There are various ways to improve your investing and money management. Financial Success for Young Adults has 9 tips to get you started.
1) Read this blog 
If you want to be a great investor but you don’t know where to start then you should start with Financial Success for Young Adults!. Start with the posts about picking a stock to learn the basics.
2) Be consistent
There are really great tools that allows you to invest as little as you like in a stock. The key is to repeat this schedule on a weekly, biweekly or monthly basis. There are some very successful money managers that
don’t bother with timing the market and instead invest at a preset time. The consistency will keep your portfolio growing. You can also make automatic transfers into a managed stock trading account. Allowing someone else to invest for you in set intervals will build a steady portfolio.
3) Surround your self with other investors
It’s important to ‘talk shop’ as often as you can and preferably with someone who knows more than you. That way you can benefit from their knowledge. Wall Street Survivor offers a great community where you can share stock tips and even spy on a successful trader’s portfolio. It’s a free tool that will help you increase your investing knowledge and best of all, it’s free!
4) Focus on one asset class or industry
Smart investors focus. By becoming an expert in your chosen field you will know how the news will affect your specific asset class or industry. Some of the best investors only trade forex or only buy one particular stock, for example.
5) Test your strategies
Before you throw any money in the ring you should test out your thoughts with a demo account. It’s a great way to get a feel for the process. For stocks, WallStreetSurvivor.com has a nice practice account. It’s used at Yale, Cornell and even Kennesaw State University. You also have the chance to win real money prizes. If you are interested in futures and options then OptionsXpress is a good place to start. For forex try our friends at Zecco. They also offer a nice demo account along with great learning tools and customer support.
6) Save 10% of your income
This habit will help you grow your assets easily. Every great investor needs a good flow of cash to make their investment decisions. No cash, no assets. Check out Mint.com to help you with budgeting and saving.
7) Don’t Follow the Crowd
Just because a talking head says buy! buy! buy! doesn’t mean you should go right out and load up on the latest recommendation. Sometimes going against the crowd can make you more money.
Read Daily
Get in the habit of reading financial news each day. News of an oil spill might be devastating but the financial angle on the story could help you protect your portfolio. It’s important to stay updated on the latest news. CNBC, the Wall Street Journal and Fortune are good places to start.
9) Do Your Own Research
We already talked about the dangers of blindly following someone else’s advice. You should always do your own research even if it’s just to check on the credibility of the speaker. Morningstar.com offers great tools for researching stocks, mutual funds, options and more.
If you apply these 9 tips you will be sure to be a financial success while growing your assets and your portfolio!
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23 comments
14 pings
Ralph says:
June 14, 2011 at 7:55 am (UTC -4 )
Good tips you have on this site. Saving 10% is crucial! I wish I would’ve followed that advise years ago.
LaTisha says:
June 14, 2011 at 11:41 pm (UTC -4 )
Thanks! I am still working on consistently saving 10 percent and I would like to get up to 25%.
Kellen says:
June 14, 2011 at 1:17 pm (UTC -4 )
Good encouragement to get young people involved with investing. I would add a warning to step 3 though, because there are a ton of investors out there with fancy strategies that your typical young investor doesn’t need. I’d take anything other investors said with a grain of salt.
LaTisha says:
June 14, 2011 at 11:43 pm (UTC -4 )
That’s true. As long as you don’t try to duplicate what someone else does and always do your research you should be ok.
Hunter says:
June 14, 2011 at 5:00 pm (UTC -4 )
These are all excellent pieces of advice. I like the first one! I also like “don’t follow the crowd”. It pays to think. Not enough people take the time formulate their own original thoughts. They just go with what the talk shows are saying. Good arguments.
LaTisha says:
June 14, 2011 at 11:48 pm (UTC -4 )
I can use my own experience to support that. I used to just buy whatever I heard the anchors talking about on CNBC. What a waste of time!
Lakhyajyoti says:
June 15, 2011 at 2:44 pm (UTC -4 )
Great advice.I’ll try to follow your advice.Talking with other investors will really help us to improve our investing.
Robert @ The College Investor says:
June 15, 2011 at 5:19 pm (UTC -4 )
Great tips. I especially like do your own research and read daily. I think it is also important to read a variety of sources, not just a newsletter or one paper.
LaTisha says:
June 16, 2011 at 7:55 pm (UTC -4 )
That is true, especially when each source may have a different take on the same topic.
Squirrelers says:
June 15, 2011 at 5:56 pm (UTC -4 )
Good tips, all of them. I especially like #3, #6, and #10.
Surround yourself with intelligent people with investing experience, and if they have a somewhat different perspective that you that’s ok, might learn something from them!
Saving 10% – it’s a great start, no doubt. In fact, save as much as you can reasonably save.
Independent research – yes, you can’t just follow the herd and take your brain out of it. Even if it’s investing in index funds, at least by researching whether or not that strategy is worthwhile, you’re not following the herd.
Hunter says:
June 15, 2011 at 7:54 pm (UTC -4 )
LaTisha, Do you have any social share buttons? I would love to share articles like this!
LaTisha says:
June 15, 2011 at 8:23 pm (UTC -4 )
Thanks! I used to have shareaholic but they kept updating the plugin every day
I’m installing a retweet button now
Marissa says:
June 15, 2011 at 11:57 pm (UTC -4 )
I am finding there are a lot of people (females mostly) who don’t any thing about investing at all. I think there very intelligent people who contribute diligently on a regular basis yet have no idea what is happening to their money. I am big believer that if you work really hard for your money and want it to grow, you have to be active in that process.
LaTisha says:
June 16, 2011 at 7:53 pm (UTC -4 )
I agree wholeheartedly! It’s really sad that women don’t take a deeper look into finance. Because much of it can be subjective, and women have intuition, we actually have the capacity to be better traders. Check out momvesting.com for more females who invest. Jessica does a great job of making investing interesting for females.
Untemplater says:
June 18, 2011 at 2:03 am (UTC -4 )
Reading and doing research is so important, especially with the volatility in the markets these days. I’m glad the Dow closed above 12k today, by just 4 points lol. The markets have been ugly I don’t even want to look!
LaTisha says:
June 18, 2011 at 10:41 am (UTC -4 )
Summer is a great time to lose money in the sideways markets! lol I’m sitting out until volume comes back.
Shobir | Cold Sore Remedies says:
June 19, 2011 at 6:22 pm (UTC -4 )
Really good advice but so hard to follow especially saving 10% at the end of each month. I also think you have to be as frugal as possible to save even more. With a few lifestyle changes you can really make a big difference. Thanks for the post.
LaTisha says:
June 20, 2011 at 9:32 pm (UTC -4 )
It does take some time to get into the habit of saving, but after a while it becomes automatic.
Ginger says:
June 20, 2011 at 2:53 pm (UTC -4 )
I’m a little bothered by the idea of investing in one class. This makes you more vulnerable without much benefit. Diversification seems to be a better idea, using index funds so you do not need to do much research.
LaTisha says:
June 20, 2011 at 9:33 pm (UTC -4 )
Index funds are a great way for a beginner to get into investing.
World of Finance says:
October 2, 2011 at 3:24 am (UTC -4 )
Great tips FSYA! I agree diversification is key and index funds are a great way to implement this idea.
Doctor Stock says:
October 2, 2011 at 1:40 am (UTC -4 )
haha… nice plug at the beginning! I love the idea of testing ideas… before anyone tests invests, they should test.
MoneyCone says:
October 3, 2011 at 5:12 pm (UTC -4 )
Nice tips LaTisha! I’d also add, start small and start early!
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