This post is going to be short and straight forward. Because of the panic due to Covid 19 the stock market has plummeted. It recently saw the biggest drop in a single day since 2008. So what to do. The best thing to do is open an investing account. If you have more than $10k then open a Vanguard account and buy the S&P 500 index fund. Its symbol is VOO. If you have less than 10K then sign up for the Robinhood app on iPhone and Android. This is a commission-free platform. Then do the same things go and buy the VOO and sit and wait.
With any luck, you should be able to increase your investment by 30% within 6 months.
@Elan Must Save That is some straight forward advice! Would you mind sharing some credentials? Are you a financial adviser by profession? Possess any securities licenses? I think it’s only fair to ask. I love good tips, but when we are discussing 10K, and tho I have read many places it might be a good time to buy, I like to know the experience behind the tip!
Hi Mintjulep, Well said, credentials please and thank you.
Onto the corona virus, this virus has been around for many years, just not in epidemic form. Here’s a reference from the CDC on understanding viruses:
In my opinion, a lot of this panic is being fueled by the media, creating a knee-jerk reaction in the stock market, just as they do when snow is about to fall, stores have a rush on the essentials of being snowbound.
Please don’t get me wrong, this is a serious virus and precautions are to be taken, just as with any flu virus.
@Elan Must Save That is some straight forward advice! Would you mind sharing some credentials? Are you a financial adviser by profession? Possess any securities licenses? I think it’s only fair to ask. I love good tips, but when we are discussing 10K, and tho I have read many places it might be a good time to buy, I like to know the experience behind the tip!
Thanks for your comment. As far as my credentials. I am not a professional trader and I do not have any securities licenses. However, by reading a lot of books by the “professionals” who are “qualified” they end up breaking all the rules of the market. The so-called pros don’t even follow advice from Warren Buffett. My education has been focused on Ben Gram, Warren Buffett along with others similar like Ray Dalio. I manage my own money and before the panic, I was up over 18% YTD. So you could say I am not qualified to give advice but I am pretty much alined with Warren Buffett’s rules.
Hi Mintjulep, Well said, credentials please and thank you.
Onto the corona virus, this virus has been around for many years, just not in epidemic form. Here’s a reference from the CDC on understanding viruses:
In my opinion, a lot of this panic is being fueled by the media, creating a knee-jerk reaction in the stock market, just as they do when snow is about to fall, stores have a rush on the essentials of being snowbound.
Please don’t get me wrong, this is a serious virus and precautions are to be taken, just as with any flu virus.
Please read my comment to the OP who asked about my credentials.
The world seems to have gone completely insane! I was at the store (BJ’s) this morning at 9:25 and the lines were all the way to the back of the store! There is not a roll of toilet paper to be had at any store in our area! It’s kind of weird because everyone is afraid of the virus but they are all in the stores in close quarters breathing each other’s air! Everyone needs to get a grip on reality!!
. My education has been focused on Ben Gram, Warren Buffett along with others similar like Ray Dalio. I manage my own money and before the panic, I was up over 18% YTD. So you could say I am not qualified to give advice but I am pretty much alined with Warren Buffett’s rules.
Elon Must Save, 18% is great while managing your own investments, congratulations!! I’m sure I would not be able to attain that return on my own! Just as a comparison, before the market crash last week I was up 22.18% but I have been in the market since the early 1980s. That number fell to 13.32% last Friday at market close. I have always been in the market for the long term and not a day trader or one who reacts quickly to market ups or downs. I’ve been through a few recessions and major market-influencing events and over time the gains have been satisfying, indeed.
I use a financial manager and pay annual fees rather than per transaction commission and those fees are factored into those gains and losses.
Thanks for sharing the financial gurus you follow too! Will enjoy Googling a couple of them and reading their perspectives because I would really like to take some mad money and invest on my own as a comparison to my managed funds.
Yeah, I would say check out Vanguard they are known for the lowest fees out there for funds. If you are trading stocks and its less than $3000 a day Robinhood is free so I don’t pay commissions either because I normally don’t make major moves in a single day also you can pay $10 a month and your limit goes way up.
Vanguard is great. Their VFIAX is also great if you’d like to hold S&P 500. Except the minimum is $3k, instead of the $10k provided by VOO.
$SPY on E-trade or something like that also works. And if you’re feeling real adventurous, you might even buy $TQQQ (which is a 3X leveraged Nasdaq index).
These indices generally outperform almost all hedge funds out there and I think they will continue to do so. They hit all-time highs all the time, and cyclically speaking, bear markets are a lot shorter than bull markets.
For me personally (not investment advice), I just dollar cost average in and put in some money every couple weeks. If it dips quite a bit, I just put in a bit more during the next epoch where I DCA.
“Buying the dip” definitely helped me make gains in the March 2020 dip, as I bought airline stocks and gas stocks that were beat up, and they’ve doubled/tripled during the recovery by Q4 2020.
In general, know your risk tolerance and know how much money you can kiss goodbye for a long time. Don’t invest a single dollar that you need to be liquid or can’t lose.
