VOO

No_Paleontologist506

First off, sorry for your loss. Good on you for educating yourself, but that is what you need, education. Money is about when you will spend and always having a savings/investment plan. Only three numbers matter. Monthly income vs monthly expenses vs monthly auto investment. Open a Fidelity account. Deposit cash there. SPAXX is fine while you learn. Then auto buy VOO on a weekly basis. Start with what is comfortable, then work to increase that auto weekly. Only sell assets in order to pay for urgent expenses. You will learn a ton more. But as long as you get that first part down, you will always be fine. You will do great!!

InvestingNerd2020

So $21k after living expenses and taxes. It will be tough because you need your money to compound and grow over 20+ years typically. Check and see if your employer offers a Roth 401k. $24.5k contribution limit for 2026. Within 5 years while remaining employed and contributing $20k per year, you will have put away $100k USD at age 36. After $100k, your money exponentially works for you. Easy path to early retirement after that. This assumes there is a Roth 401k offered. If no Roth 401k offered, You can focus on building wealth via the company regular 401k plan. Same contribution limit, but pre-tax contribution. Follow the same plan. Unfortunately, any withdrawals before 59.5 years old will have a 10% penalty and taxes on that untaxed income. A taxable brokerage account is another option. No 10% penalty, but you will have to deal with regular taxes on capital gains. Use a stable core ETF (VTI or VOO) and some growth individual stocks with a good balance sheet (Google and Nvidia).

PResidentFlExpert

Sell half and put it in VOO

tacspar

VOO

yeeticusdeletus

I need some advice/reassurance I guess? I’ve started the whole investing journey about a month ago now. Had the expected happiness when it went yo, and the absolute depression when it went down. Now, I’ve been reading up a bit more and want to learn. I’m currently 90% S&P (VOO) and 10% Nasdaq (QQQ). I’m non US and non EU. Should i bother changing from VOO to VUAA for my next round of buying? Or is the difference marginal enough? Also, should I go for more of a 70/30 split US/International? If so, VT?

cryptopo

Just look at the VOO chart zoomed out and think about whether the market being “currently high” means anything for its trajectory. When VOO is at 1300 in ten years, you won’t care whether you got in at 694 or 650. You WILL care if you sat on the sidelines waiting for a dip that never came. Wondering how the big players do it is silly because you aren’t one.

Sufficient_Habit5091

VOO and chill: 9% YTD, 26% YoY SPMO, FOMO and chasers: 31% YTD, 48% YoY 🤡 Fed rewarding gamblers and those slamming calls on every dip.

PatrickSebast

Thats probably a little too aggressive for VOO but I like your optimism.

SoloOutdoor

Thats why I dumped it into VOO, ive taken way too many big gambles and hits with mango at the wheel

insomniatacos

VOO 5% day?

AnnaSmiled2

VOO is at 17% and my acct is at 23%.

MitchCurry

Managed as in paying fees? It feels like it should be really easy to just buy VOO and nothing else.

insomniatacos

Hold my VOO 690 Call? Only got one contract for 240$ on Friday feel like we hit ATH this week?

taplar

A person owns various lots of SPY. Over the year, at various times they sell lots at a loss and at the same time buy the exact same amount in VOO.  Come tax time they are able to offset up to 3k from dividend income without affecting their portfolio. 

Zrocker04

Take it, even if you sustained or even grew income it would take forever to catch up. Don’t invest tin AI bs, it’s a bubble. Keep an emergency fund HYSA, most into index fund (SPY, VOO), and maybe 10% to play around with if you really wanna pick AI stocks.

cforb92

Do we think VOO just green dildos today or falls back a bit after morning frenzy?

Illustrious_Gift1609

That was my original intention but after the first year, the interest rate is the current rate. 2% first year, 6-7% or whatever the current rate is at the time. Thanks for the suggestion, I am leaning towards VOO or VTI over a rental property.

spilledonwhite

Are you still contributing and have time to recover? If so just dollar cost average (DCA) for the entire 16 year recovery. If you are not adding more money and really worried about it... you could do 50% cash and deploy 1% of the cash every time nasdaq drops 1% and ride it down. There is obviously a risk/reward trade-off here and all the "time in the market beats timing the market" shit is pretty valid. Or just do VOO instead of nasdaq... again, risk/reward trade-off.

ggtfcjj

My life is boring now that I am 90% VOO. Any tips? Had way more fun when I was trading memory stocks

ggtfcjj

My life is boring now that I am 90% VOO. Any tips? Had way more fun when I was trading memory stocks

ZYHUA

watching my bros up 10%, 20% a day and my full port VOO up merely 1% hurts

ShortHabit606

15% of a portfolio is a big ass bet no? I've heard of managed futures before. Is there an obvious best practice to start (like a VTI or VOO of managed futures)? And is there a good resource on understanding them that you found useful?

