* The Four Pillars of Investing: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Pillars-Investing-Building-Portfolio-ebook/dp/B0041842TW * Are You a Stock or a Bond: https://www.amazon.com/Are-You-Stock-Bond-Financial/dp/0133115291 * A Random Walk Down Wall Street: https://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-Down-Wall-Street/dp/0393358380 All of these point to fundamentals about investing: * The first step is to identify your risk tolerance and goals. That's way more important that the specific vehicles of investing. * Unless you are a professional investor, it is highly unlikely you'll beat the professionals (and not likely even then) so broad diversification is a good idea.
https://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-Down-Wall-Street/dp/13240...
I wish I had read it already at your age :)
is not year over year
> doing ok
You can be doing okay, you can even be beating the S&P 500 in the short term; but if you're beating the S&P 500 over the long term you are beating almost every professional team of fund managers.
https://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-Down-Wall-Street/dp/13240...
You ignore Nejat Seyhun's 1994 paper "Stock Market Extremes and Portfolio Performance" [0] which says:
> For the 1963-1993 time frame, the findings were similar. The index gained at an average annual rate of 11.83%, for a cumulative return on $1.00 of $23.30 over 31 years. If the best 90 trading days, or 1.2% of the 7,802 trading days, are set aside, the annual return tumbles to 3.28% and the cumulative gain falls to $1.10.
And from ARWDWS [1]:
> The past history of stock prices cannot be used to predict the future in any meaningful way. Technical strategies are usually amusing, often comforting, but of no real value.
Further:
> Using technical analysis for market timing is especially dangerous. Because there is a long-term uptrend in the stock market, it can be very risky to be in cash. An investor who frequently caries a large cash position to avoid periods of market decline is very likely to be out of the market during some periods where it rallies smartly.
[0] https://www.stayingrich.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Towne...
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Random-Walk-Down-Wall-Street/dp/03933...