put it into an etf that tracks the S&P 500. something like 1% of traders manage to beat the S&P.

If you don't plan to actively make this a hobby/passion my advice is to spend the least amount of time/effort possible thinking about your investments. Don't look at all the stocks or funds that doubled in the past year and try and chase past performance. The best advice for the average person is to invest in a cheap broad index fund for something like the sp500 and then make regular contributions to cost average regardless of which direction the market turns. Don't try to time things, a lot of people got burned in the 2020 crash and sharp reversal. People spend a ton of time and money trying to eek out a few percent gains over the index and many fail to do even that despite the cost and effort expended, so you as an average investor have no chance to get one over on wallstreeters; at best you'll get lucky but odds are not in your favor.

As for what to invest in, I'd suggest a low cost sp500 etf like IVV if you're 10+ years from retirement. There's also robo advisors that'll do a model portfolio with some diversification, typically some version of the 60/40 stock/bonds portfolio. There's also target date retirement mutual funds that will slowly shift to a larger income/safety focused fixed income allocation as you approach the target date for retirement.

If you want to be more hands on a few suggestions to consider:

If you want to try stock picking keep it to a modest allocation of your portfolio, maybe 20%

Get some international equity exposure, a mix of developed and emerging markets, small and large cap, and a balance of growth/value. You can most likely just buy both of the large ETFs like EFA or EEM and call it good or you could also grab some China/Vietnam ETFs like KBA or VNM if you want to be overweight these regions.

If you have a fixed income allocation I'd suggest getting some Chinese Treasuries exposure, there should be a couple broad international ETFs that do that or you could buy a fund like CBON for direct exposure.

Also consider adding some exposure to carbon credits, maybe 3-5%. It's basically a given that the price of carbon will have to keep going up to get emissions down, so it seems likely this will be structured to keep going up by politicians. KRBN is a good fund for this.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Well the stock market is already in a pretty big dip because people are scared of the government raising interest rates. I’ve somehow lost more money on Amazon than I ever had on GME.

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Time in the market beats timing the market. Also The Best Investors Act like Communists

no offense but this isn't the best place to ask for stock advice. lol
but anyway the absolute big picture is that capital is infinite and it will always seek returns. that's why stonks always go up. and the US market is protected by the plunge protection team. Basically dollar cost average into non meme stocks with solid earnings and growth and you should always be fine.

And about rates. The US historically has had solid growth in the stock market with rising rates. Second, rates can't really go up much because our, and basically the global economy is dependent on debt levered growth, and anything that stops it will cause a deflationary spiral where everyone is fucked.

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As an aside I find it fascinating how US state propaganda interacts with traders and speculators. They really believe that Russia is going to attack Ukraine and attribute it to "why" stocks are falling.

If you like gambling you'll love the stock market!

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Marx did stonks as well. At the end of the day, you can't escape the material conditions of the system that you're born into and the one thing that the govt and people in power care about is the stock market.

I'm in a similar boat as you though. I got promoted recently and have a bit of extra money. I've still got student loans so I've been looking at putting some money into the market to help with the debt.

I'm going to try to time the market and the Fed is raising rates to slow the economy down this year. I'll probably just park it in an ETF pegged to the S&P. The average rate of return is ~18% per year over 10 years. I don't know enough to try to day trade.

Learn how to play Blackjack (or even better Craps), make an account on an online gambling house, and throw your money into that. Probably the same rate of return right now.

I'm joking about online gambling, don't do that shit.

i'm personally waiting with my little piece of "investment savings". everything is basically a race between inflation % from sitting in savings vs. stock market. wait until the fed raises interest rates because it might result in a big downturn.

I probably will be a stonk trader as well, it's the only thing the US government will ever give a damn about.

What are they going to do? STOP pampering porky?

What if instead of gambling it away you financially support leftist groups?

You could invest in China-focused ETFs, like this one:

KFYP tracks the CSI CICC Select 100 Index, which takes a smart-beta1 approach to systematically invest in companies listed in Mainland China. The strategy is based on China International Capital Corporation (CICC)’s latest research on China’s capital markets. This quantitative approach reflects CICC’s top down and bottom up research process, seeking to deliver the 100 leading companies in Mainland China.

That's probably what I would do if I had extra money to put away.

Find some broker that allows you to paper trade if you realy want to, spend at least 1 month doing that.

This may not be the bottom yet and it realy doesn't matter when you get in, they make money every day whether it goes down or up.