PhDGodfather

You should absolutely invest in individual stocks. There's a good chance Google, Nvidia, Amazon, Microsoft, etc, will outperform VOO from the years of 2028-2038. Not guaranteed, but this is the time to get in on those companies, and this next decade is when their true value will break out (especially Amazon which is the closest thing to a near monopoloy globally).

stickied

Thanks Jim, just sold my house and liquidated all my assets to buy VOO

F3_Denari

Investing is always worth it, especially starting in your teenage years. Low fee, broad ETF like $VTI or $VOO are great options for you to research.

pow22

please short VOO tomorrow and report back

sonofalando

VOO up bigly

Mr_Baloon_hands

That’s a great start. Add some VOO or VUG mixed in with VT. Single stocks can be very profitable but can also lose you a lot. Index funds are a lot less risky and it’s hard to beat them in the long run. At 22 you need to be thinking 40 year return not 1 year or 2 year.

enfuego138

Sure, VOO has a lower expense ratio, go for that. I was generically discussing funds that track the two indexes.

_MechEasy_

Curious why SPY and not VOO?

MechCADdie

Cash out and VOO, imo

Ok_Maintenance_3122

Thanks! And yeah, the more I study the markets the more DCAing every month into VOO and VTI seems like the best (and least stressful) strategy for medium or long term horizons.

Raslatt

The bottom half of the VOO. Plus my investment horizon is 20 years and I don’t want anything paying dividends.

Raslatt

QQQ all the way. So much garbage in VOO I’ll never touch it.

OxRedOx

I agree that a sudden market crash would be real bad for this, but in terms of it being competitive with ETFs, it has been so far. VOO is up 75% over five years, which is about 15% a year (technically less) and this seems to be doing maybe 5-6% a month. I would never put more than this 15% in it because it’s risky, but it seems to be doing okay at this scale

neun11carrera

Open something like a Fidelity account and put 300k in something like VOO and keep 100k in SPAXX as your cash reserve ready to scoop up a dip when it comes. This is a good conservative plan. Impossible to time markets.

FunFactTidbits

My feelings, diversify a little more. Perhaps include the RSP since it's equally weighted. Set a schedule and pick an allocation amount over a period of time (weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.) That should reduce anxiety. I think VOO has a lower expense ratio than SPY. I'm not a financial advisor so just giving you things to think about

AnotherThroneAway

You're going to get a lot of answers here. The best, actual answer is: do what makes you feel most comfortable. That said, here's my 2¢: Put about 20% of it into VOO, VTI, or your index of choice—and the rest into T-bills or a core account that returns at least 3.5%. A month from now, move another 20% into index funds. If there's an irrational pullback in the meantime, consider moving more. The reason for this isn't so much to average your cost basis, as it is to give you a tiny bit more control over your eventual tax situation. It's possible that a year from now you'll want to sell some at prefereable capital gains rates, and you can then select from tax lots that have higher or lower cost basis, depending on your tax needs at the moment. Or if the market moves sideways for a while or even dips, you'lll have more options for tax loss harvesting.

stonksf

You sound like a dumbass. Go buy VOO

LawdyChunk

Keep rebalancing to 80% VOO 10% single stock % 10% speculative Rebalance when it's out of that percentage. Otherwise you're already in the 99fh percentile

Shoganai_Hito

Moms at the pool were super impressed when I taught them about VOO. Just wait until I teach them about SPY 0dtes 🤌🏼

nsbhq

I already have VOO and QQM so I’m just chilling even though I know it’s a low concentration compared to yours.

rizzlybear_93

Def dca 75% of it. I've 100k in my vanguard settlement account that I've been to pussy to buy with, going to start dca'ing weekly into VOO.

AboutSpencer

Go the ETF route. VOO or VTI are great. Invest half now, and then DCA the other half over a fixed timeline. Weekly or monthly for 12-24 months would likely be the best approach. Look for days that are deep in the red and capitalize on it.

Jealous_Bookkeeper20

Lump sum beats DCA about 66% of the time historically because markets spend more time rising than falling. If you try to wait a month for things to stabilize, you run into a definition trap. If the S&P 500 climbs 3% next month, you end up buying at a higher price. If it drops 5%, most people freeze instead of buying, hoping it goes lower. If putting $400k in all at once is too stressful, set up a mechanical schedule. Put $200k in VOO today, and automate the remaining $200k in equal chunks over the next 6 months. That takes the emotion out of it and keeps you from sitting on cash drag indefinitely. Is this going into a taxable brokerage account or a tax-advantaged retirement account?

