Stocks to Invest in if Cryptocurrencies Seem too Scary
The rise of cryptocurrencies in 2017 has sparked the interest of investing in millennials. The idea of making money out of thin air seems appealing. However, the crypto market is extremely volatile and you can make as much money as you could lose; especially with those scam coins that are circulating and raising millions of dollars for their ICO.
If you are like me, then you probably want a safer alternative to invest in, while still keeping your portfolio appropriately diversified. So, while you still invest - responsibly - in cryptocurrencies, you can also invest in a few stocks and ETFs that are - almost - guaranteed to keep growing.
Acorns and Stash
There are a few good apps to start with. If you are completely clueless of how the stock market works, you can simply download Acorns or Stash Invest. Both charge a $1 fee on accounts with less than $5000 and 0.75% thereafter, but Acorns is free for college students for up to 4 years. Furthermore, both can be set up to invest spare cash, which means that they simply round up your credit card purchases and invest that amount. For example, if you buy a coffee for $3.49, the app will round up to $4.00 and invest $0.51.
Although neither of these apps have a minimum amount requirement to open the account, you need to be wary of that $1 they are charging you, which if put into perspective could be as much as 10% of your monthly contributions. If you want to see a difference in your account, I suggest investing at least $500.
That said, the main difference between the two apps is that Acorns doesn't give you the flexibility of choosing the funds you invest in, while Stash lets you declare what you believe in. Finally, with Acorns you can also get $5 per each referred account that is opened.
Robinhood
Robinhood is my personal favourite. There are no brokerage or management fees and you can invest in practically any stocks you want. You can recreate some of the funds that are listed in Stash, mix and match, or simply go your own way, as I did.
Stocks
Now, this is a tricky question. Everyone has different things they are interested in, but what I'll describe is the route I go. I like investing in stocks and ETFs that pay dividends. Dividends are proceeds of the company that are paid to the shareholders. MSFT (Microsoft Corp.), INTC (Intel Corp.) are two of my favourite stocks because of their steadily increased dividend yield and capital gains, over the years. KO (Coca-Cola), BAC (Bank of America) and JNJ (Johnson and Johnson) are also stocks that are widely accepted as good investments and that still pay nice dividends. The other stock I have my eye on is BA (Boeing) which at a current price of over $300 has a dividend yield of a little over 2.8%.
Another way to go is to buy precious metals mining companies' stocks. Although their price widely fluctuates, you could find yourself making a profit when there's political or financial uncertainty because people naturally turn to precious metals. NEM (Newmont Mining) is a fairly nice gold mining company that is fairly cheap and has a low dividend yield. Other such companies are MUX (McEwen Mining) and ABX (Barrick Gold).
ETFs
ETFs are Exchange-Traded Funds, or otherwise funds that distribute a portion of your money into a lot of stocks. There are ETFs that track treasury, corporate, government or municipal bonds, precious metals stocks, and anything else you can think of. I like the ones that are deemed as "growth" and "dividend" tracking ETFs. The thing, however, to keep in mind about ETFs is that they have a management fee, so you will make less than what the real market value is. Management fees are not a deal-breaker, but just make sure to be aware of what that number is.
Some (stock) ETFs that are good are by Vanguard. VOO, VOOG, VUG, VUG are all great choices, with dividends that grow each year. On the other hand, some great bond ETFs that I love are MINT, which is PIMCO's enhanced short maturity ETF, DJD, which is the Guggenheim Dow Jones Industrial Average Dividend ETF, and SHYG, which is the iShares 0-5 Year High Yield Corporate Bond ETF.
Online Platforms
Hedgeable and Wealthfront are two great online platforms, from what I hear - although I've yet to test either of them. Wealthfront provides an option for individual investing, as well as 401k plans for small companies and IRAs. Hedgeable uses AI to manage your funds and maximize the amount of money you make; they also have an option to invest in cryptocurrencies, which is pretty great.