Avoid individual stocks.

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.