A University student wondering if investing in stocks is a good idea?
"The power of compounding interest and returns is an amazing thing.  Start educating yourself about investing, and do it -- there are great Q&As on this site, numerous books (I recommend ""The Intelligent Investor"", tools for small investors (like Sharebuilder.com) and other resources out there to get you started. Your portfolio doesn't need to include every dime you have either. But you do need to develop the discipline to save money -- even if that savings is $20 while you're in school. How you split between cash/deposit account savings and other investment vehicles is a decision that needs to make sense to you." "There isn't really a clear way to answer this question objectively.  I'd offer my opinion that yes it is a good idea. You don't need very much money to start (I began investing on $200). To answer your second question, no there are never any ""sure things.""  Instead on focusing on making money, focus on learning how the markets work. Pick a few companies you know (perhaps in an industry you are familiar with) and buy one or two shares at a time. Watch the prices evolve over time and make note of the changes and always ask the question ""why did it go up/down"". Good luck." For most people, investing in the stock market directly is one of the last things to do.  That's not to say you shouldn't, but rather that there are other things to consider as well. Start with automatic monthly deposits to a liquid account such as savings or money market. The morale boost you get from seeing the balance grow is nearly impossible to beat. Following that, paying down any debts such as student loans or credit cards. Once you've done that, then you should look at company sponsored 401k plans or IRAs. Sharebuilder offers IRAs holding whichever stock or fund you pick. Again, automatic monthly deposits are the way to go here. Good luck, and happy investing :) Investing in the stock market early is a good thing.  However, it does have a learning curve, and that curve can, and eventually will, cost you. One basic rule in investing is that risk and reward are proportional.  The greater the reward, the higher the risk that you either (a) won't get the reward, or (b) lose your money instead.  Given that, don't invest money you can't afford to lose (you mentioned you're on a student budget). If you want to start with short but sercure investments, try finding a high-interest savings account or CD.  For example, the bank I use has an offer where the first $500 in your account gets ~6% interest - certainly not bad if you only put $500 in the account.  Unfortunately, most banks are offering a pittance for savings rates or CDs. If you're willing to take more risk, you could certainly put money into the stock market.  Before you do, I would recommend spending some time learning about how the stock market works, it's flows and ebbs, and how stock valuations work.  Don't buy a stock because you hear about it a lot; understand why that stock is being valued as such.  Also consider buying index funds (such as SPY) which is like a stock but tracks an entire index.  That way if a specific company suddenly drops, you won't be nearly as affected.  On the flip side, if only 1 company goes up, but the market goes down, you'll miss out.  But consider the odds of having picked that 1 company. Contrary to most other advise given here, I'd recommend (in your situation) not to invest in stock (yet). There are some 'hidden' cost to investing that will eat your profit and in the end, that's why you are investing. Banks will charge for buying, selling and maintaining stock as well as for cashing dividends. Depending on which bank or intermediary these costs will rise. So, my advise is to start playing with stock creating a virtual portfolio and track that. Just as duffbeer says, start saving. Also look at my answer here. I say, before investing your real capital into the Stock Market, play around on the virtual stock exchange game. It let's you invest with virtual capital and you can gain experience with the stock market. I wouldn't start investing in stock until I'm sure I can cover losses though. If you do intend to invest stocks so early in your career, then you should learn how to read SEC filings (not necessary, but helpful in understanding how investors think) such as 8-K/10-K/10-Q documents so you can predict profitability and growth of companies you invest in. Once you become a veteran of the stock market game, you probably won't need to read the SEC filings into too much detail - especially if you have a diverse portfolio. Good Luck. The one takeaway from this message would probably be: Stop! and play around on virtual stocks before immersing yourself in the real thing. "You can start investing with any amount. You can use the ShareBuilder account to purchase ""partial"" stocks through their automatic investment plan. Usually brokers don't sell parts of stock, and ShareBuilder is the only one allowing it IMHO using its own tricks. What they do basically is buy a stock and then divide it internally among several investors who bought it, while each of the investors doesn't really own it directly. That's perfect for investing small amounts and making first steps in investing."
