Growth investment strategy advice

Hi to everyone,

I have a question for you all, I am in my early 30s and starting to invest. I want to start with a growth strategy so I was thinking in using 30% QQQ & 70% VT (I use IBKR). In addition to that I have a 3a with finpenssion at 100% stock, a bit of cash and a bit of crypto.

I would like to know what do you think or what approach I can have to have the most profit. I am mainly looking for ETFs I can keep at the long term and that have a lot of potential growth. It doesn’t matter if they are accumulating, distributing an so.

Thanks!

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Knowing what approach has the most profit requires foresight, which none of us has.

One approach is to invest in low cost index ETFs at market weight, provided the markets taken into account are liquid enough. That approach relies on the real economy being the fundation of long term market returns and guarantees to yield market returns minus a small fee.

Whatever approach you choose, one sure way to mess things up is to not follow the plan. In order to follow a plan, you need to have one (which seems to be what you are doing, so kuddos on that) and to be economically and psychologically able to stick to it come hell or high waters.

Hell or high waters can come in the form of someone around you needing help money can solve, yourself being subject to an accident preventing you to work in your choosen field (or at all) again, markets going up and you making less profit than other people posting on Reddit how they are going to the moon with the latest fad, markets going down and you watching your net worth number fall as you fear more and more for your economic security, or other things.

In order to be ready for all that, one way is to assess your need, ability and willingness to take risk. Those assessments are personal, some of the things to take into account are what you are trying to achieve, if you have dependents that require your income for their wellbeing, if you are sufficiently, but not too much, insured, if your goals require you to take increased risk, at the risk of loosing it all (or most of it) should something go wrong, if you have a reliable network that can help you in case of need, if such network is diverse enough to avoid having most people in a time of need at the same time, if you can stomach an 80%+ drop of value of your assets and still keep the faith that they will grow you wealth if you stick with them and many other such things.

Having made such assessment, I would ponder whether I actually need to take increased risk (that is, if the risk of not meeting my desired target bears worse consequences than the risk of being destitute) or if, having to choose, protecting my current way of life takes precedence, with an option on growing wealthier. This would tell me whether, in case of doubt, I should consider going for high risk/high reward or if I should resort to the more conservative option. This, in turn, would allow me to invest with my eyes open and keep them so in the coming storms, because big storms are likely to be part of the journey.

Concerning the specific partial allocation you have stated, I would ask myself if I need more stability than 100% stocks, why I want to tilt toward US tech stocks, what exactly constitutes “a bit” of crypto, how I would invest it, where and through what means, what constitutes “a bit” of cash and finally what allocation my assets at finpension would have and how that affects my global allocation.

That allocation looks viable and has chances to grow your wealth over time if you manage to stick to it. That, of course, doesn’t mean it is the right allocation for you (it could or could not, depending on your assessment).

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Thank you for your reply, I agree with you in those principles. A few points:

  • I only invest in that strategy money I don’t need. After taxes, housing and so on, I allocate every month money for cash savings (to have at least 3 months’ salary), investing (600chf/month right now but it will soon be 1000chf and if everything goes well even more by the end of the year), 3p (588/month) and then a certain amount for living.

  • My lifestyle is quite simple and I don’t need much more. I use a bike, no car, no big expenses, no expensive hobbies. Note that this doesn’t mean I am not happy, I have everything I need, including an amazing Gibson Les Paul Custom from the 70s :blush:

  • My aim is to stick to stick to a plan. Actually, my plan is to invest in growth ETFs and move to a more conservative approach over time, probably not before 5-7 years. Specifically, that will mean to reduce progressively QQQ and increase VT and maybe add some bonds later on.

  • I don’t exclude investing in specific stocks but this is unlikely to happen soon as I need to have more knowledge on the market. I am very academic and I like to know what I am doing, why and the rationale behind it.

  • It is true that I need to take more into consideration potential risks. In my strategy, potential health risks are underestimated, which mean that I am not as ready as I should be. This will have an enormous impact but I prefer to assume so far that this won’t happen anytime soon. I am not from Switzerland but I plan to stay around. In my country healthcare is 100% free so I am not use to take that variable into consideration in economic terms.

  • Regarding crypto, I have allocated 2.5K to 12 different cryptos and I plan to sell them when they will reach a certain threshold. For instance, it looks like a good time to sell Fetch.ia as it appears that there is a bubble making the prices go up as crazy. I don’t think it will last and I don’t trust that much cryptocurrencies at the long run.

  • There is also a gap in my strategy. Ideally, I would like to buy a house as a secondary residency abroad in the next 2-4 years. While I will have a good amount invested, there will be no that much in cash for providing the required 20%. This is something I need to think better…

Now a question:

I am not convinced in QQQ as the better option. Having a less US tech stock bias would be interesting. My question is, which ETF is reliable for growth at the long term and that is complementary to QQQ?

What are your arguments in favor of this specific factor?

As alternatives to QQQ, you can check VUG (large cap) and VIOG (small cap).

Slow and steady wins the race !

Seems you have everything you need with VT !

You can take a look at VUG with fees at 0.04% compare to QQQ with 0.2%.

I recently discovered the VIG / VIGI ETFs from Vanguard, that seem to have an excellent risk/reward history.

So you think that growth was overperforming historically? Let’s check.

These are some data that I generated at some point to see how statements of this kind hold true. I used Asset classes performance from https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/. Long-term historical data are available only for US markets, but it should show the trend.

Here is the long-term performance of different stock “flavor” according to portfoliovisualizer.com, nominal USD.

And here is the performance in 20 years periods:

So where is the famous overperformance of tech, you may ask. It is there only for last 15 year.

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