Jealous_Bookkeeper20

When you hold SGRT and FMTM alongside AVLV, you are mixing growth and value tilts with momentum in the same U.S. large-cap universe. Combining these factors in a 25/25/50 split effectively replicates a core index like VOO or VTI. The problem is you are paying active management fees to do it. SGRT charges 0.59% and FMTM is 0.45%. Rebuilding a total market index this way creates a massive fee drag compared to just holding VTI at 0.03%. The same issue applies to the international side. JIVE charges 0.55%. If you put 40% of your stock allocation into high-fee active funds, you are losing a significant chunk of your inheritance compounding power to management fees. On a $500k portfolio, a 0.40% average fee drag is $2k a year, which compounding over 20 years eats up over $70k of your final wealth. Are you holding these in a taxable account or a tax-advantaged one? Using short-term bonds to cushion the inheritance makes sense if you have low risk tolerance, but holding 40% in cash/bonds specifically to buy a dip usually backfires. You end up sitting on cash drag for years waiting for a crash that might not drop prices below where they are today. If you want to tilt, keep it to a 10% allocation in something like AVLV on top of a low-cost core index fund.

TheNewOP

It won't be a bloodbath. VOO probably sideways or slightly down, definitely less than 1% down.

No_Paleontologist506

Meh. All personal finance is the same. Auto invest. Don’t panic sell. Sell assets to pay for things after years of growth. You talk like pension is magic money, it’s not. If you took all the contributions and just VOO’ed it, then sold each year to pay the bills in retirement, it would be much more money. Same thing with social security. If all that was just in VOO the benefit would be much much higher than what you get for “your lifetime”. Invest how you like, it’s your money. And I like pensions. But there is nothing different about it. It all boils down to spend less, invest more auto, don’t panic sell (not even an option in pensions). Is it a little more “easy mode”, sure. But you paid a price in growth that you don’t seem to understand.

PoopyisSmelly

Which is why owning VOO, VTI, or VT is a good decision. Youll own about 60% growth anyway, and if value does better you are benefitting from that.

sabedo

This is true They talk about S&P 500 VOO like it's the Bible when it's clear America is falling to pieces I prefer total market funds like VT or AOA

Toxic_Outlaw6572

VOO, SGOV, T-Bill ladder, Silver, hell idk.

thunderthighlasagna

Why not both? $200k in the market now and DCA the rest out over the next year. I got into investing earlier this year and put my savings ($20k) into the market in February (VOO/VXUS). If I had DCA’d over February and March, I’d have more money right now, but if you zoom out there truly is no bad time to enter the market if you have a good time horizon.

LanceX2

50K in SGOV then DCA or just Lump into VTI or VOO man.

Original_Ad7078

4k - RKLB 4k - VOO 2k - SPAXX

Daily-Trader-247

Wow, I thought your question did not make sense until I read the comments. It seems like every board has there VOO and chill subste. Apparently this subreddit is not one of them. I have never seen so much indignation about a stock picking choice. Though I am not VOO and chill, it does seem like a good way to reduce stress and get a historicity pretty good return at the same time. Good luck

Throwaway_Molasses

I would DCA IN 10% chunks weekly until it's all in. VOO would be my choice but I like the idea of a more managed fund vs blindly dumping proportionally into s&p500. A lot of SP500 Is in overvalued tech right now. If they drop you erase nearly 20% of the entire index value in just a few stocks. I.e. nvda is over 7% weight of the 500.

Informal-Lime6396

Is it not already taxed? If you have a long investing horizon, consider doing sector ETFs on what's hot for the past few years e.g. tech and semiconductors. Once their cycle is over, it's tax free to sell and switch to another fund. I really dislike the bad advice of VOO/VT and chill for people who are decades away from using it.

CovTaude588

the correction in the top reply matters, free float is the shares actually available to the public, not the most recent amount sold, but the underlying point still holds for an index investor. seasoning and float weighting are why a hyped IPO doesnt immediately become a big chunk of your VOO on day one, which is mostly protecting you. its one of those mechanics you never have to think about but are quietly glad exists, imo.