"For ""real"" investing I would usually recommend mutual funds.  But if you are trying to teach a kid about investing, I would recommend they choose individual stocks.   That will give them a great opportunity to follow the companies they bought in the news.  It also gives you an opportunity to sit down with them periodically and discuss their companies performance, economic news, etc. and how those things play into stock prices." You really have asked two different questions here: I'm interested in putting away some money for my family Then I urge you to read up on investing. Improving your knowledge in investing is an investment that will very likely pay off in the long-term - this can't be answered here in full length, pointers to where to start are asset allocation and low-cost index funds. Read serious books, read stackexchange posts, and try avoid the Wall Street marketing machine. Also, before considering any long term investments, build an emergency fund (e.g. 6 months worth of your expenses) in case you need some liquid money (loss of job etc.), and also helps you sleep better at night. What things are important to consider before making this kind of investment? Mainly the risk (other answers already elaborate on the details).  Investing in a single stock is quite risky, even more so when your income also depends on that company. Framed another way: which percentage of your portfolio should you put into a single stock? (which has been answered in this post). If after considering all things you think it's a good deal, take the offer, but don't put a too great percentage of you overall savings into it, limit it to say 10% (maybe even less). Why is that? With all the successful investors (including myself on a not-infrequent basis) going for individual companies directly, wouldn't it make more sense to suggest that new investors learn how to analyse companies and then make their best guess after taking into account those factors? I have a different perspective here than the other answers.  I recently started investing in a Roth IRA for retirement. I do not have interest in micromanaging individual company research (I don't find this enjoyable at all) but I know I want to save for retirement. Could I learn all the details? Probably, as an engineer/software person I suspect I could. But I really don't want to. But here's the thing: For anyone else in a similar situation to me, the net return on investing into a mutual fund type arrangement (even if it returns only 4%) is still likely considerably higher than the return on trying to invest in stocks (which likely results in $0 invested, and a return of 0%). I suspect the overwhelming majority of people in the world are more similar to me than you - in that they have minimal interest in spending hours managing their money. For us, mutual funds or ETFs are perfect for this. Fantastic question to be asking at the age of 22! A very wise man suggested to me the following with regard to your net income I've purposely not included saving a sum of money for a house deposit, as this is very much cultural and lots of EU countries have a low rate of home ownership. On the education versus entrepreneur question. I don't think these are mutually exclusive. I am a big advocate of education (I have a B.Eng) but have following working in the real world for a number of years have started an IT business in data analytics. My business partner and I saw a gap in the market and have exploited it. I continue to educate myself now in short courses on running business, data analytics and investment. My business partner did things the otherway around, starting the company first, then getting an M.Sc. Other posters have suggested that investing your money personally is a bad idea. I think it is a very good idea to take control of your own destiny and choose how you will invest your money.   I would say similarly that giving your money to someone else who will sometimes lose you money and will charge you for the privilege is a bad idea. Also putting your money in a box under your bed or in the bank and receive interest that is less than inflation are bad ideas. You need to choose where to invest your money otherwise you will gain no advantage from the savings and inflation will erode your buying power. I would suggest that you educate yourself in the investment options that are available to you and those that suit you personality and life circumstances. Here are some notes on learning about stock market trading/investing if you choose to take that direction along with some books for self learning. "Simple answer: Yes  A better question to ask might be ""Should I invest all my savings to buy 4 shares of a single stock."" My answer to that would be ""probably not"". If this is your first venture into the world of owning publicly traded companies, then you're better off starting with some sort of mutual fund or ETF. This will start your portfolio with some amount of diversification so you don't have all your eggs in one basket. If you really want to get into the world of picking individual stocks, a good rule of thumb to follow is to invest $1 in some sort of indexed fund for every $1 you invest in an individual stock. This gives you some diversification while still enabling you to scratch that itch of owning a part of Apple or whatever other company you think is going in the right direction." For some ideas on investing priority guidelines, see Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing. Congratulations on being debt free!  My advice to you is to do what you can to remain debt free. You could certainly invest the money; it will earn much more over the long-term in a stock mutual fund than it would left in a savings account.  However, if you need any of this money in the next few years, it would be a shame if it lost money in the short-term. How much do you need to finish grad school?  Don't invest that money in the stock market, because you will need it over the next few years. Likewise, think about other expenses that are coming up.  