a brokerage account, you can also invest directly with Vanguard. I think $1k is enough to open an account.

 

it is?? is it?? why is it assumed?
I mean savings accounts aren't investments right? So are assets owned that aren't investments right?
i have a lot of pretty consumptive friends..

current prices! cause youre calculating for the future

you study different investment products, some easy ones are shares/stocks, mutual funds, CD. you google them up and see if any of the companies in the google result shows their details (eg performance for mutual funds, rates for CD). then you go purchase some (?)

since im not very informed, i go by gut feelings and famous-ness of the company usually xD
still learning how to be a profitable trader T^T

im presuming large cap growth are blue chip?
whats value stocks?

oh! this is my first time seeing 'online savings accounts'. how do they differ? are they backed by a financial institution? why dont people use them more often then?

the second option..?

good luck!!
:blob-pompom:

yes sir

 

I have none investment yet cuz well I don't have money for that~ as much as I wanna make some there more urgent thing which need ma moneh~
simple put my income and knowledge can't search good investment atm~

 

Strangely enough, I feel like this is the most useful poll I've made XD A lot of young people in our age group don't have very much financial awareness/literacy. Whenever I talk to people older than me, they often say that they wished they started investing earlier, because young people have a tendency to use/spend money at a faster rate and save/invest less.

A lot of young people also think that because they don't make enough money (e.g. "investing in stocks is only for the rich or risk-takers!") or because they have debt/mortgage, they shouldn't invest or save into a retirement account. This isn't necessarily true. The decision point between whether to invest/save or pay off debt can be a complex one, and you should look at the numbers carefully to figure out what will net you more money in the long run.

For example, if your employer offers a 401k with matching, sometimes it makes more sense to max out your 401k before trying pay down car loans, house mortgages, or certain kinds of student loans. You have to do a calculation between the interests and rates.

 

I don't know how that's related to my comment, but investing is risky, young people don't have the money for it as you said and why the fuck would the students invest? what with their parents money? The only safe money is the money you make yourself, people don't want or don't have the time to study the stocks, and getting loans is stupid, so just study, make money, save money and avoid loans like hell, simple as that.
Btw if I was in USA or some country where you need to pay for college by taking crazy high loans which indebt you for life, lol I wouldn't do that crazy shit. Plenty of good jobs with high school especially if you're good at it and become an expert, you can make the same or more money then someone with a degree and debt up to his neck. Besides the most wanted occupation now is the programmer, which half the employers don't even ask for a degree, only knowledge which you can get at home.

 

Such a nice young lady, *gives you a 'good citizen' ticket Canadian cops give to good children*
Also, Research, Research, Research, If you are investing, never base it on a 'good' feeling about a company, Though that advice can be ignored if say a company invented something you KNOW will be big, EX: Apple, or in the future, Fusion Generators.

This is simply sad that youth are less likely to look at the long term.

 

Ah, but I mean, that's the common assumption that people have that isn't necessarily true.

Even for me, who is inexperienced with investing, meaning it would be stupid to to put all of myself in when I don't know what I'm doing, there are investments that are actually very secure and very low risk. Examples of these include retirement accounts, mutual funds/index funds (like @SerialBeggar mentioned), or at the very least CDs. All of these are better than letting the money you "save" just sit in a checking account and accumulate to the tens of thousands dollar range.

And I agree with you that obviously that you don't think about investing unless you have a job. However, people around age 21, 22 (which I think is like the median age of a nuffian?) are just starting to enter the job market, and they aren't always financially literate to begin with when they get their first real job. I certainly wasn't last year...

 

what did apple invest in?

mmm honestly i use gut feeling on a lot of things
cause you can't compare their performances actually and numbers can be prettified on their brochures
also, past performance doesn't always mean good future performance because the market situation changed (eg this company is good at bullish trends but this one is steady at bearish trends) you can try to research deeply i guess but i think theres too much effort (cost) to research that deeply +_+
'meh its a mutual fund, i wont have too much risk' was the line of thought lol
im diversifying the companies/products i buy tho, cause i know i buy with gut feelings xD

yay im a good citizen!

rather than investing, lychee is more like talking about other forms / places to 'put your savings in', cause theyre very secure (basically no chance of going down unless the company defaulted)
because actually letting your money accumulate isn't saving

and why can't students invest their parents money (or from their part time / random money for being research participants)?

and I'd argue for loans against you considering I have a productive loan, but why are you so sure that loans should be avoided like hell?
any financial decisions should be made with planning. only when taking a loan out fit your plans should it be taken out.*)
and loans are called leverage for a reason

*) not based on hopes and dreams but actual financial capabilities

you cant pick and choose what you assume~ if you were in USA or some country wher you need to take out a loan to pay for college, lots of jobs would REQUIRE the college diploma/degree (i mean, why else would student loans be invented). Recruitment might not work the way recruitment in your country work.

