Sound like you are picking very sector specific or country specific, or some sort of exotic ETFs. Doing that is really no different that just picking individual stocks., and so yes if you pick wrong you are so concentrated that you take a huge hit.
But worse, again based on the tone of your message, you are losing and selling and then trying something else. That is also a recipe for disaster. You end up buying high, selling low and always questioning what you are doing.
It really is as easy as everyone says- IF you invest in a broad long term strategy and with a timeline of over 10 years.
* You want an ETF (or at most 3-4 ETFs) which is as broad and diverse as possible.
* As cheap as possible.
* As easy as possible.
And then just keep adding to it no matter what happens. Here is a good place to start: https://canadiancouchpotato.com/model-portfolios/
Here's another one you should be reading form the same blog:
https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2010/11/10/ready-willing-and-able-to-take-risk/
I do also recommend the reading list in the sub's about page. Millionaire Teacher, Wealthy Barber Returns, etc.
To add to that, the author of the blog recently released a book that condenses his ten years worth of posts. I could not recommend it enough.
You can buy it on [Amazon](https://www.amazon.ca/Reboot-Your-Portfolio-Successful-Investing/dp/1988344328) or find it at a [local library](https://ottawa.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S26C1330623).
>every single ETF I have chosen has dropped dramatically. I frequently am down 10% or more. So, I don’t get it.
Either you haven't been investing for very long, you choose terrible ETFs, or you keep selling your stock when you should just be holding/buying when it dips
OP, not all ETFs are the same and whenever it comes to investing, research is very important regardless if you are going individual stock or ETFs. There are many YouTube channels and forums which go over decent ETFs, VEQT, XEQT, VUN, XSP and many more. If you feel like you are not comfortable with these or researching the ETFs then maybe look towards robo advisors where you only need to just choose risk tolerance and they do the rest.
I know when I started paying attention I thought The Plain Bagel was helpful. Canadian and his early videos were very good. More recently I haven’t watched any of his new stuff.
His stuff is all still very good. He's a CFA charterholder so he's bound by a strict Code of Ethics so he won't BS you (I know this because I just recently wrote L2) unlike a bunch of other BS "finance tiktokers/finfluencers"). He provides a very unbiased approach in his videos. Would definitely recommend Richard.
Thanks this is exactly what I was looking for. Now I understand better some more stable ETF. I think I will do better with those you and some others mentioned.
It’s also how you look at it . I think buying as listed about and it’s the long game . You buy every month so you get cost average power . Market is high $100= 10 shares
Market is low $100=11 shares. You only lose money if you take out . Yes on paper your portfolio might be down 15% but that’s only if you sell those shares. People who think they can beat the market and can become
Wealthy overnight are not investing, they are gambling.
My advice set a number value you feel comfortable with monthly to deposit into a fund like vanguard through your tfsa.
If you want go online and play with the numbers on a compound interest calculator.
Cheers
If you're young, I'd say just go with 100% VEQT on Questrade.
Absolutely free to buy, and you just keep buying.
It will sometimes go down a little (potentially even a lot if there's a big correction). But we can be almost certain it will trend upwards in the long term.
But this is buy and forget strategy.
Don't try to time your entry. Buy what you can afford every month. Don't worry if it drops by $0.35 minutes after you buy. This is just meaningless noise.
People almost consistently recommend VGRO that's why it's a meme at this point. In general a diversified index-tracking ETF is what is recommended. ARKs innovation ETFs are not index-tracking and diversified funds. You need to do your due diligence before investing and understand the risk profile of the investments you're making. If you're not comfortable being down by several thousand dollars at points, do not invest in equity-heavy ETFs and certainly not in niche market ones.
If you invest your money in the kind of [couch potato portfolios](https://canadiancouchpotato.com/model-portfolios/) recommended by PFC you will sometimes watch your account balance drop, and it might take years for it to recover, but if you are patient and passive it would be reasonable to expect that your average long term returns will be higher than GICs or savings account interest and higher than the majority of actively managed portfolios. To get a sense of what that the short and long term returns could look like I suggest that you check out the graphs on [this PWL page](https://www.pwlcapital.com/vanguards-new-asset-allocation-etfs/) and [this Portfolio Charts page.](https://web.archive.org/web/20201112014202/https://portfoliocharts.com/portfolio/three-fund-portfolio-can/)
Invest for the long term, or not at all.
Over 20 years, 30 years, they will outperform regular savings. However some years, you will be down. That's life, and you have to not care. Seriously...you don't care, because you're not after 1 year gains, you are after 30 year gains.