Will your car need to be replaced in the next couple of years?  Will you have enough income to meet your living expenses while you are in grad school, or will you need some of this to money to help with that?   Finally, it would be good to keep some extra as an emergency fund, so you can easily pay for any unexpected expenses that come up. If you can make it through grad school debt free, you will be much better off than if you invest all the money but take out student loans in the process. After you've accounted for all of that, whatever is left of the money could definitely be invested.  If your goal is to start a retirement fund, an index mutual fund invested inside a Roth IRA is a great place to start. "Answering a more general question:  are financial services firms worth the money?  It really depends on the person.  Some can contribute regularly to index funds, and do the asset allocation on their own.  They are comfortable buying and selling various funds and there is really not that much management to do a Bogle like ""3 fund portfolio"".  All that is needed is an occasional re-balance.  This person probably does not need a firm like UBS or many of the others out there. Some do some active picking of funds and stocks, and also some indexing.  Again they are comfortable in doing the right thing and probably don't need a manager. There are others, however, that need a manager.  A friend of mine pulled all of his money out of the market when Trump was elected.  He missed out on some nice growth.  The extra percentage point that he paid to have an adviser would have been well worth it. For people who get spooked easily by the market and need things explained over and over, an advisory service is great.  My mom falls in that category.  I thank God every day for her service as she would otherwise call me with the same investment questions every other quarter." There are some great answers on this site similar to what you asked, with either a non-jurisdictional or a US-centric focus. I would read those answers as well to give yourself more points of view on early investing. There are a few differences between Canada and the US from an investing perspective that you should also then consider, namely tax rules, healthcare, and education. I'll get Healthcare and Education out of the way quickly. Just note the difference in perspective in Canada of having government healthcare; putting money into health-savings plans or focusing on insurance as a workplace benefit is not a key motivating factor, but more a 'nice-to-have'. For education, it is more common in Canada for a student to either pay for school while working summer / part-time jobs, or at least taking on manageable levels of debt [because it is typically not quite as expensive as private colleges in the US]. There is still somewhat of a culture of saving for your child's education here, but it is not as much of a necessity as it may be in the US. From an investing perspective, I will quickly note some common [though not universal] general advice, before getting Canadian specific. I have blatantly stolen the meat of this section from Ben Miller's great answer here: Oversimplify it for me: the correct order of investing Once you have a solid financial footing, some peculiarities of Canadian investing are below. For all the tax-specific plans I'm about to mention, note that the banks do a very good job here of tricking you into believing they are complex, and that you need your hand to be held. I have gotten some criminally bad tax advice from banking reps, so at the risk of sounding prejudiced, I recommend that you learn everything you can beforehand, and only go into your bank when you already know the right answer. The 'account types' themselves just involve a few pages of paperwork to open, and the banks will often do that for free. They make up their fees in offering investment types that earn them management fees once the accounts are created. Be sure to separate the investments (stocks vs bonds etc.) vs the investment vehicles. Canada has 'Tax Free Savings Accounts', where you can contribute a certain amount of money every year, and invest in just about anything you want, from bonds to stocks to mutual funds. Any Income you earn in this account is completely tax free. You can withdraw these investments any time you want, but you can't re-contribute until January 1st of next year. ie: you invest $5k today in stocks held in a TFSA, and they grow to $6k. You withdraw $6k in July. No tax is involved. On January 1st next year, you can re-contribute a new $6K, and also any additional amounts added to your total limit annually. TFSA's are good for short-term liquid investments. If you don't know for sure when you'll need the money, putting it in a TFSA saves you some tax, but doesn't commit you to any specific plan of action. Registered Retirement Savings Plans allow you to contribute money based on your employment income accrued over your lifetime in Canada. The contributions are deducted from your taxable income in the year you make them. When you withdraw money from your RRSP, the amount you withdraw gets added as additional income in that year. ie: you invest $5k today in stocks held in an RRSP, and get a $5k deduction from your taxable income this year. The investments grow to $6k. You withdraw $6k next year. Your taxable income increases by $6k [note that if the investments were held 'normally' {outside of an RRSP}, you would have a taxable gain of only 50% of the total gain; but withdrawing the amount from your RRSP makes the gain 100% taxable]. On January 1st next year, you CANNOT recontribute