Probably linked before. Worth a look as the year winds down.
LINK to Full Article
Summary -
1. Hold onto your winners and cut your losses short.
2. Avoid making predictions and forecasts.
3. Study crowd behavior.
4. Think like a contrarian.
5. Asset allocation is critical.
6. Indexing is a better bet..
7. Avoid cognitive and psychological errors.
8. Admit your mistakes.
9. Understand financial cycles.
10. Don’t settle in a comfort zone.
11. Reduce investing friction.
12. Remember that there is no free lunch.

The portion of value for the below link, is the calculator link near the end of the discussion (from a prior MFO discussion).
Compounding of the growth over time, being the item of value.

Calculator link, MFO

I see @BenWP ... just read the very nice post from David and the condolences. Now I understand.
Re: Small Caps: I mean when its YE and you look at a Fido SC Growth comparison like THIS HERE you question why you might still hold MSSMX. Review the MFO Premium and lots of 5's until this last year when it's earned a 1 and a first miss to SPY. So, given this and the MFO profile, would you continue to hold MSSMX or have they lost their mojo? Trying not to chase funds but...

Hi Ron, Nice to read what you have written about the desires of this young man.
I've pushed Roth IRA's for minors and +18 year olds with our extended family and friends for years. Sadly, few takers for follow up information.
I'm biased towards Fidelity and their quality operation. (wife and I since 1978 with T-IRA's). The online set up is clean and easy, and there are no minimum $ for the vast number of offerings, including active managed Fido funds.
I hand held two mid 30's relatives 2 years ago starting a Roth. They were both a bit more motivated as their mother provided them "seed" money to get their arse's in gear. They have 401k and 403b plans they contribute some money to, but the Roth is a nice extra. They are able to be aggressive (and should be at their age); so all money is invested in QQQ etf.
He has until April 15, 2022 to qualify for a 2021 tax year deposit. The money contribution does not have to be his, so others may help him fund the account.
What we did: We funded (minor Roth, account activation) and still fund our daughters Roth; as she continues with her full time university studies and some part time employment. The Roth is linked to a credit union acct. for easy access; and also includes a taxable brokerage acct. for future use.
The current Roth (Fido acct:) holdings are: FTEC (Fido tech. etf), FBCG (Fido blue chip growth etf) and FSMEX. Additionally, IRS Pub. 590-A should offer info about who may provide funding of a Roth.
I personally remain U.S. centric for our investments, but ACWI is global large cap equity etf at about 60/40, U.S./Global of about 2,200 holdings, if one wants that exposure. There are many other choices in this area for a global spread, if desired.
ACWI holdings
Remain curious,
Catch

Conservative-allocation (CA2) 30-50% VTMFX +12.63%.

VTMFX looks even better when one considers that the income side is federally tax-exempt.
Interesting factoid I wasn't aware of from M*'s writeup of the fund:
"they have to maintain at least 50% of assets in the muni sleeve in order to pass the tax-advantaged treatment of these distributions to fundholders."
This is why its allocation is 50-/50+ (equity/bonds). Same for American Funds Conservative Growth and Income Portfolio℠ TAIFX.

Using MFO screener and other sites, its easy enough to pull up a high flyer SC fund called NEAGX . Consistently beats the SPY even in down cycles, is a Great Owl / HR, Sharpe and APR vs Peer keeps improving every year etc.
With a 35.84% YTD return and 45% in 1 year and 40% in 3 years, I was surprised to find only 1 mention of it here in the discussions by @BenWP in a timely moves for 2022 thread: https://www.mutualfundobserver.com/discuss/discussion/comment/144021/#Comment_144021

Conservative-allocation (CA2) 30-50% VTMFX +12.63%.
M* broke up/expanded the old conservative-allocation into CA1 15-30% and CA2 30-50%.
M* moderate-allocation is 50-70%.
These are wide variations and some of the variations in performance can be explained by equity percentages.

