Quote: (02-03-2017 07:57 AM)duedue Wrote:
I have more questions: For long term investment in stocks (not necessarily for retirement) do you use an investment bank like Merryl-Lynch or do you do it yourself?
Depends on how much work you are willing to put into picking stocks yourself.
You can do-it-yourself, but you will make a mistake somewhere, and you will lose money somewhere somehow. But by being conservative, carefully listening to your head and not your heart, you can build up your own stock portfolio. Just be prepared to learn a lesson or two the hard way, and keep your portfolio varied enough that if one sector of the economy goes down, it doesn't crash your entire portfolio. I was recently burned badly by the South Africa drought, and a company I had invested in basically went bust, so it was a hard lesson but it was only a small portion of my portfolio, so I shrugged off the loss and carried on with my life. Do-it-yourself investing is definitely not a good option if you get very emotional about money, though.
If you don't want to do it yourself, rather invest in an index fund. They are low cost portfolios generally managed by a computer or a formula, without deliberate attempts at stock picking. They tend to do as well as the bank managed portfolios for a fraction of the fees.
Banks like Merryl-Lynch will absolutely destroy you in management fees. You will lose out on a lot of potential profits because you have to pay your stock pickers and the bank first, then you get to take any profit home. It's almost never cost-effective to let a bank manage your money for you.
Bear in mind that investing in stocks does mean you have to think hard about risk and decide how much you are willing to tolerate, especially in our bubble-debt economy. All stock markets crash from time to time, and under certain conditions stock exchanges can also collapse permanently, wiping out all your investments. This is true of any investment, though, and it's the risk that brings reward.