 

cuz it have to do with your background and education~
heck most youngster even dunno wanna become what and randomly pick first job based on what they learn or totally unrelated one as long as they can work~

my lil sis learn about investment during high school while me? how to save my lil budget

 

They are investments, just low risk low return ones (Assuming your getting interest)

They all have FDIC insurance, the only thing they usually don't have is physical locations. Some are owned by big brands ( Capital One, Discover, Goldman, Barclay, GMAC(ally) ). You transfer and manage money over the internet. Many have ATM access if you need the money and some even have checking too

Many in US don't even have savings accounts and use checking mostly. But overall the banks don't advertise them as much because they rather you take the 0.1% accounts.

You can also get no penalty CDs if you know you are unlikely to pick up money which have 1.6%-1.65% interest rate for 11 months.

 

Ask a friend who's probably an economist for that, people are generally dumb, if everyone went to invest, it would be the same as everyone going to the betting shop or casino.

As far as I know, most american students are in debt for life as I said already... whole fking countries are in debt, loans don't make any sense when you're paying more for something that would've been yours if you were patient and you would have more money for the next thing thing you want/need which would've been wasted on interest, thus making you go for another loan. Basically loans are traps for idiots, sure some can use it for business but that's not most people who just need something for everday life...

 

3rd party company analysis and public image is also included in research, though for the casual investor, such as yourself and I, mutual funds are one of the safe baskets for people who don't have the time. Also, antoher note on the feeling thing, It's more of a *snapping fingers while thinking of it* Use Logic and feeling at the same time, I should not have said just not use your gut feeling at all, a balance, kind of.

EDIT: make sure the returns are better than a savings account though! or else you would waste your time!

 

This is also a common misconception -- that people must be smart in order to make gains in the stock market -- which isn't really true. In fact, it's probably better if you consider yourself to be a "bad investor" (and invest conservatively) than be overconfident and think of yourself as a "good investor" (and invest high-risk), because it's easy to deceive yourself and make bad decisions when you think you are smarter than everyone else.

Have you ever heard of the saying that a bunch of monkeys playing the stock market perform better than your typical hedge-fund geniuses?

Unlike gambling at a casino or playing the lottery (where the expected value of winning is much less than the cost of the ticket), the stock market.... even if you bought stocks entirely randomly (e.g. like a monkey) on average... would net you more money than you started with so long as you diversified your basket enough. Bizarre, isn't it? There's a rule in finance that every year, the stock market as a whole on average grows by 7-10%. Some investors gain more, and other investors a bit less (based on their luck and degree of stupidity), but that's the average from random buying as long as your assets are diversified.

This 7-10% annual growth has been the case of global finance for.... at least the past century or more. Sure, there are short term recessions and depressions, but in the long run the economy will grow out of the recession (at least, this is what economists say...).



For example, even if you bought into the stock market in 2008 just before the stock market crash, this doesn't necessarily mean you're screwed (as long as the companies you bought didn't go bankrupt). This is because, by 2014, the stock market recovered from it's 2009 low, and therefore you've started to gain money since 2014. This is why the stock market makes sense for long-term investments, if you have faith that the economy in your country will be stronger 20 years from now than it is currently.

One way to examine this is by looking at the growth rate in GDP of countries you're interested in:



If you have reason to believe that your country will continue to grow in the next 20 years, then you can expect the stocks of businesses in your country to grow as well, meaning any investments you make will continue to rise with the economy in the long term. Generally, you should expect growth if:

1. The population of your country is still rising
2. You see lots of construction going on in your country
3. Your country is getting greater integration into the global market
4. Your country is inventing lots of new technologies/products

Generally speaking, most mainstream economists believe that the world economy can continue to grow indefinitely. Huh? Wait, doesn't that sort of violate common sense? Well, part of this is based on the idea that world technology can continue to grow indefinitely, just as the standard of living/productivity in the world can grow indefinitely, meaning that people in the future will live a better life than we do now (however you define "better"), which translates into GDP growth.

GDP growth is important, because some people will even say that the economy collapses if GDP shrinks for too long. Somebody can correct me if my understanding is wrong, but when economy shrinks, often times this can mean demand has also shrunk, which can then lead to deflation. Deflation is bad because it encourages people to hoard money (aka "save") instead of invest/spend, causing circulation to slow or even stop... and then the economy collapses from the vicious cycle, rising unemployment, etc. For this reason, most central banks of countries purposefully try to make sure there is some amount of inflation to stimulate growth, but not too much because hyperinflation is bad too.

 

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