If you're a new retail investor, sure. Putting all your chips on the S&P is probably the safest bet. But these indexes are, themselves, often overweighted by the MAG7 anyway. So you're still heavily exposed to certain sectors and even individual firms. Tesla, for instance, is explicitly 3% of the NASDAQ composite. And because of the way it is interconnected with NVIDIA and Toyota and a few other large cap companies, a sudden downturn in Tesla value can drag down the rest of the index quickly.

Don’t try to time the market, in or out. DCA. Don’t touch the money.

That's fine from a very rudimentary savings strategy. But as you learn more about individual equities, you'll see opportunities. Palantir is a great example. It was trading at $10/share a year ago, despite Thiel having a direct line to national security spending budgets and a very friendly relationship with both Trump and Harris. Severely undervalued in the security sector in a way that a simple S&P or NASDAQ investment can't take advantage of. Meanwhile, domestic natural gas is severely hindered by the US trade relations with China - which is the fastest growing market for petrochemicals. Simply having a chunk of the DOW won't yield growth consistent with specific areas of the international market.

Watch P/E ratios. Watch EBITDA. Watch what the economy is doing, generally speaking. Fuck day-trading and options plays. But you can absolutely find opportunities in the market long term with a conservative buy-and-hold strategy, if you can pick out equities that are undervalued and positioned for future growth.

Solar is a great growth sector atm, as energy prices rise and O&G supply chains become overexposed to international conflicts. Bank stocks are enjoying a new wave of deregulation that promise high growth potential. Meanwhile, certain sectors in the MIC are stumbling - Boeing and Raytheon, for instance - because they can't actually produce units to meet global demand for killing machines. There's an arbitrage opportunity in smaller competitive startup firms - particularly in drone and electronic warfare.

If you're serious about investing, it's worth asking the question "Is Intel in a position to compete with TMSC?" rather than just dumping all your money into an index.

[–] Saleh@feddit.org 12 points 14 hours ago (2 children)

If you’re serious about investing, it’s worth asking the question “Is Intel in a position to compete with TMSC?” rather than just dumping all your money into an index.

Unless you work in this sector and have detailed knowledge, youd be delusional to believe to be able to answer that question better than "the market" in general.

Also i'd say Palantir isnt as much of a secret tip but rather capitalizing on wanting to live under Fascism. If you dont want to live unser Fascism you should wish for Palantir to burn to the ground. This directly contradicts pumping money into them.

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 4 points 11 hours ago

The scary thing is how much the stock market resembles pyramid schemes. Even if we are never going to eat our ice cream out of hats, if everyone believes we will, then ICRHAT stock will go through the roof and many of those investors are rewarded for their delusion.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world -1 points 11 hours ago

Unless you work in this sector and have detailed knowledge, youd be delusional to believe to be able to answer that question

The decision by Intel to forgo investment in next-generation chip fabrication for over a decade and coast on a spec that capped out at 7nm was something techies and investors had been ringing bells about for a long while. Similarly, the swell in demand for future high performance chips has been ongoing since the pre-COVID days. You can read the briefs on Intel and make an informed guess as to whether they will be able to outperform a company like TMSC, which is hedged in both politically and geographically, but riding the cutting edge of chip fabrication.

The great thing about making investment decisions is that you don't have to be exactly right every time. You can be marginally right, or even wrong, and still see your portfolio grow. The baseline you're competing against is the index returns. And - especially with Blue Chips in a heavily monopolized environment - the difference between the index and the individual business isn't particularly large most of the time.

Also i’d say Palantir isnt as much of a secret tip but rather capitalizing on wanting to live under Fascism.

That's not investing, that's wishcasting. If you think betting for or against Palantir is the difference between Liberty and Tyranny, you've got bigger problems with your portfolio than diversification.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 6 points 13 hours ago

I didn’t write this comment for investing at your level. This is investing for people who want to have a retirement and aren’t interested in stock investing as a job, because to correctly monitor markets and companies and successfully pick winners requires education and a time investment. I’ve done my fair share of picking winners out of companies that become movers, but I don’t have the risk tolerance for that anymore and this forum isn’t the place to teach people all of that. Because something works and requires minimum effort doesn’t make it rudimentary, that’s completely unfair, derogatory, and insinuates people should try more risky strategies. You completely missed the audience I wrote the comment for. Anyone at your skill and risk level doesn’t need this advice. The equivalent of me suggesting one buy a reliable Honda and here you jump in suggesting a Maserati. Not the same crowd.