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20 May 2022
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From the hundreds of responses to Firstlinks’ recent survey question, “What investment advice would you give to a 25-year-old starting an investing journey?”, we have compiled a comprehensive list of dos and don’ts for young (and perhaps not-so-young) investors.
As there are so many, we’ll present more tips next week, but for now, here are the first 100.
Leisa Bell is an Editorial Associate at Firstlinks. The investment tips provided by our survey respondents are general in nature and are not tailored to your individual financial circumstances or goals.
Thanks for the Firstlinks newsletter, which I enjoy reading. It has taught me a thing or two as well. I was reading the list of investment advice, and although this isn't quite investment advice it brought to mind one of the wisest things I have ever heard, and that is: Buy the cheapest car that your Ego will allow. You can save a lot of money that way.
DC's first comment about a budget - absolutely agree. You simply must have both a short term budget and a longer term budget. This allows you to plan & maintain maintain a positive cashflow after taking into consideration your saving for a house deposit, then mortgage, then long term savings/investments. A spreadsheet or a simple finance package that enables tracking & categorization is an essential tool.
LICS and ETFs are a path to mediocrity. Investing in Balanced AND Growth? Guess what? You’ll get the same shares in both.
agree 100% !!
Publishing all responses from the readers does not serve any meaningful purposes. Some responses were excellent. Some responses were poor. It is hard for a 25 year old to go through hundreds of tips let alone filtering which tips are truly useful. That's why we have an editor who will use his/her experience and judgement to decide which 10 to 20 tips are truly useful for a 25 year old. I want my tip to be publish too. But, if my tip is not among the selected top 20, I have to question my experience and knowledge in investing, then decide if I need further improvement myself. Publishing the poor tips is not just harmful to the 25's, it is also harmful to those readers who submit such tips, thinking that their tips were among the best.
Please editor publish as many tips as possible, all of them will likely have some application to someone, as we have differing investment styles, interests, finances. Many readers have had different experiences and we can learn from their emphasis. Anyone who just wants ‘10 best investment tips’ should stick to google.
Well done Leisa on producing a very useful list. Even if young people commenced at point 71- just start with a small amounts in all equities fund - sound advice
What is wrong with Google's 10 best investment tips if they are proven, practical and beneficial to the 25's?
One crucial tip is missing: Budgeting and ideally projecting your budget, savings, cashflow, investments and returns over a number of years - without proper budgeting and tracking of spending it is difficult to maximise the amount one can save and therefore invest. I found over 30 years of investing, budgeting and forecasting was the cornerstone to maximising savings for which I could then invest, buy a house or plan for major expenditures - I am still using the original budgeting and forecasting spreadsheet I created 30 years ago (with some tweaks of course).
Thanks for the article Leisa. Some great- and some not so great tips- but very interesting reading. ????
Some of those tips contradict themselves - best to have 10-20 tips that are different and consistent. But thanks for publishing nevertheless.
I couldn't think of a sadder existence : Get a secure full-time job. Save for a house deposit. Do night courses in carpentry and plumbing. Buy the most rundown house in a good street. Renovate the house nights and weekends for two years. Sell the house and buy another one requiring less renovation. Get a higher paying job and repeat the cycle
I suggest grouping the comments into a logical structure. That way it could become a mini guide for people wishing to learn, rather than a random list of opinions.
Number 4 - "Do night courses in carpentry and plumbing." It is illegal to do plumbing work unless you are a registered plumber - and you won't become a registered plumber by doing a night course!
No idea why you would want to publish so many tips as I suspect the sheer volume makes it almost useless. The thought of you going on and publishing yet more in batches of 100 has zero appeal to me. Much more useful I suspect would have been a list of probably no more than five key actions novice investors should seriously consider adopting at the start of their investing journey along with a suggestion as to when they might consider stepping into the drivers seat and putting their foot on the accelerator or brake if that turns out to be their wish. Oh and to accept the consequences, for better or worse, as they take more or total control.
Thanks, Peter. So we have one person (Abel) complain that we did not publish his comment (yet) and another that we should select only five from the hundreds received. Can't make everyone happy.
I think it it the third or fourth survey I have participated but have never seen my posts (this one says it is the first 100 batch though). Time to stop completing them! For everyone who reads these survey posts, there are indeed good postings but we aware that they may be a curated subset.
Thanks for participating, Abel. In previous surveys, we have published all the responses except a few that were disrespectful or self-promotional or otherwise inappropriate. In some surveys, we receive thousands of responses and once we packed them into a 75 page PDF. Maybe you missed your comment in the mass of material. While we are releasing this one in blocks of 100, we will ensure yours is included, as the vast majority will be.
How many of these people really do think long term when a crisis hits. Ask any fund manager and they will say outflows are heaviest at the bottom and inflows are highest at the top.
I think that's why its the bottom and the top !
In this second part on the reader responses with advice to younger people, we have selected a dozen highlights, but there are so many quality contributions that a full list of comments is also attached.
From a financial view, most earnings calls and stock picks are a waste of time. For most people, their investing would be better served in an index fund. So why bother with it? The best reason is because you enjoy it.
The Warren Buffett/Charlie Munger partnership is the stuff of legends, but even Charlie admits it is coming to an end ("I'm nearly dead"). He is one of the few people in investing prepared to say what he thinks.
Every successful fund manager suffers periods of underperformance, and investors who jump from fund to fund chasing results are likely to do badly. Selecting a manager is a long-term decision but what else?
In almost 1,000 responses, our readers differ in voting intentions versus polling of the general population, but they have little doubt who will win and there is widespread disappointment with our politics.
Conservative investors who want the greater capital security of bonds can now lock in 5% but they should stay at the higher end of credit quality. Rises in rates and defaults mean it's not as easy as it looks.
In the last decade, ETFs have become a mainstay of many portfolios, with broad market access to most asset types, as well as a wide array of sectors and themes. Is there a favourite of a CEO who oversees 30 funds?
Believe it or not, betting agencies are in the business of making money, not predicting outcomes. Is there anything we can learn from the current odds on the election results?
Single-member SMSFs face challenges where the eventual beneficiaries (or support team in the event of incapacity) will be the member’s adult children. Even worse, what happens if one or more of the children live overseas?
Policy proposals allow young people to access their super for a home bought from older people who put the money back into super. It helps some first buyers into a home earlier but it may push up prices.
In this environment, safe-haven assets like Government bonds act as a diversifier given the uncorrelated nature to equities during periods of risk-off, while offering a yield above term deposit rates.
A key attribute of great investors is the ability to abstract away the specifics of a particular domain, leaving only the important underlying principles upon which great investments can be made.
The Transfer Balance Cap limits the tax concessions available in super pension funds, removing the need for large, compulsory drawdowns. Plus there are no requirements to draw money out of an accumulation fund.
Companies tend to pre-position weak results ahead of 30 June, leading to earnings downgrades. The next two months will be critical for investors as a shift from ‘great expectations’ to ‘clear explanations’ gets underway.
We may have been extremely unlucky with the unforgiving weather plaguing the East Coast of Australia this year. However, on the economic front we are by many measures in a strong position relative to the rest of the world.
Discounts on LICs and LITs vary with market conditions, and many prominent managers have seen the value of their assets fall as well as discount widen. There may be opportunities for gains if discounts narrow.