this amount. Once withdrawn, it cannot be recontributed [except for below items]. RRSP's are good for long-term investing for retirement. There are a few factors at play here: (1) you get an immediate tax deduction, thus increasing the original size of investment by deferring tax to the withdrawal date; (2) your investments compound tax-free [you only pay tax at the end when you withdraw, not annually on earnings]; and (3) many people expect that they will have a lower tax-rate when they retire, than they do today. Some warnings about RRSP's: (1) They are less liquid than TFSA's; you can't put money in, take it out, and put it in again. In general, when you take it out, it's out, and therefore useless unless you leave it in for a long time; (2) Income gets re-characterized to be fully taxable [no dividend tax credits, no reduced capital gains tax rate]; and (3) There is no guarantee that your tax rate on retirement will be less than today. If you contribute only when your tax rate is in the top bracket, then this is a good bet, but even still, in 30 years, tax rates might rise by 20% [who knows?], meaning you could end up paying more tax on the back-end, than you saved in the short term. Home Buyer Plan RRSP withdrawals My single favourite piece of advice for young Canadians is this: if you contribute to an RRSP at least 3 months before you make a down payment on your first house, you can withdraw up to $25k from your RRSP without paying tax! to use for the down payment. Then over the next ~10 years, you need to recontribute money back to your RRSP, and you will ultimately be taxed when you finally take the money out at retirement. This means that contributing up to 25k to an RRSP can multiply your savings available for a down payment, by the amount of your tax rate. So if you make ~60k, you'll save ~35% on your 25k deposited, turning your down payment into $33,750. Getting immediate access to the tax savings while also having access to the cash for a downpayment, makes the Home Buyer Plan a solid way to make the most out of your RRSP, as long as one of your near-term goals is to own your own home. Registered Pension Plans are even less liquid than RRSPs. Tax-wise, they basically work the same: you get a deduction in the year you contribute, and are taxed when you withdraw. The big difference is that there are rules on when you are allowed to withdraw: only in retirement [barring specific circumstances]. Typically your employer's matching program (if you have one) will be inside of an RPP. Note that RPP's and RRSP's reduce your taxes on your employment paycheques immediately, if you contribute through a work program. That means you get the tax savings during the year, instead of all at once a year later on April 30th. *Note that I have attempted at all times to keep my advice current with applicable tax legislation, but I do not guarantee accuracy. Research these things yourself because I may have missed something relevant to your situation, I may be just plain wrong, and tax law may have changed since I wrote this to when you read it. "There's several approaches to the stock market. The first thing you need to do is decide which you're going to take. The first is the case of the standard investor saving money for retirement (or some other long-term goal). He already has a job. He's not really interested in another job. He doesn't want to spend thousands of hours doing research. He should buy mutual funds or similar instruments to build diversified holdings all over the world. He's going to have is money invested for years at a time. He won't earn spectacular amazing awesome returns, but he'll earn solid returns. There will be a few years when he loses money, but he'll recover it just by waiting. The second is the case of the day trader. He attempts to understand ultra-short-term movements in stock prices due to news, rumors, and other things which stem from quirks of the market and the people who trade in it. He buys a stock, and when it's up a fraction of a percent half an hour later, sells it. This is very risky, requires a lot of attention and a good amount of money to work with, and you can lose a lot of money too. The modern day-trader also needs to compete with the ""high-frequency trading"" desks of Wall Street firms, with super-optimized computer networks located a block away from the exchange so that they can make orders faster than the guy two blocks away. I don't recommend this approach at all. The third case is the guy who wants to beat the market. He's got long-term aspirations and vision, but he does a lot more research into individual companies, figures out which are worth buying and which are not, and invests accordingly. (This is how Warren Buffett made it big.) You can make it work, but it's like starting a business: it's a ton of work, requires a good amount of money to get going, and you still risk losing lots of it.  The fourth case is the guy who mostly invests in broad market indexes like #1, but has a little money set aside for the stocks he's researched and likes enough to invest in like #3. He's not going to make money like Warren Buffett, but he may get a little bit of an edge on the rest of the market. If he doesn't, and ends up losing money there instead, the rest of his stocks are still chugging along. The last and stupidest way is to treat it all like magic, buying things without understanding them or a clear plan of what you're going to do with them. You risk losing all your money. (You also risk having it stagnate.) Good to see you want to avoid it. :)" "Remind him that, over the long-term, investing in safe-only assets may actually be more risky than investing in stocks. Over the long-term, stocks have always outperformed almost every other asset class, and they are a rather inflation-proof investment. Dollars are not ""safe""; due to inflation, currency exchange, etc., they have some volatility just like everything else." "Yes, they are, and you've experienced why. Generally speaking, stocks that pay dividends will be better investments than stocks that don't.  