Investing some "fun money"

[Veritas]

A financial advisor I spoke with suggested that as the world's population grows and water becomes an ever-more-valuable resource, that investing in water companies or ETFs would be smart.
Scarce and in demand is never a bad formula I feel. Take it with a grain of salt of course, I'm no advisor.

Possibly correct in the next 20 years, after that ALL projections now show a shocking population collapse. China’s has already begun and they will have HALF their current population by 2100. We are literally living at the point in history where the most humans are alive at once that there ever will be.

 

[Veritas]

So no one beats the market long term. If you think you’ll need the money in the near term or can’t risk losing it then there are dozens of regular savings accounts that are paying 5% right now.

Otherwise wealthy people (and not your broke cousin with an opinion or a TikTok influencer) recommend investing in a very low fee (Vanguard is the leader here) mutual fund indexed for the entire Dow Jones or S&P 500 and leave it.
Overtime you will see an average of a 10% return given all of US history

 

[Snattlerake]

If I invested in the stock market, 1929 would look like a walk in the park. For all your sake's, never let me buy stocks.

My only advice would be not to invest in anything that I've put money into. Seems like the second I put money on something, that stocks hits rock bottom and never recovers.

Sounds like me and fishin. All I do is rust hooks.

 

[foghorn918]

I tried some investing on my own and it didn't work out great. Had a Vanguard mutual fund for about 10 years, and all I did was break even, of course it was also during dot com bubble bust
Also tried some individual stocks, only one did ok and covered my losses from the others. So overall I broke even and would have done much better leaving it all alone in a bank CD
Lessons learned....... I don't know what I'm doing so if I ever did anything like that again I would use a financial advisor

 

[fatcpa]

Unless you have substantial other assets, your tolerance for risk (or pain) should probably reduce as your years to recover decrease. If you’re 45 and lose in the market you have a good long while to recover. If you’re 65, not so much. I’m 75 and have opted for the stability of CD’s, Treasuries, and even money market accounts. At this point in my life I have little tolerance for drama.

 

[Arnie]

My wife and I came into some money three times and invested some in the stock market. Each time, without fail, there was a "correction" to the market, meaning we lost lots of money. Many years later we caught up to the first two set backs. Time will tell about this third round.

 

[Gunbuffer]

DOCU
DKNG

 

[CHenry]

The S&P has averaged over 10%/year growth since the 1950s. I think it was closer to 12%, but it has been a few months since I looked it up.

12% average for the last 100 years. I checked mine this week and its doing 13.6% for the year so far.
When Trump went to the WH it did 36% the first year and somewhere still above 30% the next 3 years.

 

[El Pablo]

You need to potentially change your way of thinking. If you invest 2k, it goes up to 6k, then down to 3k…. You have made 1k, you have not lost 3k.

 

[El Pablo]

My wife and I came into some money three times and invested some in the stock market. Each time, without fail, there was a "correction" to the market, meaning we lost lots of money. Many years later we caught up to the first two set backs. Time will tell about this third round.

I assume you didn’t leave it alone in the stock after the ‘corrections’