30 year old new to investing in my Roth IRA where should I start?

Submitted by andrew23andrew23 t3_11ef0sc in personalfinance

As the title says I’m newish to investing in my Roth IRA. I have started doing research and have started to invest money in VOO as of this year. I have invested some (not much) in QQQ, USD, and APPL a couple years ago but didn’t really know what I was doing as it was just guidance from family. Im a state employee in Washington and have my pension and deferred compensation set up as well.

In y’all opinion if I am not going to retire for another ~30 years would it wise to continue to invest primarily in VOO?

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Left-Landscape-3890 t1_jadmety wrote

Yes. I like VTI as well. But VOO is great

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andrew23andrew23 OP t1_jadoo5c wrote

Thanks for the advice! I read that VOO makes up 82% of VTI. I’m somewhat risk adverse so the top 500 in VOO sounded safer. Any other funds you recommend?

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Left-Landscape-3890 t1_jadpjyb wrote

Some would argue on if those 2 is all you need. You can sprinkle some QQQ if you like tech. Or IWM if you like small cap. Its whatever you wanna do. What really matters is consistency, auto contributions, and a high savings rate. Most of my stuff is total market or sp500 index stuff

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have_two_cows t1_jaepi7j wrote

For someone your age with a long time horizon, the standard guidance is a simple, cheap, and diversified index fund portfolio. I personally use VTSAX just because I didn’t know what the hell an ETF was when I started investing and I wanted one fund to cover everything in the domestic market. VOO will work about as well, although it only has exposure to the S&P 500, so you’re omitting a bunch of small and mid cap companies from your portfolio. It’ll still track very closely, though. If you buy just one fund that matches market returns and minimizes fees, and you hold it for thirty years, you’ll have essentially maximized your risk-adjusted return in the simplest way possible.

Something to keep in mind is that you can still make the 2022 Roth IRA contribution (up to $6,000) until Tax Day, even though we’re well into 2023.

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