Hey, I'm looking for some advice or reassurance. After finishing grad school in 05 with six figures of debt, I spent the next few years paying off my debt. I'm now about debt free and am starting to invest, but it is all new to me and has been discouraging.
I'm under 30 and have two investment goals, 1 investing for a long term like 30 year horizon and 2 investing for a short term to buy a house in a year or two.
For the long term, I've gone with basically index equity funds split between US and international about evenly. In the US I've gone with an S&P index and a small cap index, and for international, I've gone with a small cap index, an emerging market index, and a large cap index. Of course, I've seen massive losses since starting to invest in these about six months ago. So, am I way off track, or is this just part of the ups and downs expected for long term investing when the horizon is decades away?
For the short term, I've gone with two bond funds, a tax advantaged municipal bond fund and an inflation protected bond fund. Small gains, but nothing great there, as expected I guess.
Any thoughts on research I should be doing or better ways to diversify, etc?
Thanks
I'm under 30 and have two investment goals, 1 investing for a long term like 30 year horizon and 2 investing for a short term to buy a house in a year or two.
For the long term, I've gone with basically index equity funds split between US and international about evenly. In the US I've gone with an S&P index and a small cap index, and for international, I've gone with a small cap index, an emerging market index, and a large cap index. Of course, I've seen massive losses since starting to invest in these about six months ago. So, am I way off track, or is this just part of the ups and downs expected for long term investing when the horizon is decades away?
For the short term, I've gone with two bond funds, a tax advantaged municipal bond fund and an inflation protected bond fund. Small gains, but nothing great there, as expected I guess.
Any thoughts on research I should be doing or better ways to diversify, etc?
Thanks