This request prompted me to post to LW something I long ago wrote on Google's Knol: Twenty basic rules for intelligent money management.
On starting investing early: this one of the weirdest things I find when I stumble upon such blogs. At 18 people's earning potential is largely whatever the neighbor pays for mowing the lawn. Or the proverbial burger-flipping. Things kick in - in my experience, yours may vary, I mostly gathered this experience in the IT industry in Central Europe- about 3 years after graduation. Say at 28 years old. $1000 invested at 18 for 8%, which is very, very hard to save, worths $2150 at 28, yet at 28, 3 years into working a career, it is far far more easier to save...
Hello I'm looking for the LW on investing advice. Any suggestions? Thanks.
EDIT:
Several commenters gave the standard advice of "buy index funds". If you bought into the Nikkei between 87 and 94 you would have made a loss or very little gains until now(30 years later). So I would appreciate some more in depth discussion regarding when is it good to invest into index funds? If you search in reddit/r/investing you will find more nuanced point of views.
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=%5EN225+Interactive#%7B%22range%22%3A%22max%22%2C%22scale%22%3A%22linear%22%7D
In general index funds will reflect the underlying economy, in the case of the US it was a growing economy for the most part of the 20th century, so the index fund would be good advice in that time period. I have a hard time believing that it is still good advice now, when the economy is retracting or stagnating.
TLDR: reddit/r/investing has more nuanced discussions.