Here's why: 1) They're actually making money. They can finagle balance sheets and news releases, but cash is cash, it tells no lies. They can't fake it.   2) There's less good they can do with that money than they say. When a business you own is making money, they can do two things with it: reinvest it into the company, or hand it over to you. All companies must reinvest to some degree, but only a few companies worth owning can find profitable ways of reinvesting all of it. Having to hand you, the owner, some of the earnings helps keep that money from leaking away on such ""necessities"" like corporate jets, expensive printer paper, or ill-conceived corporate buyouts.      3) It helps you not freak out. Markets go up, and markets go down. If you own a good company that's giving you a nice check every three months, it's a lot easier to not panic sell in a downturn. After all, they're handing you a nice check every three months, and checks are cash, and cash tells no lies. You know they're still a good company, and you can ride it out.    4) It helps others not freak out. See #3. That applies to everyone. That, in turn means market downturns weigh less heavily on companies paying solid dividends than on those that do not.  5) It gives you some of the reward of investing in good companies, without having to sell those companies. If you've got a piece of a good, solid, profitable, growing company, why on earth would you want to sell it?  But you'd like to see some rewards from making that wise investment, wouldn't you?     6) Dividends can grow. Solid, growing companies produce more and more earnings. Which means they can hand you more and more cash via the dividend. Which means that if, say, they reliably raise dividends 10%/year, that measly 3% dividend turns into a 6% dividend seven years later (on your initial investment). At year 14, it's 12%. Year 21, 24%. See where this is going? Companies like that do exist, google ""Dividend Aristocrats"".  7) Dividends make growth less important. If you owned a company that paid you a 10% dividend every year, but never grew an inch, would you care? How about 5%, and it grows only slowly?  You invest in companies, not dividends. You invest in companies to make money. Dividends are a useful tool when you invest -- to gauge company value, to smooth your ride, and to give you some of the profit of the business you own. They are, however, only part of the total return from investing -- as you found out." You are always best off investing in things you understand. If you have a deep understanding of the aeronautical industry, say, you are a Vice President at Boeing and have been working at Boeing for 40 years, then that would be a reason for investing in that sector: because you may be able to better evaluate different companies in that sector. If you are a novice in the sector, or just have an amateur interest in it, then it may not be a good idea, because your knowledge may not be sufficient to give you much of an advantage. Before focusing on one investment of any type, industry sector based, or otherwise, you want to ask yourself: am I an expert in this subject? The answer to that question will have a big impact on your success. The stock price is not only based on the general market trend and the stock's current profitability and prospects, but is also based on prediction of how the stock's prospects might change in the future. In almost every case, there are professional investors analysing the stock's future prospects and considering whether it's over or under values for its current price. However even professionals can be totally wrong.  If you feel like you have a good grasp on whether the stock will have improving or declining prospects over time, then you might be (if you're right) equipped to make a sensible decision on whether to hold the stock or not. If you don't think you have a good understanding about the stock, then an understanding of the general market direction might at least make stock in general worth holding. Otherwise, you are simply taking a punt. If you know of another stock that has better prospects, then ask yourself why you would hold onto the stock that you think will perform worse.  But also bear in mind that (in my understanding) research has shown that, on average, people who try to pick stocks rarely do better than a random selection, and more stock trades means more brokerage (which thanks to brokerage losses would mean you will end up doing worse than average unless you really do know better than the market). I think it depends entirely on your risk tolerance. Putting money in individual stocks obviously increases your risk and potentially increases your reward. Personally (as a fairly conservative investor) I'd only invest in individual stocks if I could afford to lose the entire investment (maybe I'd end up buying Enron or Nortel). If you enjoy envesting and feel 10% is an acceptable loss I think you have your answer No, you cannot write off time, period. You should price the time spent into your product. I, occasionally, work on side projects of my own and forgo the   possibility of earning direct income for that time. Income not earned is income not taxed, so there's nothing to deduct.