I’m only 22 and I’ve started in the stock market in November 2023. I put 4000 in and so far I’ve beaten the s&p by 4% last year and so far in 2025 beating it by 4% again for a total of 5900 right now. I’m pretty new and I’ve never had any advice besides put your money in an index fund and forget but my separate 401k is already like that so I wanted to have something I can manage more directly. I just want some guidance as my objective is slow growth but slightly beating the s&p 500 each year.
My strategy is I have 25 stocks that I think are good long term holds as I kind of want to create my own index fund with stocks I like. Then I have 5 index funds I currently own which are VTI VB VFC VGT and QQQ which I do not plan on selling but my positions are individually worth the same as the stocks in my portfolio.
The way I buy stocks is I cannot buy less than the minimum share I currently own. For example if I currently own 1.1 share of a random stock in my portfolio, that is my baseline and I have to buy more than that share for any stock I choose to buy. However I try not to go way above that minimum amount I set for myself. Overall this is to help me slowly build my positions without overdoing and not throw all of my money into one stock.
I can only trade once a month. One sell and one buy as this is not to overthink my positions but at the same time giving myself a chance to adapt to market situations each month.
Overall this strategy has beaten the s&p 500 comfortably last year and this year but I would like to see what you guys think cause I’m no genius and in fact I’m quite the opposite and probably can be doing something much better.
I would also like to slowly deposit more money into my portfolio but I’m currently broke and all of my money is going into rent and living expenses so the money I saved up in college is the money that I have to work with right now