Suggest you have a look at the Vanguard site and read up on investing. The real key is your time horizon, goals, and risk appetite. As others have said, individual stock picking as a means to accumulate a retirement fund is highly risky.
Market is still down off Feb. highs, but has really risen considerably in April. Historically the market is actually still quite high and many company earnings are severely depressed from the shutdown, so perhaps its not a good time to dump a lot of money in the market. If your're a real gambler, airlines, cruise stocks, and oil stocks are still way down and have a lot of upside, but also many could go bust and you could be left with nothing.
The average person will be successful by consistently investing 10%-15% of their earnings each month over many, many years in tax deferred, low cost index funds like Vanguard S&P 500, and then supplement with some bond holdings and cash depending on your age and retirement goals coupled with some real estate ownership.
Since you're in the Navy and retiring soon, and the good news is you'll have a lifetime pension and I assume medical as well, so you're probably ahead of many Americans.
Thanks for your service.
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