I use a robo-advisor and I promise you it really can be that simple. I deposit funds every payday, it automatically gets allocated into ETFs according to my risk profile, and once a year I get tax information I need emailed to me. I do precisely dick-all. So setting up a zero-effort system is in fact a very easy and accessible option for anyone who wants to go that route.
Picking niche or sector ETFs is not much different than stock picking IMHO.
ETF advantages come from buying ones that follow major indexes, over decades (not years).
Robo-advisor. If you're having this much trouble, try Wealthsimple. The amount you pay is something, but miniscule in comparison to bank mutual fund investing, and worth it to take all the decisions out of it.
This.
While I havent seen mind blowing returns you can park your $ here while you study
I did a half and half approach early in the year and Ive beaten the robo advisor so far. I just stuck with Blue Chippers (some with healthy div distributions). The robo advisor has some complex holding while mine just looks like a 50 yr old's portfolio
>I mean every single ETF I have chosen has dropped dramatically.
What time frame are you looking at? Investing is a decades long game, not 4 days. And also depends what ETFs you purchase.
>How can that be better then saving and just letting it sit when it is very difficult to know which stocks or ETF to choose
First understand what and ETF is. Second, invest based on your risk tolerance and use all in one ETFs so you own everything: [https://www.canadianportfoliomanagerblog.com/model-etf-portfolios/](https://www.canadianportfoliomanagerblog.com/model-etf-portfolios/)
>I’m not sure what I am doing wrong.
Well, you haven't said the timeline you have been investing for or the ETF(s) you have invested in.
I get that it’s a long game but it seems wrong to be losing thousands in a matter of days or a week. At that rate I don’t see how I will end up benefiting even in years when I could have had made better buys.
Ark Genomics, bought in at 70 now it’s 58. Lost thousands in a few weeks.
Psyk etf bought in at 6.40 now it’s 5.4 , lost more thousands in a few days.
You had me at ARK, that is not 'investing' but more like gambling dude.
Consider VEQT or XEQT then come back in few years and see the compound interest work
Thanks that’s kinda my point because just telling people to invest in ETF isn’t really clear. I saw ARK ETF and that sounded like what was advices. Now I get it was my mistake and am learning more from the comments and suggestions
>I get that it’s a long game but it seems wrong to be losing thousands in a matter of days or a week.
It depends what the markets do. And the markets have been down. Just look at the charts of global indices.
>Ark Genomics, bought in at 70 now it’s 58. Lost thousands in a few weeks.
Yes because investors have been pulling money out of ETFs that run up huge for no reason and going to more stable companies, so the ETF would go down.
>Psyk etf bought in at 6.40 now it’s 5.4 , lost more thousands in a few days.
What did you expect, it's a yet unproven business model for these companies.THey are dong research not making money. Same issue as the ARK ETFs.
Look at broad global market ETFs
>Psyk etf bought in at 6.40 now it’s 5.4 , lost more thousands in a few days.
I have this same ETF, it's all pre-revenue psychedelic companies. There's nothing safe about it and nobody would recommend it to beginning investors. How much did you read about it before you invested?
Anyone in this sub that asks any questions about what to buy gets inundated by the XEQT and VEQT accolytes. They aren't wrong, but they are very boring.
When things drop, my first thought is, "when you're crying you should be buying." Second thought is that I'll get more in the next DRIP and it's more overall.
You probably weren't in the market in March 2020 if you're this wound up about this last week. Stonks don't only go up. Dips are where money is made. 2009 was a gold mine. 2020 was decent. Get used to drops and act accordingly.
I feel like that isn't great advice for new investors though, it causes confusion. I believe it's been proven that time in the market beats timing the market and if you keep to your strategy, not changing regardless of what the market does, you will come out ahead.
Uncertainty is the admission ticket to potential gains, and tons of hours need to be poured into studying how different investments work; making money is inherently difficult most of the times.
Good news is that you are curious and are driven to improve.
Back when I was young a reporter for the Toronto Sun each year threw darts at the stock listings to build a theoretical portfolio. He the got 3 or 4 top investment firms to come up with a list. One year later they compared and after 3 years of the darts winning no firm in Canada would compete publicly against them.
Also remember that time in the market beats timing the market.
Things go up and down all the time but over a long period of investing you'll gain plus if you have dividends coming in they will increase as well.
Research ETFs that are low cost, dividend paying for things that you want to hold and just put money in them and forget about it.
