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Open a Roth IRA, max out your yearly contributions and invest out of that. This will enable you to avoid taxes on investment profits and help you save for reti

Open a Roth IRA, max out your yearly contributions and invest out of that. This will enable you to avoid taxes on investment profits and help you save for retirement. I gather you are young since you just found your first job which typically means you can take on more risk than older investors. Owning a diversified stock portfolio and holding is generally considered a safe long term strategy because stocks tend to trend upward and you can regain losses caused by bear markets by holding until times are good again. If you want to be a passive investor then invest in ETFs like SPY or QQQ that have a lot of liquidity and represent a basket of stocks than will tend to trend upwards. If you want to have more fun and take on more risk than some of the older guys on here then learn about options trading and hedging strategies which can really increase (or decrease) your YoY returns. I just turned 30 and have set aside a small sum of my retirement money for that sort of trading and am up around 150% this year on that account. It’s fun but it’s not for the faint of heart and you’ll have to learn a lot but flip-side is you have much greater earning potential if you do. If you go this route you should learn about options sigmas, find out what the VIX represents, learn technical analysis so that you have a strategy on when to enter and exit trades and a bunch more. Wish you luck out there, have fun and don’t get discouraged if you lose some money at first, just keep learning until you have a strategy that works for you!

RhysU 6y ago
Don't touch any of the fun stuff above until you have a considerable safety fund. Don't touch it with anything but money intended for entertainment. Yeah, it's possible to do well. It's also an easy way to set a pile of money on fire.
- JacKTrocinskI 6y ago
  Like I said it requires trading experience, you can't gain trading experience without trading. He's young, he can afford to make mistakes in the market and learn from them. Accumulating stock like SPY and AAPL is good if you're older and want to play it relatively safe, you won't make much but won't lose much either. Depends on you risk tolerance, but I wouldn't steer OP away from it, when is he suppose to learn options trading and hedging, when he's 50?
  - RhysU 6y ago
    Yes, when he's had about 3 decades of growth on a solid nest egg in equities, fixed income, and possibly real estate is a good time. Any money he wastes now doesn't compound with time. Time is his best advantage now. And time takes no options skills to monetize.

RhysU 6y ago

Don't touch any of the fun stuff above until you have a considerable safety fund. Don't touch it with anything but money intended for entertainment. Yeah, it's possible to do well. It's also an easy way to set a pile of money on fire.

JacKTrocinskI 6y ago
Like I said it requires trading experience, you can't gain trading experience without trading. He's young, he can afford to make mistakes in the market and learn from them. Accumulating stock like SPY and AAPL is good if you're older and want to play it relatively safe, you won't make much but won't lose much either. Depends on you risk tolerance, but I wouldn't steer OP away from it, when is he suppose to learn options trading and hedging, when he's 50?
- RhysU 6y ago
  Yes, when he's had about 3 decades of growth on a solid nest egg in equities, fixed income, and possibly real estate is a good time. Any money he wastes now doesn't compound with time. Time is his best advantage now. And time takes no options skills to monetize.