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good morning, just questions for colleague

edited November 2019 in Fund Discussions
Happy Thanksgiving

Have young colleague at work want to get into investments with limited funds. I told him buy index funds and 2040 funds since he will retire in --2040s

Any other thoughts
He wanted to to be day trader although knows nothing about it. I told him to read few books, get more knowledge, by written by mr Bogle and Grahm Buffett

Comments

  • Have him started with target date fund would be the best. He needs to learn by reading about investing. Good advices you gave him.
  • edited November 2019
    If your friend is 12 years away from retirement, why is he / she only now taking an interest in investing?

    Not much to go on here. Does he have access to a tax deferred plan at work? (I suspect not based on your question.) Does he by chance look forward to a pension or some kind of “buyout” that will assist him? There are many different investment vehicles depending on type of work, tax status, etc. Others here know more about alternatives to the traditional 401K than I do.

    Good advice from you to learn more. My biggest source of help in the early going was from co-workers who had been at the game longer. A good global stock fund sufficed for the first 20 years. But I was young enough than not to worry about every market flux. Your friend may not have that advantage.

    I’ve found “learning” about investments / investing to be a slow multi-year process (a long learning curve ). One doesn’t just pick up a book or two and suddenly know everything. BTW - I like “The Only Investment Guide You’ll Ever Need” by Andrew Tobias as a good quick easy to read book for the novice investor. He’s updated it over the years. I recently did a quick re-read. Available in print or download at Amazon. Of course, there are longer more comprehensive books for the serious student.
  • edited November 2019
    Day trading is NOWHERE as productive (or fun) as it was 10 years ago or longer. Speaking as someone who paid for parts of his PhD via daytrading futures (who has both earned and lost 10s of thousands in a single day), I suggest he first learn about the markets, stocks, and human psychology before even considering daytrading. Frankly I think day trading is becoming fairly extinct given the rise of algos and technology that can out-wit an out-perform the individual human operator and would counsel him against daytrading with anything other than 'fun' money for an occasional kick .... life is too short to be staring at screens all day anyway :)

    BTW sure, he can dabble in trading simulators, but trus tme, no amount of 'paper' or 'simulated' trading experiences will EVER prepare a person mentally for playing in the markets for real, live, and with real money on the line.
  • edited November 2019
    I think your simple suggestion of a 2040 target date fun is a very good base for investing John. Fund collecting may be fun, but in my opinion not productive to total return. And you should press upon him rforno's excellent point, if you want to play the game of day trading, do it with your fun money, not your retirement future.
  • @JohnN, I agree with all your advice now. Seems to me something changed after you edited the original post. I responded only minutes after the original post went up at around 12:00 noon yesterday.:)

    BTW - Love Bogle, but not an easy read for a beginner. Good luck.
  • edited November 2019
    thankyou all
    I did tell him to buy vanguard star, vanguard lifecycle funds/and vanguard primecap core, vanguard index vti, and brk.b - all these vehicles about 30s% of my core holdings
    also got him couple of books to read to start investing
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