Advice for Young Investors
It’s a bewildering time to begin saving and investing. BusinessWeek asked financial advisers for words of wisdom for the young investor
Two 22-year-olds are just starting their careers and beginning to save and invest. One devotes half his salary to quickly paying off student loans, with the goal of saving money to travel the world. The other dabbles in stocks, while planning to buy a home. Which one is starting out on the right foot? Neither? Both?
Learning to invest is hard enough. Now try doing it during the worst recession in a generation and the biggest financial crisis in a lifetime. If you’re a young person with money to invest, however, you can consider yourself lucky. You have income at a time when the jobless rate is rising rapidly. If you’re just starting out, you avoided—so far—huge losses of the sort that drastically changed the retirement plans of many baby boomer parents.
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