BeuTaude588

worth being clear about the comparison the other commenter made; a target date fund underperforming VOO over five years is mostly the bonds and international it holds by design, not a flaw. youre paying a small return drag in exchange for never having to make a decision or rebalance, which for a hands-off IRA is a fair trade. if you genuinely want all equities thats a different choice, but then the honest comparison is VT, not a dated fund.

winterrules91

If you have a long timeline/horizon, time in the market beats timing the market. Lump sum is technically better but DCA has better vibes. If you want, maybe split it as $80k/month through end of 2026, though I'd probably be more aggressive if I were you. As far as which ones, VOO is fairly safe. Maybe put 70% in VOO and 20% in an international fund. And then put 10% in a money market for now while you research some good individual bet stocks. For example, in my HSA, I just have 200 shares of Nvidia that I'm selling covered calls on 3 times a week. Easy money and it's a fairly stable stock right now. AAPL is another good option for that.

RandoDude124

VOO, want to be aggressive? # Talk to a financial advisor

stickymeowmeow

The overwhelming advice from people on Reddit (and this thread) is to invest in an index fund like VOO or SPY. Set it and forget it. That’s about as safe as you can get in the market, and pretty much the exact advice any worthwhile financial advisor would give you. So idk what you’re trying to say. This ain’t wallstreetbets. Financial advisors very rarely outperform simply setting and forgetting with VOO/VTI/SPY/other major index funds. Most portfolios I’ve seen from financial advisors are basically just a more complicated VTI - their “magic diversification” is a split of different market sector ETFs or mutual funds that all basically add up to what you’d get with VTI. The real magic comes down to risk tolerance and knowing how much you can invest and how much you should keep in low risk things like money market. You don’t need to give someone a cut of your portfolio for the rest of your life to figure that out.

superdreamcast

If you are young, it is better to invest as soon as possible. You can always save 10 to 15 percent cash ($40,000 to $60,000) in SGOV to buy the dip on market corrections. Invest in a broad S&P500 index like VOO or VTI. You can also invest in some portions in growth and/or value ETF because they can outperform S&P500 in some years. I like SPMO for momentum factor and VTV for value factor. How aggressive you want to invest depends upon your goals and time horizon. If you throw it all into the VOO, you will make around 10 percent a year just matching the market ($40,000+). You can lump sum or DCA. Whatever gets you to start investing, do it!

tomgreen99200

If you want s&p500 buy VOO all at once. Set it up to reinvest dividends.

ChiefBaggins

Gotta buy VOO for that port alert

steady_compounder

If the real goal is to stop tinkering, a low-cost target date fund is a totally reasonable answer inside an IRA. The trade-off is not that it is bad, it is that you are accepting more diversification and a glide path instead of maximizing whatever happened to lead the last 5 years. If simplicity is the thing you actually need, that usually matters more than winning a recent VOO comparison.

Froggymcnugget

Just put your money into an index like VOO and Carry on with your career and life while having reoccurring buys.

Groundbreaking-Gap20

Is it worth buying SPCX tomorrow or should I just put more money into my VOO?

YourChildhood5762

TSLA 1yr 24.51% 5yr 99.92% VOO 1yr 23.35% 5yr 74.82% bite me

Emotional_Shape925

Well, when you posted this I looked at my target date fund vs VOO, rather depressing. In 5 years VOO has outperformed my target date fund by 42%. That’s a lot of money. So, do with that information what you will.

paragonx29

Screw VOO.

ZEALOUS_RHINO

At the end of the day VTI and VOO have an 88% overlap in market cap so their fates are tied together. Even the other 12% is pretty highly correlated with large cap. So in a drawdown they will both get hit hard there is no hiding from that. At the end of the day, more diversification has its benefits. Owning literally everything in a market weighted fund is a beautiful way to be totally neutral to the market.

Flayum

Thanks. Do you think this is because the nature of PE and investment has changed in the last decade+ or could it be a result of the 15yr+ bull market? A concern I would have is a recession affecting the large caps harder than others, causing an even larger drawdown in VOO vs VTI.

vulcan_on_earth

Here is what I would do: **10 Years left for Retirement** - 50% VOO - 35% VGT - 15% SMH Rebalance every year **20 Years left for Retirement** - 30% VOO - 45% VGT - 25% SMH Rebalance every year **40 Years left for Retirement** - 80% VGT - 20% SMH Rebalance every year

Flayum

Why VOO instead of VTI or VT?

