If yor are investing its better to take risk in it the more risk more return AMZN NFLX and TSLA both are very much trending now a days
If you're gonna just buy and hold long term, why not invest in the sp500? If you think that the American economy has a future, then just go for that. Many hedge funds can't even beat the sp500 so you're better off just going with that long term.
Everyone's risk tolerance is different. I'm pretty aggressive myself, but not to the point where I'm ever in a situation where any one trade or bad day will break me. I diversify, hedge, look at valuations, future earnings forecasts, company competitive advantages, etc. Risk without such positive things going for a company generally will most likely amount to returns on the downside. And actually REDUCING risk can be very beneficial. Oil and gas drillers who use technology AND geology to find out where they're likely to hit and hit big and reduce the chances of drilling dry holes will tend to do better than those who take the greater risk of just following 100 year old methods or whatever. I still have small long positions on AMZN and NFLX, but I also have puts on them. And Musk himself was saying that TSLA was overpriced in his opinion not long ago when it was well below $200. Of course there are a couple of big firms who have $300+ price targets on it. I guess we'll just have to wait and see where it goes from here.
I think index funds are cheap and better than nothing, but better funds will tend to beat the market by a wide margin over time, often with less risk over time as well. Of course hedge funds are limited to accredited investors, while smaller investors are restricted to mutual funds. Because better fund managers often use risk management techniques such as long / short and options in hedge funds, and asset diversification (such as going to significant cash, bond, or commodity positions) and sector / style / category rotations in mutual funds, it's not uncommon for them to underperform the broad market over the course of a year or so on occasion when the market is unusually high. Last year the S&P was up like 32%, which is very unusual. Most funds were up less than that. Many or most better managers were either sitting on large amounts of cash due to most companies being quite generously valued, or otherwise were bracing for or expecting a correction. But the S&P has only averaged about 4.5% over the last 15 years, while better mutual funds have been doing 12-15+% during that time, often with less volatility. And the world's best investors and best hedge fund managers have been doing 20-30% over many years, often many decades. Of course it's often difficult to get into better hedge funds, and it can be risky getting into lesser known funds - there are crooks out there.
To the OP's question on dividend payers that I feel I don't have to pay close attention to, my personal favorite is $VZ. Other current dividend paying holdings include $CSCO and $F. But never say never on holding forever.
It is a very good choice for those who don't want to or don't know how to manage their own portfolio. It really is. Great way to get exposure to a lot of different great companies. And I do recommend it to a lot of people who are not too enthusiastic about investing but who still want to get some profit from their savings. But for me I prefer building my own portfolio with higher dividend income and less risk... of course this means also less potential upside. But it's a way that is much more suited for my personal situation and my own risk tolerance.
I'm not sure if forever is the right word here, a lot of people look to the long term when they're investing, I'm not sure that infinite is a good strategy though.
It depends on your situation. If you have enough money, I do think forever is a great choice. If you have enough to live off the income, then why sell? Enjoy your life with that income and leave the shares as inheritance, that way your children can enjoy their lives with that income too! Of course one still has to keep an eye on the portfolio, not all companies are meant to be buy & hold forever. For example I let go off Philipp Morris because I don't see a great future in that business... I might have been better off holding it for a few more years but I chose to switch now.
JR I think you are exactly on point but it is maybe worth pointing out that the better indexes tend to outperform the majority of mutual funds. There's a bit of survivor bias when you're looking at the fund manager who've managed to stick around, because they have to have outperformed their peers. That being said, I'd only recommend the index route to someone just starting out who's not looking to be too active in trading. My father got me started investing when I was 12 through a DRIP program with the Canadian Shareholder association, what was really nice about it was that it allowed you to buy fractions of an index. I put little bits of money in it over the years, then by the time I was older, and a little wiser, was able to withdraw a good chunk of money to begin working with in earnest.
