Hi, I am a young Italian (I guess the "poste Italiane" gives it away uh) and I plan to make my fist small experiments to understand how buying stoks and ETFs works.
I tried to look around what all those acronyms and big words mean but usually the definition and explanations I found use other acronyms and big words and end up being mentally exhausting to follow.
As far as I understand An ETF is a group of companies that share a market and by shoving money in there (investing in the found is the right phrase I guess)
you either buy stocks
(which are just money you give the company to spend and after the profit is made it should give it back with a certain interest I think, right? How much interest and how often is a great mystery I have yet to solve)
or fractions of stocks
(what is the point of a stock being a certain price then???? If i can just buy a small piece of it???)
from one of the companies in the found
(randomly I guess, or according to a broker whims maybe idk)
and when the dividends are paid you can either get some money back or reinvested in the found.
Those ETFs are apparently more secure because they spread your money around multiple companies within multiple fields and I feel like I should invest more in those then in singular companies, is that right?
Also I'm planning to start with 50€ each month but if I feel comfortable enough I plan to rise the investment to maybe 300€ monthly, but I often see people saying that for those amounts of money (which are a fuckton to me) you should just dump in a single ETF and forget about it for like 10 years, but it feels so wrong to put so much money into something with risks attached to it and then ignoring it, is there something else I'm not getting? (As opposed to all the other things I'm understanding perfectly, right?)
I'm going to go against the grain of everyone here and told you to be careful with these kind of investment. Sorry if it's condescending, it's not my intention, there is just so many sad story of young people loosing it all trying to get rich quick, it's very sad.
Stock and ETF can make you loose your savings. They are taxed. The market are lopsided towards AI and is more and more volatile. Do not place all your savings on a single ETF or anything like that. Market ETF can help with diversifying without too much risk, but risk is a fundamental components of this world.
Before placing this money in any of that, please take the time and energy to understand. If you want to take a shortcut, use an LLM. Explain you situation like you did and ask how you should use your money. Understand finance and the markets, not just definition but how they work too, what are the risks, etc. What options are realistic with you salary and current saving ? If you want a fun side to start getting into finance, check Atrioc on YouTube, if you want a more grounded side, check Patrick Boyle, or The Plain Bagel. From these recommandations, you will find many other good source and avoid scammers. Be careful, there is always a phase when you learn about something where you feel very confident in your understanding, especially in the beginning. Remember that you are not a financial experts (and I'm not either).
Here are some tips, based on my experience in France, which could be completely different that Italy, even though we are neighbors and in the EU. Maybe, like in France, you could create a "life assurance" ("assurance vie") that is partially secured or assured (if they exist and work like in France). Also, if you are young, maybe there are saving accounts made for young people that are safe and good return (again, it exists in France, maybe you have something similar?)? These special saving accounts are not usually crazy but they fight the inflation and you cannot loose you money. Once you have something like six months of salary saved in one of these for emergency, then you can look for other placement. Again, if you have something equivalent to a life assurance in France, this is you best bet. Usually, you can split your portfolio between very safe placement (usually it's bonds) and more risky one. The idea is to have a more risky profile in the beginning and slowly move towards a safer profile as you get closer to your retirement. With those, the worst that can happen, and it can happen of course, is that it gets you 0% months after months. Realistically, it more likely to get bad by not beating the inflation. But experts traders at the bank will choose how to use you money and they should be better than that. Of course, it is a service and it will cost money that will eat at your gain, so be careful about that (and tax maybe?). Choose a bank that have good return (but remember that it does not guaranty they will stay at the advertised level) and fee that are acceptable. Also your profit are compounded. So it's not like betting on a stock for years and loosing all because you didn't sell before a crash. And the banks money should be assured (up to 100000€ in France) so even if there is a crash you can't loose your savings. This should be your retirement fund and the bulk of your savings.
If after that, you still have money this you can spare and you are willing to loose it all, again, start by understanding the finance world. Avoid Options or similar, as you can loose exponentially more than you placed. Leave that to the expert and the degenerate gamblers. This is what fuel Walt Street Bet stories. Don't be like that. Don't loan money to use in the market or really understand what is a margin call. Learn to accept the FOMO and keep your greed in check. Don't get swallowed by the hypes and the exceptional winner : they are the outlier. Most people and traders do not beat the market. Yes, you could be lucky but this is gambling at this point. Ideally you are looking to beat inflation and maybe have a little margin. It will not make you a millionaire. Check what happened with Game stop and the apes. Look at what happening in Korea and the ants. Learn from their mistakes.
I wish I could give you more information, but honestly I'm not an expert at all, and even expert can fuck up.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but staying grounded and realistic with you money will avoid ruining you for a stupid mistake or hubris. I understand the attractiveness of this world especially if you feel stuck and life is hard. There are so many people trying to scam you or that are just confidently giving shit advice (ex. "Infinite money glitch" of writing fake check, which is fraud...). You hear stories of people becoming millionaire overnight.
And be skeptical of what I said (maybe I wrong or missing something important) or anyone tell you. Do your research! Good luck and take care