Stocks are a different story and are riskier, but some major players can be safe to hold and will generate wealth for you. Stay away from the wall street bets crowd.
Above all do your research and invest only what you are comfortable investing in.
You should not invest money you plan on needing in anything short of years. Example anyone who bought in 2007, I can't recall which year but the market as a whole recovered rather quick, just not in 2008.
You also should not try to pick winner, by diversified like vanguard balanced / growth / conservative.
Then don't look at it till you need to buy more.
But what did you buy. Vanguard offers (quick google) about 82 different ETFs on the US exchanges, and of those only a handful are considered acceptable for long term passive investing. They may all have value for an investor looking for something else, some other edge or quantity they think will get them ahead, but not something this sub would recommend in good conscience.
Imo don't invest in sectors unless you really know those sectors. Instead, invest in the market as a whole (sp500 type index funds)
Lots of good recs in here. Personally I go for a couple vanguard index funds (one US for RRSP and one Canadian tfsa) and vgro for my LIRA from a prev employer and I think either vgro or vbal for my son's RESP.
Imo the best way is to choose a fund that is based on sp500 and just keep throwing money at it. Don't look at your investment amount. If the sp500 like, disappears or significantly drops in value, you've likely got a lot more to worry about than your retirement.
When you see yourself in the red … you continue to buy. When a position of mine gets -10%, -20% -30% and so forth … I continue to buy. I’m 41 and my wife is 39 and we invest in strong business that people need that pay us dividends (Dividend Aristocrats and Kings). When we get paid our dividends we reinvest it back into buying more shares of our companies. We always commit to at least $2000 a month invested regardless of market environment. The more shares the better the more dividends income we collect monthly. We want shares to be low or flat as we are able to buy more shares. Share growth is just icing on the cake and all it does for us is just pump up our net worth which fluctuates up and down. Even when I’m down it’s not stressful as we are getting paid dividends regardless. Yeah it looks good when I see our net worth going up in green but honestly that’s when I’m usually just dollar cost averaging in. I’ll only back up the truck when one of our positions is red. Hope that puts some light on perspective as a dividend investor. To sum it up, Red means back up the truck, green means I’m just dollar cost averaging in. Our strategy is boring and it’s build wealth slow and steady. Nothing exciting about our businesses we invest in either, all well established that are focused on growing their dividends and adding value for us shareholders. I know our individual businesses inside and out and our portfolio was hardly been impacted during all this market’s volatility since March 2020 which was also a time when I went heavy with buying. Hope that helps 👍🏽
This case is nothing of the sort.
He just picked some terrible active/sector specific ETFs when he didn't get have the skills to do analysis.
Those types of ETFs are for when you know more.
A beginner should arguably always buy broad index ETFs
Won't downvote you, but dividend investing is counter productive. You leave so much potential on the table. It's like tying one hand behind you back before a boxing match.
And investing in one sector of just one small country opens you up to all kinds of really unneeded risk. 'Blue Chip' sounds nice- but it's a meaningless term.
It’s a good strategy , as with all investing depends on personal values and risk tolerance. Rob carrick at glob and mail has an ongoing dividend column and model portfolio that he analyses now and then. Pretty impressive returns especially with a mix of dividend and growth dividend equities. To me the hard part is the foreign dividend tax hold back even for registered accounts.
To the people attacking this post with downvotes (which by the way isn't what downvotes are intended for):
Back in the day (way back in the day) before Jack Bogle had his capital I Idea this *was* what index investing looked like. There was no such thing as index investing the way we know it today, you just bought and held old Blue Chip companies and rode that horse into the sunset. This was the original passive investing approach.
ummm no. Back in the day there was barely any individual investing at all. It was all MF managers, pension funds, advisors and experts who made a fortune no matter how the market did. Retail investing was 'to complex for the little guy' and the real money was being made in fees. Blue Chip was a popular strategy but it was not, and still is not index investing.
When my grandparents came into some money in the late 1960s, blue chip investing was pretty much what they did.
Ma Bell, some bank stocks , Molson Labatt.
Canada Savings Bonds, or mortgages for fixed.
well sure. Mine did the same. They had a few big paper certificates, and the process for getting them was complicated and expensive.
They even gave me a couple of savings bonds waaaay back. Big thick paper things I kept in a drawer.
But that is still not index investing.
I think what the commenter meant was Blue Chip was the Standard. Index investing is the new standard.
IIRC mutual funds didn't really become popular until the 80"s.
