“Successful investors had to start somewhere, and it’s never too early or too late to start planning for your financial future and learning how to invest wisely.” Phil Town
Getting started investing can be intimidating. The learning curve combined with the fact that you are putting your own money at risk is often enough to scare many people away from one of the safest ways to put ‘your money to work for you’ and financial freedom.
However, the most successful investors like Peter Lynch and Warren Buffett had to start somewhere, and it’s never too early or too late to start planning for your financial future and learning how to invest wisely.
This beginner’s guide to investing, according to investment advisor and NY Times Best-Selling author Phil Town, covers everything you need to know to start investing on your own and make smart investing decisions.
Step 1: Pay Off Bad Debt and Avoid Money Traps
Don’t even think about making any major investments before you have paid off unnecessary debt.
These things shouldn’t hold you back from starting to invest, but if you have “bad” debt from credit cards and high interest personal loans that will get you in trouble with interest payments, pay that off before you put money in the stock market.
Additionally, don’t fall into the common money traps. People of all ages trying to keep up with the Joneses: buying the latest phone, shiniest car, biggest house.
“Money traps are things that will take all your money so you have nothing left to invest.” Phil Town
These are money traps because they are things that will take all your money so you have nothing left to invest. Spending money wisely is one of the most important steps you can take to put yourself in the best possible financial situation before you begin investing.
Step 2: Create an Emergency Fund
If you have figured out how to spend your money wisely, you have probably figured out how to save it. An emergency fund is part of your savings that you set aside in case of an emergency.
It’s a good idea to put 3-6 months of your living expenses into your emergency fund (it can just be in a savings account) should something crazy happen a pandemic!
If your car breaks down, you get laid off, or you have unforeseen medical expenses, you will have the funds you need. An emergency fund will also come in handy in case of a recession.
Even if you don’t have to tap it, you will have peace of mind knowing there is a cushion available if you need it.
Step 3: Learn the Investing Basics
You wouldn’t start driving a truck without knowing the basics driving, so you shouldn’t jump in the stock market without knowing the basics of investing.
Before you begin building wealth, it’s important to understand the basic goal of investing as well as the basic process that you will use to reach that goal.
Step 4: Embrace a Positive Investing Mindset
Your investing psychology (mindset and behavior) and how it affects your investing are important aspects to understand and appreciate. It will dictate how you as an investor will actually behave, the reasons and causes of that behavior, why the behavior can hurt your wealth and what you can do about it.
Understanding the psychological aspects and how psychology affects investing are an important and critical aspect of investing. Knowing that you belong in the market and that your capable of investing in the market are important first steps.
Successful investing has much to do with you needing to be a pretty good amateur psychologist of both your own biases and the market’s, according to Nick Murray. Virtually all market tops and bottoms occur at emotional extremes:
- Bottoms coincide with widespread panic while
- Tops tend to be associated with some unjustified level of overconfidence or greed.
The theory behind sentiment analysis is quite simple. Market peaks occur when buying power has become exhausted. This happens because those buyers have become either complacent, overconfident or just plain greedy. Once they’ve all bought in, who’s left to buy?
Step 5: Create an Investment Plan
Once you have a positive investing mindset and know you know how investing works, you can move on to the next steps, but don’t get your wallet ready just yet.
Before you put your money in the market, you need to have a clear plan of what you want to accomplish and how you are going to do it. This is where creating an investment plan comes in.
The best investment plan is one that is customized to your lifestyle, so it’s necessary to create an individualized strategy that will set you on the path to success.
- Evaluate your current financial standing to understand how much risk you can take.
- Determine your goals and how long it will take you to realistically achieve them.
- Figure out which types of investments and strategies are the best way to get you to where you want to be.
Having a clear investment plan will give you a ton of clarity as you begin investing.
Step 6: Decide What Type of Investment to Make
Next, you need to decide what type of investments will help you accomplish what you have set out to accomplish. There are several different types of investments that you should be aware of before you start investing your money.