@fred495 good mention of WBALX ... Category average is 4-5% of CASH. WBALX? 14% in cash as of Sep!! Interesting. Also, goes to show how far VLAAX has dropped given its 50-70 and still trailed this fund. I could be wrong but I think VLAAX was once 30-50.

FASMX (50% notionally) outperforms WBALX by a little the last year and two, but it has done something very right this last year.

Performance YTD of some popular Multi-Asset Funds:
30-50% Equity
TAIFX 11.67
VWINX 7.71
MACFX 7.23
BAICX 6.34
OICAX 5.92
MTRAX 9.06
Much has already been discussed about the difference/similarities between "Balanced
and Multi-Asset".

By the way, WBALX, a perhaps not quite so popular balanced fund with a low AUM, but an excellent risk/reward profile, has a YTD total return of 12.50%, according to M*. That beats all of the funds listed in the above table.
That's not meant as a criticism, but is posted strictly for informational purposes.
Fred

ytd VONE + STIP 50-50 = ½ x 25.48% + ½ x 5.38% = 15.43%.
That would not be the best way to do the calculation since the lack of rebalancing implicit in the arithmetic would see the equity allocation drift up toward:1.2548/(1.2548 + 1.0538) = 54%.
Still, that's well below FBALX's 72%. (M*'s analysis says that it average a 2/3 allocation to equity and that the current 72% is its high point.)
Here's a better approximation using Portfolio Visualizer, taking a 70/30 VONE/STIP portfolio, rebalancing monthly, and comparing it to FBALX.
The index fund blend had a comparable std dev (8.04% vs 8.06%), and a worse max drawdown (-3.21% vs. -3.07%). But it did noticeably better when it came to raw performance (16.56% vs 14.80%), Sharpe ratio (2.12 vs 1.91) and Sortino ratio (4.87 vs. 4.29).
Based on AUM, the most popular moderate allocation fund is American Funds American Balanced, once one adds up the assets in its 19(!) different share classes. At $223B, no other fund is on the same planet. The runner up, if one wants to call it that, is Wellington (VWELX / VWENX), half the size at $123B. Then comes Vanguard's index entry, VBIAX, half again as large at $60B, and then PRWCX at $53B.
---
From the M* piece Yogi quoted:
" So, if you're investing for something six, 12, even 18 months from now, a 60/40 is probably a little too volatile for that."
Something that IMHO is key here is that these days the bonds are almost exclusively for ballast (dead weight to temper volatility) and just a smidgen of yield above MMFs over time. The less ballast, the longer one should expect to hold the fund. Currently I'm taking a little money off the table (something I rarely do, but equities have grown to be just too large a portion of my portfolio), so I've been looking at 50/50 funds. That's consistent with the M* quote, since I'm thinking of these as a place for cash for 12 or 18 months out.
The quote also brings to mind what I once read in literature from the former Strong Advantage fund STADX, renamed Strong Ultra Short, and then acquired by Wells Fargo. (From the frying pan into the fire?). That this fund (which was on the aggressive end of its category, with a fair amount of mid and low grade holdings) should not be used for money needed within the next year, but was better suited for money to be used in 1-2 years.

If this money is for retirement and not for a home or family in the next 10 years, the Roth is the best idea hands down.
I think if I was starting out and had 1 investment to start with, I would just buy QQQ and don't worry about diversification at that young age. Technology was a great investment 40 years ago, 20 years ago, 10 years ago and no reason to think differently in the future.
And I can't for the life of me think why a senior in high school whose only obligation for the next 4-5 years is to concentrate on a college degree, and being an only child with parents having good jobs as you described would ever need an emergency fund. It's not like he has to worry about losing his job and have to pay the families bills. This may be the best time of his life to invest as much as possible for the future without having other life-obligations that will certainly come in the future.
I'm very impressed with this young man wanting to understand finance at this young age.