Blankpaper__

She should just buy VOO and her funds will do very well.

trix_is_for_kids

We need an automod reply that just says VOO to these stupid questions

da6id

If you can tolerate taking gains, just switch to SPYG. It has the same protection as SP500 SPY or VOO and basically tracks with QQQ

alreadysharpened

VOO

Old-Argument2415

The rule is generally diversify, move some to an index like VOO. How much of your total portfolio of it? 60% is very high but if it's 15% overall maybe fine. Also depends when you plan to retire I guess.

chinaski73

I'm happy my ETF of choice is VOO. Standard and Poor's told musk to FO

jowilkin

So far the total return is lagging behind the S&P 500 by quite a bit: https://totalrealreturns.com/n/WEEL,VOO And considering their biggest holding in the last prospectus on their website is ARKK, I would say it is also much riskier than just holding the S&P 500

Top-Classroom3984

I do. Mostly VOO and VTI.

bifftheraptor

You can just invest in the S&P500. Tried and true method. Gains havent been as high as AI, but its also the long term set it and forget it method. Either SPY or VOO will get you in. VOO has a lower expense ratio, so I prefer that one.

robocarl

I switched from VTI to VOO to avoid this mess

pennquaker18

There's a bias to immediately hate everything if it has anything to do with Elon (and really Trump). Removes all rationality. There's a lot of junk in VOO/QQQ that they've blissfully ignored before.

ATPsynthase12

You realize that prior to the current bull market, the foreign market had outperformed the US market and VXUS is up almost 14% YTD while VOO is only up 9% YTD. Diversification of your portfolio is a good thing.

Flat-Coffee-2731

Fundamental analysis is still worth learning even if you never beat VOO. It teaches you what you actually own, why a company might deserve its valuation, and when a great business is still a bad investment. Keeping 90 percent in the index and using 10 percent as a disciplined learning portfolio is probably the healthiest version of this, because the tuition stays capped while the skill compounds.

Eight_square

If you only have $1,000, you can either gamble it on some meme stock and risk losing everything, or put it in VOO and get rich slow. Or, you can put it into a single, well-researched stock and get rich the right way, like if you managed to find the next Apple or Microsoft. Or, more realistically: invest in yourself. Invest in a healthy mindset, a healthy body, read all you can, and get a good job with decent pay.

ATPsynthase12

VOO excludes mid and small caps and the entire foreign market.

Silent_Anybody5253

All of the suggestions about VOO or VTI are very sound advice. If you want to go a little more upside you could do a fund like FMTM or SGRT. Still a fund spreading out the money but with a thesis that targets higher upside. Obviously more risk but over the long run still not as risky as something like SpaceX

mastcelltryptase

You didn’t miss anything. Stock picking is a binary game. Sometimes you get it right. Sometimes you get it wrong. Just make sure you have more winners than losers. SpaceX is way too risky. You want to put your money that has a higher expectation of going up than down. Buy QQQ if you are looking for more adventure than just VOO.

ACGC21

Thanks i appreciate that, i still have no confidence in what im doing, but ive just been listening and following KOLs i trust. ive put in another 1.5K usd and added in NBIS, TSM, and… RKLB and SPCX… not proud of this at all but decided to go with my friends that have way more experience than me. Only bought 2 shares of SPCX though, and a fraction of RKLB. Confidence remains in APPL NVDA SNDK and VOO, added TSM to this list too. NBIS another Fomo pick and its been good so far. Honestly, im just surprised with how much fun ive been having, and learning more about how important it is to stay in the market rather than timing it makes me feel more excited.

AnnO55783

You did not miss anything by skipping the IPO, that is the right instinct rather than a regret. With a thousand dollars the specific fund matters far less than building the habit, so a broad market ETF like VOO or VTI and then adding whatever you can spare each month is the whole answer. The one rule I would hold onto is that this is long-term money, leave it alone through the inevitable down years and let time do the work. There is no judgement here, everyone starts somewhere.

An_Actual_AI

VOO. Don't overcomplicate things.

BeuTaude588

the honest argument isnt that growth is bad, its that VOO at this point is a concentrated bet on about ten names whether you meant to make one or not. if youre comfortable holding that concentration through a decade where large-cap growth could underperform, fine; the people getting bashed are usually the ones who havent realised they made the bet.

Days_End

VTI is a passive fund coving the whole USA market while VOO is an active fund that buys whatever the S&P500 committee picks. The S&P committee has choice not to have SpaceX in the index at the moments but can change that whenever they feels like.

Ok_Ambassador_4311

SPX, VOO calls going into Monday

InvestingNerd2020

The chance at higher gains than any ETF or Index mutual fund could provide. Most fail horribly at picking smaller scale stocks, but large stocks in the top 10 ten holding of the S&P 500 fund do great in USA bull runs. Great meaning they outperform the S&P 500 by a lot (5% or more per year). Dollar-Cost-Average examples since January 2020 ending May 2026: \- VOO was 18.24% per year \- Nvidia was 72.45% per year \- AMD was 53.36% per year \- Alphabet (GOOGL) was 36.25% per year

spilledonwhite

holy shit dude buy VOO why are you here jk share your wisdom so I'm less regarded