I am new to investments and stocks. Can I invest without a third-party help?

Low to mid risk investment products that give 1-4% p.a.:
Singapore Savings Bonds
Fixed Deposits
*Bonds (e.g. short term bonds funds)

Stocks have higher volatility.

If you want to invest in them, I'd suggest robo advisors so that it's a diversified portfolio across geography, companies and industries. Also, you can determine the type of risk vs return you want.

Or if you want to DIY yourself, you can go for dollar-cost averaging into Ireland-domiciled ETFs (passive investing) with FSMOne or Kristal AI.

You can do a search and find more info. on them to see what type of investment strategy will suit you best.

Hi Anon, yes you definitely can, in fact, you DONT NEED third party help at all, because no one cares about your money more tha yourself.

You are still young, so your goal now is to growy our capital as fast as possible and as aggresive as possible (but hey I am not asking you to gamble). You have at least 3 decades to grow your wealth, so invest in something that can generate you higher return (though riskier) instead of the safer ones such as fixed deposit and bonds. So aim higher! Below are the options you can explore, pick 1, or even do both:

1. Regular Savings Plan, if you do not have sufficient knowledge and confidence to start picking individual stocks yet, start with RSP, it will not go wrong. Options available now are POSB, OCBC, Phillip Capital and FSMOne. I'd suggest go with FSMOne RSP as they have the lowest fee ($1) and provide the most options (even international ETFs). You can DCA a couple hundreds into each ETF every month, such as iShares Core S&P 500 ETF, iShares FTSE A50 China Index ETF, Vanguard FTSE Emerging Markets ETF, Fidelity® MSCI Information Tech ETF (note: these are my choice, you can choose other ETFs that you personally like on the platform)

2. Robo-advisors. They are pretty solid option as well, you just have to answer some questions and they will provide you with a customized portfolio that cater to your goals and risk level you are comfortable with. If you want to maximize growth (comes with higher risk), choose a portfolio that has the highest risk-reward. You can invest a lump sum or just DCA every month. Some options are StashAway, Syfe, Endowus, Digiportfolio, Kristal, etc. Personally, I would go for StashAway for general investment and Syfe for their newly launched REIT portfolio.

Both of the options above are pretty 'passive' as it requires minimal effort on your end, so you can focus on your work and maximize your earnings as much as possible (learn some new skills, impress your boss, get your promotion, and invest more!). In the meantime, start learning about investing and stock picking. There are many courses and investing books to get you started. Once you have equipped yourself with sufficient knowledge, you can start to invest in stocks with high growth potential (instead of dividend stocks). This will further accelerate your FIRE (financial independence, retire early) journey. Of course, if you think stock picking is time consuming and you have no interest to do this at all, you can definitely stick to option 1 and 2. If you start to invest consistently at the age of 20+, you can live a very comfortable life when you are around 50 years old (instead of 65 :D)

Jiayou!