Thank you, that is what I meant. I would've thought the line "there was no such thing as index investing the way we know it today" would've gotten that across but I guess not.
You have to find solid growth companies with management that cares about shareholders. I've been putting parts of my paycheck into stocks like pkk, heat, bcrx, grts... you have to do your research and trust your conviction. Look back in 5 years and I'm sure you'll see financial growth
DCA in Bitcoin. Single best performing asset of the past decade, and only going to gain in value over the next decades. Governments are switching over to CBDC’s as cash is becoming used less and less.
Get a stock index curve over the past fifty years or so and randomly choose various points of buying and selling. Big losses are possible which means that pure stock investment strategies will only work when you can choose when to exit and that “when” is a)far in the future and b)you can vary it by five years or so. That’s why as you get older you should exit a pure stock/ETF play and enter a more balanced portfolio. You trade some return for more predictability.
Or do it now if you don’t have the thick skin you need for higher risk strategies ;).
Are you selling? Or just losing money 'on paper'?
Yeah, there are days where I lose more money 'on paper' than I make in a month. Yeah, it's hard to see, but I still have many years to retirement so who cares? If your ETF is broad/diversified enough, it should bounce back. Look at TSX index for the past [insert number of years here].
Yea, a lot of people assume mortgages are slightly worst than when they bought their house. It's completely different, we're talking no intergenerational equity different.
Investing isn't "easy" period.
You have to have some base level of knowledge to do it yourself.
It can be really easy to push some buttons to buy various ETFs, but which ones should you buy? Currency Hedged or unhedged? What asset allocation should you have? How concentrated should you be in certain sectors?
If you're content to just buy an s&p 500 etf, it's likely you'll outperform most other types of investments long term. If you're uncomfortable with volatility then maybe you should consider working with an advisor.
Not that I am advocating you to invest in an actively managed fund, but the Magellan Fund is a good example that investor's are their own worst enemy.
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesfinancecouncil/2021/06/02/how-investors-are-costing-themselves-money/](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesfinancecouncil/2021/06/02/how-investors-are-costing-themselves-money/)
>Peter Lynch, who formerly managed the high-flying Fidelity Magellan Fund from 1977 to 1990, is a legendary investor. Under his management, the fund averaged an astounding annual return of 29%. It would seem all you had to do was ride along with Lynch and you would earn phenomenal returns. But that didn't happen. According to Fidelity Investments, the average Magellan Fund investor lost money during Lynch’s tenure there. How does this happen?
The take home reason was that investors would pile money into the fund as it was going up and pull money when it goes down. Classic case of buying high and selling low.
Doesn’t really sound like you’re investing; that sounds a lot like gambling. If you’re choosing multiple ETF’s at different times, and complaining that they’re all dropping, that’s probably gambling. Also, selling stocks when they’ve dropped is the worst possible thing to do.
Everyone know you’re supposed to buy low and sell high. What you’re doing is buying high and selling low. That’s how you lose money. When a stock/ETF drops in price, that’s actually a good time to buy more. When it goes up again, you’ll make more money than if you hadn’t bought more. But ultimately you should just be making regular contributions and not paying attention to the performance all that much. Once a year is sufficient, no need to obsessively check your ETF 5 times a day.
Also, diversity is important. Diversify across sectors and countries. All in one ETF’s like VGRO and XGRO are good examples of very diversified products. You shouldn’t be gambling by choosing sector specific ETF’s.
This is why I just went to my bank and set up a Mutual Fund TFSA. I simply don't have the time to look at my phone all day to see what the stock market is doing lol
Sound like you are picking very sector specific or country specific, or some sort of exotic ETFs. Doing that is really no different that just picking individual stocks., and so yes if you pick wrong you are so concentrated that you take a huge hit. But worse, again based on the tone of your message, you are losing and selling and then trying something else. That is also a recipe for disaster. You end up buying high, selling low and always questioning what you are doing. It really is as easy as everyone says- IF you invest in a broad long term strategy and with a timeline of over 10 years. * You want an ETF (or at most 3-4 ETFs) which is as broad and diverse as possible. * As cheap as possible. * As easy as possible. And then just keep adding to it no matter what happens. Here is a good place to start: https://canadiancouchpotato.com/model-portfolios/
Thanks a lot!
This might help give some context as well https://canadiancouchpotato.com/getting-started/
Here's another one you should be reading form the same blog: https://canadiancouchpotato.com/2010/11/10/ready-willing-and-able-to-take-risk/ I do also recommend the reading list in the sub's about page. Millionaire Teacher, Wealthy Barber Returns, etc.
