How to go about investing

[Theafoni]

Not sure if this is the correct place to ask this but I am interested in investing a few thousand in the next year, I am not sure how to go about this since I am still a student. I have some idea of stock trading and basic knowledge of e forex, but would the return be worth it. Bit coin market is interesting but it is really volatile so I don't want to lose my money--it could go bust in a few years, so I'm not really sure. I considered putting it in a start up company and making millions but that's just dreams. Any suggestions?

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[yanks26dmb]

Do you currently carry any debt? If yes, don't invest. Pay it off.

Edit: Asking a bunch of college kids/pre-meds where to invest seems like a pretty bad idea....I think your first course of action should be talking to someone qualified.

 

[Lucca]

How much do you know about markets? To make money on stocks in the short term you basically need to watch them for every second while the market is open. Forex is a 24 hour market, on the other hand, and can deliver quicker returns. Investing is fun, but risky. I've never had enough money lying around to just throw it at markets but there are plenty of free services available that allow you to make a "mock" portfolio. Go and start one and see how well you do in Forex! I guarantee that you'll learn something even if it doesn't end up making you any money.

Personally, as a student I would throw that money in a savings account and put it towards immediate expenses. A couple of thousand really isn't that much in the investment game; like poker, investing is half skill, half bank-roll management and a bigger bank-roll is always better. Your best investment right now is in yourself.

 

[yanks26dmb]

Options are always a nice way to go if you don't have enough cash to purchase massive quantities of shares up front.

 

[aiethela]

depends on how much risk you want to take (e.g. are those free money you can manage to live without--worst case scenario being you lose it all?, etc.) and how much returns you are willing to pursue.

Index funds could be a good option if you don't want to care much about the movement of individual stocks and not pay much to fund managers, but keep in mind that they are made to track the stock index as a whole, so if you are aiming for like 60% return, not the best idea. But definitely lower risk than those LBO funds Options & Forex both tend to be very risky (even riskier than regular stocks) if I remember it correctly, however..

btw, personally won't recommend bitcoin tbh.

But, like Arcumis said, personal finance should be your priority for now unless you found another good way of paying off all the education debts. (e.g. parents)

source: some 300level finance courses i took.

 

[SPARTANO]

Right now, no.

Put a great amount to minimize your student debt.
Save some in a high yield savings account (Ally Bank, Barclays, etc.) in the event of an emergency.

Still considering investing? Go Index Funds.

 

[The Kraken]

Options are always a nice way to go if you don't have enough cash to purchase massive quantities of shares up front.

Awful advice for a new investor.

OP: a target retirement date mutual fund is the best place if you have an emergency fund already. Otherwise, get an emergency fund.

 

[Mt Kilimanjaro]

http://whitecoatinvestor.com

http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/05/18/how-to-make-money-in-the-stock-market/

 

[Long Way to Go]

Determine the length of time x before you plan to take on any debt whatsoever (student loans, credit cards, loans that you take out in order to go through the med school application process, whatever).

If you put the money in a Roth IRA, your earnings won't be taxed which is nice, but with you just being able to invest a few thousand dollars. the grand total of your tax savings won't be more than a sandwich and a drink at a deli. So given that:

If <1 year, put the money into the highest yielding FDIC-insured savings account you can. See http://bit.ly/1dVxDX2.
If >1 and <5 years, put the money into a CD or a Treasury Series I Savings Bond (google it).
If >5 years, figure out how to get to medical school faster.

 

[justAstudent]

Hi, I am a Nigerian prince and with $1,000 from you, I can convert my deceased father's gold into US currency worth more than $100,000. PM if you are interested.

 

[TXHopeful2014]

If you really want to get good at investing, I would use the ThinkorSwim platform. They give you a paper money account where you can put as much fake money as you want in it to learn. You can buy everything from options, forex, ETF's, etc. The platform itself does have a fairly steep learning curve, but I'm sure you can figure it out since they have loads of help and resources available. The only other downside is that quotes are delayed by 20 minutes, but if you put in a good chunk of money (2-3k), you can contact support and they are usually willing to put real time quotes on your paper money account. If you are dedicated, you will learn what works, and what doesn't. I highly recommend learning with this amazing free program.

 

[Chipster.]

Literally no one on this thread knows what they're talking about.

Source: Because no one has yet suggested you drop a few thousand into dogecoin. Thank me later.

 

[circulus vitios]

Stick it in a savings account in case you need it for an emergency.

If you're still dead-set on investing, open an account with Trade King and invest it in an S&P 500 ETF like SPY or IVV.

 

[chenzt]

.

 

[justAstudent]

Literally no one on this thread knows what they're talking about.

Source: Because no one has yet suggested you drop a few thousand into dogecoin. Thank me later.

Coinye is where it's at nowadays.

