With 6,000+ ways to lose money on the stock market, how do you find stocks that will not lose all your money?

If the first thing you do is go on social media like Reddit to find stocks pitch, stop right there!

You are going to lose all your money.

Just like that!

Instead do this:

buy market indexes

They will be perfect for you if you have no idea how to invest.

They are the “no code” version of investing.

Market indexes are a very simple idea, they are a big group of stocks that all have the same financial characteristics.

Instead of trying desperately to catch a big fish in the sea with your single line, you drop a big net and catch hundreds of them.

Without the effort and the pain it would take for catching that one big fish.

It’s not only easier but also safer.

The question is how do you buy these market indexes?

It’s quite simple really, you just buy an Exchange Traded Fund, aka ETF, that follows the market indexes.

What’s an ETF?

It’s like a stock that invest in hundreds of stocks.

When you buy one share of an ETF, it’s like spreading your money over hundreds of stocks without the need to invest in hundreds of stocks yourself.

Super convenient and a no brainer!

So here are 3 types of index-based ETFs for you to consider if you have no idea what stocks to buy:

👉 S&P 500 ETFs

ETFs that follow the S&P 500 are said to be following The Market.

The S&P 500 is the index for the biggest stocks on US Exchanges, about 500 of them, and is a proxy for the US stock market.

These are the big Pop stars, the Beyonce, Taylor Swift, and Katy Perry of the market.

The big names like Microsoft, Apple, Telsa, and Meta.

Big successful companies.

And you can buy all of them in one ETF share.

The market symbols for the most popular S&P 500 ETFs are SPY, IVV, VOO, and SPLG

They all have ultra-low fees and have little differences between them.

You can’t choose wrong here!

👉 MidCap ETFs

If the S&P 500 is not for you or not enough for you, you can choose a MidCap index instead.

The S&P 400 MidCap is the index that follow the biggest 400 companies after the 500 in the S&P 500.

These 400 companies are not big enough to be in the S&P 500 but might be in the future.

They are like the new stars being born in a galaxy.

They are growing fast to become something big.

Every big company in the S&P 500 was once a MidCap.

Microsoft, Telsa, Apple were at some point in a MidCap index.

MidCap stocks might be more risky than the S&P 500 but they are also the future.

The S&P 400 ETFs are more volatile than the S&P 500 but can be nice to add if you already own an ETF for the S&P 500.

The market symbols for the most popular S&P 400 and MidCap ETFs are IWR, IJH, MDY, IWR, IWS and VO

You might want to compare them for fees and performance before you buy any one of them.

👉 Sector ETFs

If you are only interested in stocks within a certain economic sector or industry, you could buy a sub-index with a special focus on that industry or economic sector.

But this is like taking bets on a specific corner of the market.

Like taking bets at the race track.

There are ample research studies that demonstrate a weak link between the economic performance of a sector and the actual performance of the stocks in that sector.

If you think that betting on the future of the air transportation sector is going to translate automatically into higer stock prices for those stocks, you are going to be disappointed.

Because there are so many factors impacting stock prices, not only profits or higher revenues.

There are hundreds of ETFs for the following sectors: Basic Materials, Communication Services, Consumer Discretionary, Consumer Staples, Energy, Financial Services, Healthcare, Industrial, Technology, Utilities, Real Estate

I wouldn’t recommend buying those type of ETFs because they can be risky.

You will need to time the business cycle of the sector to buy a sector ETF and this is close to impossible.

Here again you might want to compare for fees and performance before you buy a sector ETF because so many of them are available.

If you are new to investing, and feel confused with all these stocks on social media, the S&P 500 Index could be your beacon of light.

It’s the safe harbor for all investors at sea.

But if that’s not enough for you, and you would like to see more, start here and we will send you a curated list of index-based ETFs.