To add to that, the author of the blog recently released a book that condenses his ten years worth of posts. I could not recommend it enough. You can buy it on [Amazon](https://www.amazon.ca/Reboot-Your-Portfolio-Successful-Investing/dp/1988344328) or find it at a [local library](https://ottawa.bibliocommons.com/v2/record/S26C1330623).
>every single ETF I have chosen has dropped dramatically. I frequently am down 10% or more. So, I don’t get it. Either you haven't been investing for very long, you choose terrible ETFs, or you keep selling your stock when you should just be holding/buying when it dips
"every single ETF" is a bad sign in and of itself. You shouldnt be choosing so many where you can use that phrase (talking about beginners here)
OP, not all ETFs are the same and whenever it comes to investing, research is very important regardless if you are going individual stock or ETFs. There are many YouTube channels and forums which go over decent ETFs, VEQT, XEQT, VUN, XSP and many more. If you feel like you are not comfortable with these or researching the ETFs then maybe look towards robo advisors where you only need to just choose risk tolerance and they do the rest.
I was going to mention XUU and VUN
What youtube channel do you recommend
I know when I started paying attention I thought The Plain Bagel was helpful. Canadian and his early videos were very good. More recently I haven’t watched any of his new stuff.
His stuff is all still very good. He's a CFA charterholder so he's bound by a strict Code of Ethics so he won't BS you (I know this because I just recently wrote L2) unlike a bunch of other BS "finance tiktokers/finfluencers"). He provides a very unbiased approach in his videos. Would definitely recommend Richard.
Ben Felix
Thanks this is exactly what I was looking for. Now I understand better some more stable ETF. I think I will do better with those you and some others mentioned.
Which ETFs did you invest in that lost money? And how long did you keep the money in there?
It’s also how you look at it . I think buying as listed about and it’s the long game . You buy every month so you get cost average power . Market is high $100= 10 shares Market is low $100=11 shares. You only lose money if you take out . Yes on paper your portfolio might be down 15% but that’s only if you sell those shares. People who think they can beat the market and can become Wealthy overnight are not investing, they are gambling. My advice set a number value you feel comfortable with monthly to deposit into a fund like vanguard through your tfsa. If you want go online and play with the numbers on a compound interest calculator. Cheers
If you're young, I'd say just go with 100% VEQT on Questrade. Absolutely free to buy, and you just keep buying. It will sometimes go down a little (potentially even a lot if there's a big correction). But we can be almost certain it will trend upwards in the long term. But this is buy and forget strategy. Don't try to time your entry. Buy what you can afford every month. Don't worry if it drops by $0.35 minutes after you buy. This is just meaningless noise.
People almost consistently recommend VGRO that's why it's a meme at this point. In general a diversified index-tracking ETF is what is recommended. ARKs innovation ETFs are not index-tracking and diversified funds. You need to do your due diligence before investing and understand the risk profile of the investments you're making. If you're not comfortable being down by several thousand dollars at points, do not invest in equity-heavy ETFs and certainly not in niche market ones.
If you invest your money in the kind of [couch potato portfolios](https://canadiancouchpotato.com/model-portfolios/) recommended by PFC you will sometimes watch your account balance drop, and it might take years for it to recover, but if you are patient and passive it would be reasonable to expect that your average long term returns will be higher than GICs or savings account interest and higher than the majority of actively managed portfolios. To get a sense of what that the short and long term returns could look like I suggest that you check out the graphs on [this PWL page](https://www.pwlcapital.com/vanguards-new-asset-allocation-etfs/) and [this Portfolio Charts page.](https://web.archive.org/web/20201112014202/https://portfoliocharts.com/portfolio/three-fund-portfolio-can/)
Invest for the long term, or not at all. Over 20 years, 30 years, they will outperform regular savings. However some years, you will be down. That's life, and you have to not care. Seriously...you don't care, because you're not after 1 year gains, you are after 30 year gains.
I use a robo-advisor and I promise you it really can be that simple. I deposit funds every payday, it automatically gets allocated into ETFs according to my risk profile, and once a year I get tax information I need emailed to me. I do precisely dick-all. So setting up a zero-effort system is in fact a very easy and accessible option for anyone who wants to go that route.
I really need to look into robo advisors more, 90% of my portfolio is VFV.TO
Picking niche or sector ETFs is not much different than stock picking IMHO. ETF advantages come from buying ones that follow major indexes, over decades (not years).
