How to Invest in ETFs in 2022

ETFs stands for exchange-traded fund. An ETF is a basket of investments like stocks or bonds that trades on the stock market. One ETF can hold multiple stocks or bonds, even up to 1000 multiple stocks or other securities.

Investing in ETFs, how?

ETFs are getting more and more popular, but have you wondered how can you invest in them? This is the ultimate guideline that can help you invest in ETFs.

Before starting to invest in ETFs you will need to open a brokerage account. Fidelity would be a nice choice for this. But there are also other good apps like Vanguard, Charles Schwab, Extrade, M1 Finance, etc.  

If you are looking for short-term and general investing you need to use a standard brokerage account. If you want to invest in ETFs to build your wealth for retirement the best retirement accounts are Roth IRA, 401(K), or SEP IRA.

Another question you probably ask yourself is in which ETFs you should invest. Currently, there are a lot of ETFs that are traded. Of all of these ETFs, you should narrow down your choice to 2 or 3 three ETFs. Make your choice depending on if you want to invest long-term or short term,

For the majority of the people investing in growth, real estate, bond, and dividend, are the best ETFs to invest in.

Finding the best ETFs to invest in also can be difficult. The most powerful tool you can use for this is the website ETF database. On this website, there is all you need for analyzing the ETFs. Overview, price and performance, and fees are things you should focus on.

Diversified portfolio

The important thing when buying ETFs is avoiding fund overlap. This is a situation when two of your ETFs are overlapping, investing in the same things. Fund overlap is bad because it reduces the benefits of diversification and may create unseen risks.

A diversified portfolio contains a mix of distinct asset types which lowers your investment risks. For example, if you buy a stock only from apple, your future growth will only depend on the growth of apple. Even if this seems like a good idea at the moment no one knows what the future holds.

By buying ETFs that hold hundreds of different stocks you limit the risks and you increase your chance of increasing your wealth. Portfolio tilt is a nice investing strategy that overweighs a particular investment style.

A powerful tool for avoiding portfolio overlap is the ETF research center. Here you can compare and analyze every ETF. The fund overlap tool is something you should try on this website. This is where you can compare how much overlap there is between two ETFs.

The overlap by weight should be as low as possible. Everything above 50% puts you at unnecessary risk by being over-exposed to one stock.  

Portfolio correlation

Portfolio correlation is another important thing to focus on. Correlation is a measure that shows how prices of two securities move about each other. For example, if one goes up does the other one follow, or do they move in opposite directions.

A correlation coefficient is something that can help you. It is a statistic that measures the degree to which two securities move about each other. You can have a positive or negative correlation depending on how much the two securities are related to each other.

If you want to have a more diversified portfolio you need to find ETFs that are not correlated with each other. Stock ETFs and real estate ETFs are a good choice for this. Even more, diversified portfolios will include stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities, and cash equivalents.

But if you want to invest only in growth or real estate you can buy ETFs only in these categories. Keep in mind that is important to never invest in ETFs that have a negative correlation.

If you want to invest in real estate, but you don’t want to buy physical real estate investing in REITs or ETFs that invest in REITs such as VNQ seems like a good idea.

So if you are interested in investing in ETFs go on and set up your brokerage account at one of the apps we discussed before and start buying. You can start investing with as little as one dollar, but it would be wise to invest as much as possible. The more you invest the more wealth you can build.

Also read: How to Store Your Money Safe during a Shaky Market