Overwhelmed with the amount of information online. How to stop procrastinating and start investing properly?

I started to have an interest in investing in the beginning of the year when stocks were approaching all time high. I didn't know much about investing and jumped onto the bandwagon and invested in tech stocks. Now my portfolio is red (making a loss of $5000+).

I have been watching a lot of youtube videos, browsing various reddit pages and websites (finviz, motley fool, seedly etc) and the content is getting too overwhelming that I don't know how or where to start from. !!!!!

I also read somewhere that investing in index funds or ETFs is more profitable than picking stocks. And there's a whole list of index funds like VOO? VTI? QQQ? So many of them omg which one to choose. And I see ppl preaching about DCA-ing into index funds monthly via some FSMone plans? Wouldn't that cost more? Is it possible to DCA manually on your own? What's the difference between DCA-ing into index funds and ETFs over the long run?

Most importantly, I need to know how to start with all these overwhelming info ahhhhh

Discussion (8)

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Wero

27 May 2021

Bro/sis,

You need to chill. Before you even invest in your tech stocks you have already made a boo boo. You needa sit down and understand really what you are investing. No, dont tell me you are investing into that stock because some chicken or wood tell you that the company has a great potential in the future with XXXXX cap in 3-5 years...thats speculation and gambling not investing.

Once you chose the right stocks, commit to DCA into it.

Anyway, ETFs are not a quick get to rich scheme. You invest into ETFs for CONSISTENT STABLE growth for OVER A LONG LONG period of time. It is more of the safety net while you play individual stocks

Lastly, if you are looking into ARK in this dip, STAPH .

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Hadid

27 May 2021

I agree everything is crazy overwhelming. The more you google the more you see YouTube ads about those investing Seminars which adds to the stress omg.

I find Kelvin learns investing - channel on YouTube, quite easy to follow and you can just watch one by one OTOT without falling into an endless rabbit hole of opening new tabs in browser about things you dk. You can check out his channel.

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27 May 2021

You can pick a platform that offers a regular savings plan (FSM is one of them) and subscribe to it on a monthly basis, which would also be considered DCA. Some of the recommended ETFs are mentioned by the others here which you can consider.

Alternatively, if you are still unsure or apprehensive about selecting the right stock or ETF, you can consider using a robo advisor too. They will pre-pick and manage the funds for you and all you have to do is to put in money on a regular basis.

Hope this helps and good luck in your investment journey! :)

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Vince Chua

27 May 2021

The investing universe is wide. Just imagine going into a fruit stall. You see lots of different fruits and some going on super high prices due to some news (eg some rumor says that eating apple a day keeps some viruses away) etc and everyone started buying apples. Once the hype dies, the demand dies, the price drops.

Index funds are like fruit baskets. Comprises of different kind of fruits in a basket. Eg basket a contains apples/strawberries/red grapes . Basket b contains mango/pineapple/lemons some of this baskets can have similar fruits. Eg basket c have apples/mango/lemons.

You can buy a whole fruit basket and own different fruits where the price of the basket will be based on the fruits in it rather then just buying all apples or all oranges. This is illustration of etf.

Every etf have its own characteristic. Eg some tracks the nasdaq index such as qqq. Some tracks the s&p 500 index such as spy.

Never jump into investing having the fear of missing out. Always have a plan , how much are you willing to invest, how much can you lose, what is your next course of action with it reaches a certain price, be it in the profit or taking a loss, always plan ahead and stick to your plan.

The most basic of investing is DCA dollar cost averaging. To invest a fix amount of money over a fix interval. With the same amount of money every interval, you will accumulate more shares if the prices goes lower and less shares with the price going up. The profit might not be as high as someone whom pick entry and exit correctly but for starters that's a safe way to invest until you truly understand the market movement then will you have a chance but not guaranteed to beat the returns.

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