When is it too Dangerous to be Invested in the Stock Market?

The starter’s first lesson into investment basics

Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay.

Danger is only present when you

• have no clue what the hell you’re doing.
• are following someone else’s advice.
• have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the stock market is.
• are using the stock market as a pump and dump/get rich quick scheme.

When you’re investing in companies that you understand clearly, that danger is not present. I have invested in a small number of companies over 12 years now, and there hasn’t been a bad investment. There have been bad moments of unrealized losses, but the market and its participants finally agreed with my initial thoughts many years ago.

• I understood the technology.
• I invested through major economic setbacks (2008 crisis) and was largely unaffected.
• The investments I made were unknown technology companies (back then) and were fairly boring to the average person.

So, no. The answer is and will always be no.

If you have no idea what you’re doing, the best thing for you to invest in are index funds. If you have a large amount of money, the best thing to do is look up…