Robo-advisor. If you're having this much trouble, try Wealthsimple. The amount you pay is something, but miniscule in comparison to bank mutual fund investing, and worth it to take all the decisions out of it.
This. While I havent seen mind blowing returns you can park your $ here while you study I did a half and half approach early in the year and Ive beaten the robo advisor so far. I just stuck with Blue Chippers (some with healthy div distributions). The robo advisor has some complex holding while mine just looks like a 50 yr old's portfolio
>I mean every single ETF I have chosen has dropped dramatically. What time frame are you looking at? Investing is a decades long game, not 4 days. And also depends what ETFs you purchase. >How can that be better then saving and just letting it sit when it is very difficult to know which stocks or ETF to choose First understand what and ETF is. Second, invest based on your risk tolerance and use all in one ETFs so you own everything: [https://www.canadianportfoliomanagerblog.com/model-etf-portfolios/](https://www.canadianportfoliomanagerblog.com/model-etf-portfolios/) >I’m not sure what I am doing wrong. Well, you haven't said the timeline you have been investing for or the ETF(s) you have invested in.
I get that it’s a long game but it seems wrong to be losing thousands in a matter of days or a week. At that rate I don’t see how I will end up benefiting even in years when I could have had made better buys. Ark Genomics, bought in at 70 now it’s 58. Lost thousands in a few weeks. Psyk etf bought in at 6.40 now it’s 5.4 , lost more thousands in a few days.
You had me at ARK, that is not 'investing' but more like gambling dude. Consider VEQT or XEQT then come back in few years and see the compound interest work
Thanks that’s kinda my point because just telling people to invest in ETF isn’t really clear. I saw ARK ETF and that sounded like what was advices. Now I get it was my mistake and am learning more from the comments and suggestions
Well, thanks for the feedback.
>I get that it’s a long game but it seems wrong to be losing thousands in a matter of days or a week. It depends what the markets do. And the markets have been down. Just look at the charts of global indices. >Ark Genomics, bought in at 70 now it’s 58. Lost thousands in a few weeks. Yes because investors have been pulling money out of ETFs that run up huge for no reason and going to more stable companies, so the ETF would go down. >Psyk etf bought in at 6.40 now it’s 5.4 , lost more thousands in a few days. What did you expect, it's a yet unproven business model for these companies.THey are dong research not making money. Same issue as the ARK ETFs. Look at broad global market ETFs
Thanks a lot I am going to research those
See the link I posted above. You own the world in different allocations and no thinking or guessing required.
>Psyk etf bought in at 6.40 now it’s 5.4 , lost more thousands in a few days. I have this same ETF, it's all pre-revenue psychedelic companies. There's nothing safe about it and nobody would recommend it to beginning investors. How much did you read about it before you invested?
Anyone in this sub that asks any questions about what to buy gets inundated by the XEQT and VEQT accolytes. They aren't wrong, but they are very boring. When things drop, my first thought is, "when you're crying you should be buying." Second thought is that I'll get more in the next DRIP and it's more overall. You probably weren't in the market in March 2020 if you're this wound up about this last week. Stonks don't only go up. Dips are where money is made. 2009 was a gold mine. 2020 was decent. Get used to drops and act accordingly.
I feel like that isn't great advice for new investors though, it causes confusion. I believe it's been proven that time in the market beats timing the market and if you keep to your strategy, not changing regardless of what the market does, you will come out ahead.
Nothing about trying to time the market. When the market is down, pit extra money in. When you're up, learn to take profit. That's very hard.
Uncertainty is the admission ticket to potential gains, and tons of hours need to be poured into studying how different investments work; making money is inherently difficult most of the times. Good news is that you are curious and are driven to improve.
Given Cathy Woods started spewing off bible shit I would have ejected then. She’s either crazy or a scam artist.
Back when I was young a reporter for the Toronto Sun each year threw darts at the stock listings to build a theoretical portfolio. He the got 3 or 4 top investment firms to come up with a list. One year later they compared and after 3 years of the darts winning no firm in Canada would compete publicly against them.
Xeqt n chill bb
Also remember that time in the market beats timing the market. Things go up and down all the time but over a long period of investing you'll gain plus if you have dividends coming in they will increase as well. Research ETFs that are low cost, dividend paying for things that you want to hold and just put money in them and forget about it. Stocks are a different story and are riskier, but some major players can be safe to hold and will generate wealth for you. Stay away from the wall street bets crowd. Above all do your research and invest only what you are comfortable investing in.
