In 2016, a new Harris poll revealed that almost 80 percent of Millennials, those who were born between the late 1980s to early 2000s, are not invested in any financial market.
Although it doesn’t cause any outward concerns, this lack of participation in asset-yielding markets can have long-term financial implications, such as stretching the median retirement ages longer.
6 investment tips for Millennials
If you are reading this article and identify yourself as belonging to Generation Y, here are six fundamental investment tips to manage your money properly as a Millennial.
1. Know the challenges ahead
Knowing why people under 30 are not engaged in any sort of investment portfolio is a good way to gauge the difficulty of the investing path ahead.
One of the most common reasons why millennials do not invest is they don’t have enough money, or at least that’s what 53 percent of the surveyed millennials reasoned out.
The next common reason is the lack of investing knowledge. Millennials do not have the smarts to pick high-grade stocks or rebalance their portfolio to minimize risk.
2. Avoid debt
Millennials are the generation that absorbed much of the advances in the financial sector and is positioned to take advantage of future advances in the industry. Whichever store you go to these days, there’s credit card processing machines, ATMs, and businesses touting their 0 percent down payment loans.
If you are currently in debt, do everything you can to get out. Request for a Lexington Law credit repair cost as soon as possible to get your personal finances in order.
3. Use technology
Modern investing has become more convenient thanks to technological advancements.
For example, there are apps nowadays that you can download and install on your mobile phone to give you real-time updates on company press releases, conference calls, and other economic changes happening in both macro and micro levels.
Even better, there are applications today that allow you to invest and manage your investments through your smartphone, an unprecedented development that Warren Buffett, Benjamin Graham, and other successful investors did not have access to in the past.
Finally, you might want to use personal finance blogs to become finance-savvy.
4. Stick with fundamental truths
As much as millennials are encouraged to take advantage of technology to achieve capital appreciation and financial stability, limit the feedback you get to only the fundamental truths of investing.
It’s easy to get lost in the multitude of information that’s readily available today. Only anatomize investing parameters that have been tested and proven throughout time, such as earnings per share, dividends growth, management success, and economic stability.
Over time, absorbing too much information from the financial markets does not benefit your P/L but instead imperil it.
5. Start small
Although not the case for everyone, many millennials have been programmed since birth to get all their wants and wishes in a finger snap. No having to work hard for it, no having to wait months or years. This can be a detrimental way of thinking when investing money.
Avoid trying to build your starting capital overnight
Instead, start small and grow it over the course of the next few years. $20 per week sounds like pennies when you estimate potential annual yields, but in a year, this $20 saved per week can turn into $1,040 of savings you can buy stocks, currencies, REITs, or even bitcoins with.
6. Keep in mind the presence of risk
Every investing venture involves some quantifiable level of risk. The job of the investor is to ensure that risk always remains relatively low when compared to potential rewards.
Millennials tend to have no problems taking a risk, but at times this quality also becomes their downfall. They end up losing too much in any single asset and then blame the markets for the loss sustained.
Millennials have the element of time on their side. Knowing how to position their finances can grant them an earlier retirement age from which they can enjoy anything and everything they want from life.
What do you think? What investment tips would you recommend to manage your finances effectively? Let me know in the comments below!
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