@gk3105gklm Thanks for mentioning some "new players". I'm at YE and looking at my SC underperformers - MSSMX and WAMCX and reviewing WAMVX DVSMX CSMVX and during this exercise - throwing a few ETF's in the mix: RWJ IJT SLYJG and XSHQ
Edit Add: Latest Kiplinger (best ETF's for 2022) lists CALF as a SC Value recommendation along with DEEP . Both are up quite a bit YTD: CALF +43% and DEEP +38.94

@Sven ...my portfolio consists of 10% cash and FI holdings, 21% equity OEFs, and the balance being individual stock holdings along with CEFs and 2 ETFs (SCHD and DIVO). That last portion generates divi's of 4.5%. That, plus prudent fund profit taking generates sufficient cash for me.
I understand that bonds are (were) effective ballast, but I think a few high quality healthcare or utility stocks (or even banks) serve the same function. That bull market in bonds we had for the past 30 years was pretty nice, but I see nothing conservative in bond purchases at present.

... in other words, if I am doing the math right, ytd the Fidelity Balanced team (some of whom probably live only a few miles of where I am typing this) did almost 50% better (!) than a 30-70 combination of FTBFX and Fido's SP500 cheapo. That is something. I can practically hear the corks popping.

So slow! Even Bloomberg has ditched most of their regular programming for the week. Mainly two old dudes gabbing all day (normal market tickers displayed of course). Some stale old recorded interviews. Will need to wait until January to get my regular fix.
But nothing stops these crazy averages from advancing. Interesting commentary in Barron’s this week by a regular contributor, Steven M. Sears. Equates the current red-hot futures markets with a gambling casino.
“The Options Market is Now a Casino” - You might be able to view once without subscription - depending on browser. https://www.barrons.com/articles/the-options-market-is-now-a-casino-heres-how-to-bet-wisely-51640165403

@gmarceau : By loaded up ,from your post, more than 5% of your portfolio ?
I bought a toe hold , less than 1% of my portfolio in GPGEX. It's nice to get in on the ground floor, but some worthy question have been ask about this new addition by the MFO community . The limited AUM was good news to hear.
Enjoy the ride, Derf

Performance YTD of some popular Multi-Asset Funds:
50-70% Equity
VWELX 18.28
FBALX 17.74
FMSDX 17.02
JABAX 16.45
ETNMX 14.81
PAXWX 14.45
SWOBX 14.23
VLAAX 10.68
30-50% Equity
TAIFX 11.67
VWINX 7.71
MACFX 7.23
BAICX 6.34
OICAX 5.92
MTRAX 9.06
Much has already been discussed about the difference/similarities between "Balanced
and Multi-Asset".

https://www.morningstar.com/articles/1073089/how-did-the-6040-portfolio-do-in-2021
"'The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated,' says the asset-allocation standard.....through the end of November, the 60/40 has returned about 15%, and I'm using just a generic stock and bond 60/40 portfolio for an example here. So, about 15%. And so, real return after you adjust for inflation, even with high inflation, that's about an 8% real return, which is pretty great. I looked at the rolling 12-month real returns for the 60/40 since 2000. The median over that last 21 years is about 7.5%. So, it's actually outperformed its median real return over that time period. So, even though all this doom and gloom came true, it didn't derail the 60/40.....I think it's definitely not something for a short-term investment. With 60% stocks, you're going to have volatility. You could have drawdowns. In 2008, 2020 drawdowns were a little north of 20%. So, that's your downside risk. So, if you're investing for something six, 12, even 18 months from now, a 60/40 is probably a little too volatile for that. But I think if you have a long time horizon, it's a very good starting point, and it's proven very difficult to beat because the stocks and bonds, when it's like an investment-grade bond portfolio, really balance each other out nicely. And unless that correlation between those two really significantly changes, which it's hard to see how it would, though it could over shorter periods, I think it's a really good long-term investment, and it's definitely been a very hard benchmark to beat....."
And for those who want to venture out some more, look at evolving MULT-ASSET funds that include stocks-bonds-alternatives in the mix.

iShare allocation series AOK, AOM, AOR, AOA is mislabeled by a notch. So, moderate-allocation AOM is really conservative-allocation (30-50% equity) by other classifications.
Also, for active funds-of-funds, don't ignore robo-advisors that are active funds-of-funds for ERs of 0-0.30%.