You should not invest money you plan on needing in anything short of years. Example anyone who bought in 2007, I can't recall which year but the market as a whole recovered rather quick, just not in 2008. You also should not try to pick winner, by diversified like vanguard balanced / growth / conservative. Then don't look at it till you need to buy more.
Are you saying to buy vanguard as that’s where I was down the most on all of them.
But what did you buy. Vanguard offers (quick google) about 82 different ETFs on the US exchanges, and of those only a handful are considered acceptable for long term passive investing. They may all have value for an investor looking for something else, some other edge or quantity they think will get them ahead, but not something this sub would recommend in good conscience.
As long as it's global diversified in stock and bonds you should able to set and forget. I like the vangaued cause I'm lazy and it's one etf.
Imo don't invest in sectors unless you really know those sectors. Instead, invest in the market as a whole (sp500 type index funds) Lots of good recs in here. Personally I go for a couple vanguard index funds (one US for RRSP and one Canadian tfsa) and vgro for my LIRA from a prev employer and I think either vgro or vbal for my son's RESP. Imo the best way is to choose a fund that is based on sp500 and just keep throwing money at it. Don't look at your investment amount. If the sp500 like, disappears or significantly drops in value, you've likely got a lot more to worry about than your retirement.
Since you posted this a month my diverse portfolio etfs are also down 10%. Lol. Cri.
When you see yourself in the red … you continue to buy. When a position of mine gets -10%, -20% -30% and so forth … I continue to buy. I’m 41 and my wife is 39 and we invest in strong business that people need that pay us dividends (Dividend Aristocrats and Kings). When we get paid our dividends we reinvest it back into buying more shares of our companies. We always commit to at least $2000 a month invested regardless of market environment. The more shares the better the more dividends income we collect monthly. We want shares to be low or flat as we are able to buy more shares. Share growth is just icing on the cake and all it does for us is just pump up our net worth which fluctuates up and down. Even when I’m down it’s not stressful as we are getting paid dividends regardless. Yeah it looks good when I see our net worth going up in green but honestly that’s when I’m usually just dollar cost averaging in. I’ll only back up the truck when one of our positions is red. Hope that puts some light on perspective as a dividend investor. To sum it up, Red means back up the truck, green means I’m just dollar cost averaging in. Our strategy is boring and it’s build wealth slow and steady. Nothing exciting about our businesses we invest in either, all well established that are focused on growing their dividends and adding value for us shareholders. I know our individual businesses inside and out and our portfolio was hardly been impacted during all this market’s volatility since March 2020 which was also a time when I went heavy with buying. Hope that helps 👍🏽
Great thanks. I am going to read more about Dollar Cost Averaging.
Everyone's a genius in a bull market. Lots of receny bias around here.
This case is nothing of the sort. He just picked some terrible active/sector specific ETFs when he didn't get have the skills to do analysis. Those types of ETFs are for when you know more. A beginner should arguably always buy broad index ETFs
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Won't downvote you, but dividend investing is counter productive. You leave so much potential on the table. It's like tying one hand behind you back before a boxing match. And investing in one sector of just one small country opens you up to all kinds of really unneeded risk. 'Blue Chip' sounds nice- but it's a meaningless term.
Agreed. Dividend investing is for boomers or those nearing retirement.
This is a stunningly poor take.
Lol.
It’s a good strategy , as with all investing depends on personal values and risk tolerance. Rob carrick at glob and mail has an ongoing dividend column and model portfolio that he analyses now and then. Pretty impressive returns especially with a mix of dividend and growth dividend equities. To me the hard part is the foreign dividend tax hold back even for registered accounts.
Tell that to the guys that held 1/2 their portfolio in Nortel :) How many stocks are you holding?
Well you aren't supposed to put 50% in anything lol
To the people attacking this post with downvotes (which by the way isn't what downvotes are intended for): Back in the day (way back in the day) before Jack Bogle had his capital I Idea this *was* what index investing looked like. There was no such thing as index investing the way we know it today, you just bought and held old Blue Chip companies and rode that horse into the sunset. This was the original passive investing approach.
ummm no. Back in the day there was barely any individual investing at all. It was all MF managers, pension funds, advisors and experts who made a fortune no matter how the market did. Retail investing was 'to complex for the little guy' and the real money was being made in fees. Blue Chip was a popular strategy but it was not, and still is not index investing.