Step 7: Establish Your Investing Strategy
Investing is more than picking a few stocks and hoping for the best. If you’re doing it right, there’s a real strategy involved. Now, you can choose from a plethora of investment strategies for investing beginners. These investment strategies include:
- Impact Investing: Investing in companies with a measurable environmental or charitable impact
- Growth Investing: Investing in companies that exhibit signs of above-average growth
- Income Investing: Investing in securities that pay dividends
- Small-Cap Investing: Investing in small companies that are new and potentially grow faster
- Value Investing: Investing in great companies when they are on sale for prices lower than they are worth
There is one investment strategy that is recommended which follows the principles of value investing. When you value invest, you buy growth companies, small-cap companies, and impactful companies, but you buy them when they are on sale.
This investing strategy will give you the highest rates of return with the lowest amount of risk. When you buy wonderful high-value companies for half or even a quarter of their value, you can ensure big returns.
Step 8: Determine Where To Invest
Once you decide that you are ready to start buying and selling stocks, you need to choose what platform or service you will use to make your investments.
For most investors, an online broker will be the best option because online brokers allow you to place trades for a relatively small fee while still offering all of the resources and information you need to make wise investments.
There are many online brokers available to choose from and most are fairly competitive in regards to the fees they charge and the services that they offer. And, you really can’t go wrong with any of the major online brokers.
Step 9: Build a Stock Watchlist
It’s time to start investing. If you decided stocks are the right type of investment, you can start picking stocks…carefully. A stock watchlist is your own personal list of companies that you have researched and found to be worthy of your investment. Once you build your watchlist, you watch and wait for the companies on it to go on sale.
To build a watchlist, you need to do your research
The best companies to invest in for beginners are companies that have been around for at least ten years, companies that you understand, companies that exhibit past growth and the potential for future growth, companies that are run by trustworthy management, and companies that have been placed on-sale relative to their value.
You can break down these qualifications into what we call the Four Ms of Investing. It will take a bit of research to discover the Four Ms for each company, but the payoff will be worth it.
If you find a company that meets these qualifications, you will have found an ideal investment for any investor, beginners included.
If you find a company that meets all of these qualifications, you will likely have found an ideal investment opportunity.
Practice Patience and Wait
Once you have found a company that meets your qualifications, it still may not be prudent to invest in it right away. Instead, you’ll want to put the company on your watchlist and wait until the stock market places it on sale.
The good news is that the market puts wonderful companies on sale all the time. If you’re patient, the companies on your watchlist will eventually dip to a price that allows you to buy them up for a bargain rate and profit once the price of those companies goes back up to their true value.
Investing Tip: Check Your Emotions
By far, the most important investing tip for beginners to follow is this: keep your emotions in check.
If you invest in wonderful companies at a point when the market has placed them on sale relative to their value, it’s hard not to make money; that is, if you don’t let your emotions get the better of you.
Even great companies can experience dips in price over the short-term, and these dips often cause inexperienced investors to become afraid and sell off their shares.
By the same token, greed causes many investors to buy into a company at times when the company is overpriced. This leads to lower returns or even losses.
If you want to succeed as an investor, you have to avoid letting fear or greed drive your decision-making process.
Remain patient and logical as you invest and you’ll be able to avoid many of the pitfalls that beginner investors often fall prey to.
Step 10: Know When to Buy Your Stocks
Succeeding at investing in stocks is all about choosing the right companies as well as the right time to invest, but the right time won’t last forever. Once a company on your watchlist goes on sale, it’s time to buy.
Making money requires some degree of timing. Investment legends like Warren Buffett may condemn market timing, however, they would not disagree that there are far better times to enter a stock position and exit a stock position than others.
Entering a new position when there is panic is a far better bet than when the stock price has increase to levels far above its intrinsic value due to fear of missing out.
At this point, all you need to do is place your money in the company and keep it there for the long-term. If you made a wise investment, your money will grow in value for many years after you invest it in the company.
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