I agree in theory that someone just out of high school would be best served by investing long term in pure equity. But I also remember starting out and being spooked by the idea of investing, period. You mean I could lose money?
While pure equity is better, a hybrid fund might be a reasonable compromise, especially for someone watching his first investment going up and down.
I like the idea of going global. So no "total" stock market where "total" means US. Rather something like VTWAX/VT. In the 50-70% allocation arena, davfor and hank mentioned RPGAX which seems like a good choice. Vanguard Star VGSTX would seem to be a good candidate as well, especially given the interest in a low minimum balance. It would take $
1K to start, but then one can add $
1/investment.
If this would be a joint account, it couldn't be an IRA. Still, taxes would likely not be a consideration for some time. Further, it might make sense to sell before earning "real" money, to recognize the gains with no taxes and reset the basis. Contributions to an IRA would be limited to compensation. Though the money could come from someone else as a gift.
(Financial institutions are funny in the ways they accept money. I recently lent a friend cash for a couple of days which she repaid by depositing a check to my Fidelity account. No problems. On the other hand, to bootstrap a BofA checking account I deposited $
100 cash which I took directly from their ATM to their teller. I was required to show two forms of ID. Perhaps they thought the bills they were handing out were counterfeit?)
@catch22 I've never seen Fidelity (or most brokerages) offer to sell fractional shares of ETFs or stocks. (There are a few brokerages that offer "curated" baskets of securities where you can own fractional shares.) At Fidelity, when I go to buy a security like ITOT, there's a "calculate quantity" button. When I use that and input $
100, it calculates
1 share; it doesn't offer me the option of buying
1.3 shares, give or take. Are you talking about buying fractional shares or reinvesting divs?