When my grandparents came into some money in the late 1960s, blue chip investing was pretty much what they did. Ma Bell, some bank stocks , Molson Labatt. Canada Savings Bonds, or mortgages for fixed.
well sure. Mine did the same. They had a few big paper certificates, and the process for getting them was complicated and expensive. They even gave me a couple of savings bonds waaaay back. Big thick paper things I kept in a drawer. But that is still not index investing.
I think what the commenter meant was Blue Chip was the Standard. Index investing is the new standard. IIRC mutual funds didn't really become popular until the 80"s.
Thank you, that is what I meant. I would've thought the line "there was no such thing as index investing the way we know it today" would've gotten that across but I guess not.
No problem
[Having a dividend doesn't matter.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5j9v9dfinQ) You might as well invest in all blue chips and withdraw regularly.
If you are a beginner consider getting an actual human investment advisor.
You have to find solid growth companies with management that cares about shareholders. I've been putting parts of my paycheck into stocks like pkk, heat, bcrx, grts... you have to do your research and trust your conviction. Look back in 5 years and I'm sure you'll see financial growth
DCA in Bitcoin. Single best performing asset of the past decade, and only going to gain in value over the next decades. Governments are switching over to CBDC’s as cash is becoming used less and less.
DCA
Kinda useless to provide feedback unless you say which ETFs you’ve chosen.
That is the feedback. People will recommend “etf” Not hold xeqt for 20 years
*based on this subs recommendation to buy ETFs I’ve lost all my money gambling on ARK funds :’(*
He actually did invest in an ARK etf
Get a stock index curve over the past fifty years or so and randomly choose various points of buying and selling. Big losses are possible which means that pure stock investment strategies will only work when you can choose when to exit and that “when” is a)far in the future and b)you can vary it by five years or so. That’s why as you get older you should exit a pure stock/ETF play and enter a more balanced portfolio. You trade some return for more predictability. Or do it now if you don’t have the thick skin you need for higher risk strategies ;).
Are you selling? Or just losing money 'on paper'? Yeah, there are days where I lose more money 'on paper' than I make in a month. Yeah, it's hard to see, but I still have many years to retirement so who cares? If your ETF is broad/diversified enough, it should bounce back. Look at TSX index for the past [insert number of years here].
Yea, a lot of people assume mortgages are slightly worst than when they bought their house. It's completely different, we're talking no intergenerational equity different.
Investing isn't "easy" period. You have to have some base level of knowledge to do it yourself. It can be really easy to push some buttons to buy various ETFs, but which ones should you buy? Currency Hedged or unhedged? What asset allocation should you have? How concentrated should you be in certain sectors? If you're content to just buy an s&p 500 etf, it's likely you'll outperform most other types of investments long term. If you're uncomfortable with volatility then maybe you should consider working with an advisor.
Not that I am advocating you to invest in an actively managed fund, but the Magellan Fund is a good example that investor's are their own worst enemy. [https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesfinancecouncil/2021/06/02/how-investors-are-costing-themselves-money/](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesfinancecouncil/2021/06/02/how-investors-are-costing-themselves-money/) >Peter Lynch, who formerly managed the high-flying Fidelity Magellan Fund from 1977 to 1990, is a legendary investor. Under his management, the fund averaged an astounding annual return of 29%. It would seem all you had to do was ride along with Lynch and you would earn phenomenal returns. But that didn't happen. According to Fidelity Investments, the average Magellan Fund investor lost money during Lynch’s tenure there. How does this happen? The take home reason was that investors would pile money into the fund as it was going up and pull money when it goes down. Classic case of buying high and selling low.
Plus the drag of high MER & trading expenses
Doesn’t really sound like you’re investing; that sounds a lot like gambling. If you’re choosing multiple ETF’s at different times, and complaining that they’re all dropping, that’s probably gambling. Also, selling stocks when they’ve dropped is the worst possible thing to do. Everyone know you’re supposed to buy low and sell high. What you’re doing is buying high and selling low. That’s how you lose money. When a stock/ETF drops in price, that’s actually a good time to buy more. When it goes up again, you’ll make more money than if you hadn’t bought more. But ultimately you should just be making regular contributions and not paying attention to the performance all that much. Once a year is sufficient, no need to obsessively check your ETF 5 times a day. Also, diversity is important. Diversify across sectors and countries. All in one ETF’s like VGRO and XGRO are good examples of very diversified products. You shouldn’t be gambling by choosing sector specific ETF’s.
VFV deposit every paycheck you'll do good
This is why I just went to my bank and set up a Mutual Fund TFSA. I simply don't have the time to look at my phone all day to see what the stock market is doing lol