 

[Catalystik]

For more ideas, check out SDN's Finance and Investment forum at: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/forums/finance-and-investment.176/

 

[Mad Jack]

I would invest in Mad Jack's College of Osteopathic Medicine, a new for-profit DO school opening soon in a musty New England basement that is looking for startup capital. With virtually no expenses, all of the 70k a year MJCOM plans to charge will likely go directly into the pockets of investors. Given COCA standards, the school should be approved and ready to turn a profit by mid next week.

But really, S&P 500 tracking index funds are your best bet. You can easily flip them back to cash in an emergency, and they should return a higher percent than you are paying out on your student loans.

 

[bc65]

First, I recommend that you (not just OP, everyone ) read The Wealthy Barber by Chilton, and then Personal Finance for Dummies by Eric Tyson. You will then know everything you need to know, and more than most financial advisors. More accurately, most of you won't need financial advisors, and you'll know when financial salesmen are trying to scam you, which is pretty much all of the time.

They will probably be the most important books you ever read, possibly including any MCAT prep book you'll study.

And for heaven's sake, don't get your financial advice from anonymous people on the internet, especially pre-meds, and most certainly not from physicians, who are notorious for being financially incompetent.

That said, I would recommend the following:

1. You should have at least 6 months of living expenses in cash, in a bank account or money market fund.


2. Next priority: Save the money for med school expenses.


3. If you have the above issues covered, you can consider paying down debt, assuming the money won't be needed for school etc. This option will vary depending on your loan interest rates, repayment schedule and where you are in your life ( student, resident , attending ).


4. If you really have no other more urgent needs for the money, and you are really ready for long term investing, I suggest that you put the money in a Roth IRA, or a regular deductable IRA , if you qualify, and invest the money with Vanguard or Fidelity in the Total Market Index Fund. See which company has the lowest costs for your size investment.

5. I'm not familiar with the ThinkorSwim site recommended above, but it sounds interesting and educational. But, read the above books first to find out what you should be doing, and to understand the various investment options out there. Then you might experiment on that site, or other similar ones, or just follow the investments you're interested in and see what happens.
.

 

[grivacobae]

Read The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham and see for yourself what type of investor you are. In all honesty, you're young, like me, and have room for risk, more room than you will once you're in a lot of debt for med school and what not. In my view point, now is the time. There's something called Penny Stocks (Small Cap Stocks), though frowned upon by many (because they don't know how to properly value a company). These small cap stocks, usually not in the NYSE but in Nasdaq and OTC (over the counter market) can really make you money if you know what you're doing. And don't go asking stockbrokers or "qualified" people, you can do it all by yourself like I did.
While paying off loans is a really smart and good thing to do, you can make money on those loans. This is what I did.

First, there is a company called Canadian Solar Inc. (CSIQ - ticker), just remember this.
With student loans and private loans, I took out extra, I used that money to invest, didn't have to put a cent of my money for it.
Of course, I made sure I was picking the right time and all that, therefore I read tons of books and articles on valuation of companies and financial statements. YOU DO NOT NEED A DEGREE to tell you how to invest or teach you.
I did my due diligence, which was researching this company I found, CSIQ. Found it November of 2012, was at it's all time low (best time to buy, people will tell you not to but they're stupid, it's cheap, so buy). It was at like 2, i research for a few months and finally bought at 3 dollars a share. I put in all my loans, biggest risk of my life, but guess what, a year later, it went from 3$ a share to now +/- 40$ a share.

Moral of story, other than the fact that yes, pre-meds, pre-dents, students, adolescents (i am 19), do you know about this, it's called Financial Literacy and if you learn it, it'll do you wonders in life.
Back to Moral of story, haha. Take risk now, you're young, you can recover, if you want to make real money, you gotta take real risk, don't put it in an index that averages 3% a year, wtf is that? Oh yea that's playing it "safe".

 

[deleted307836]

Others have listed some good resources.

But I would estimate there's a 99% chance that it would be best served in your savings account, given your status as a student. Even if you don't have any debt to pay off, it is very helpful to have a nice cushion of readily accessible savings to help with moving expenses, interviewing expenses, and for any "emergencies" that may arise in the near future.

 

[eefen]

So, there is this...

 

[Law2Doc]

If you are asking what to invest in on SDN, the money is already lost. Your talk about startups makes it clear you are hoping for the quick kill, and frankly if you aren't already plugged into the corporate/legal/entrepreneur world you are only going to get offered those opportunities once smarter investors have decided they are bad risks. Based on your post, you probably should put your money in a very secure investment that will take several years to mature so you don't have immediate access to it -- you sound like every young person who has bizarre get quick rich notions if investing that ever went broke in a week. Just because you've heard of people winning a lottery like bit coin or a startup ipo doesn't mean it's a shrewd business move. The people who make money on those kinds if investments are the ones Who con others like you into throwing away their thousands.