What is investing?

Investing is putting money into shares of a company. The better the company does, the higher value the stock is.
For example,

If Amazon does great, and makes great profits during Christmas, Amazon stock would be worth more money, going up in price. A share of Amazon could go from $100 dollars a share to $120 a share. That's 20%!

Throughout every day, companies climb up, and slope down, being almost impossible to predict. Initially, I picked out companies I heard of like Amazon and Apple, and had poor results.

I'm not a professional. At all.

But, I've learned and studied a TON about the most straight forward way to invest, while maintaining growth.

The key is to Diversify between several companies. The best way to do this is to invest into ETF'S

An ETF is like a basket of stocks, grouped together to allow you to own a part in multiple companies.

Is the S&P 500 the only option?

Overall, the best thing to invest in overall is the S&P 500

The S&P 500 is a collection of the top 500 performing companies in the United States. Not every company gets an equal percentage, with higher performing companies representing more of the basket.

Through purchasing even a dollar of the S&P 500, you technicality own small parts of over 500 companies.

The S&P 500 being so diverse almost guarantees returns over a long period of time, making it a crucial investment for everyone.

That keeps your investments diverse, while also having a return averaging 10%-12% a year! That doesn't mean it's guaranteed to grow that much a year, but through the high and low years, it comes out to about 12%.

(The average savings account is 0.5% a year, being 95% less than that!)

Of course not, but for most people, it's the easiest way to invest into the market and have success. In the investing world, the S&P is a benchmark for investors to outpace, with only 10% being successful.

Unless you have years and years of practice and going into financing, you can't go wrong with it.

Now of course, having money split across the highest performing companies is great, but I recommend being a little more diverse than that. The S&P 500 only covers the United States, leaving your portfolio lacking the global market. Funds like VXUS (Total International Stock Index Fund ETF) are baskets of funds that only bundle successful companies from outside the United States all over the world. This allows you to diversify, allowing your money to grow even when the United States goes through it's rough periods.

Most people recommend allocating about 80% into funds like the VOO ( or funds that track the S&P 500) and 15-20% into funds like VXUS ( or equivalent )

VXUS over the last 5 years

Questions? Let me know!

brickcooksey@gmail.com

806-206-8996