How To Invest $1000 – 6 Rules For Investing Your First 1000 Dollars
Before discussing the 7 rules to follow when investing $1000 and an example of where I am investing my $1000s, I first want to ask you a question that is extremely important when it comes to making the first steps in the stock market, a question that many stock market beginners overlook.
Do you just want to make a little money on stocks or do you want to create long lasting wealth, become rich?
Let me explain the difference. Making a little money on stocks means buying Tesla’s stock (TSLA) at $178 and selling it a month later at $215.
That would give you $200 on your $1000 investment which is a 20% return. Not bad, but that’s not investing, that’s betting. Many did the same in December of 2018 hoping to make 20% on TSLA.
Their loss, as I am writing this, is 43%. If you want to make money trading stocks, I can’t help you as I don’t have a crystal ball. Trading can make you some money, but it is unlikely it will make you rich in the long term.
If you want to invest your first $1000, in a way to develop an investing mindset that is going to create long lasting wealth for you, then I can help as there are some simple rules to follow.
A great book about how to become wealthy, financially independent, live where you want to live and how you wish to live, is the Millionaire next door. The book describes how the real millionaires are not those with flashy cars, expensive clothes, living in Belair etc. The millionaires are those that save their money, let it work for them over time, invest their time and energy to make what they know, own or manage, more efficient, avoid crazy risks and build their wealth over a lifetime.
Source: Millionaire next door
Similar rules can be applied to investing and I am going to share 7 rules that are going to help you create a long-term, wealth-building investing mindset.
7 Rules To Become A Stock Market Millionaire Starting With $1000
These 7 rules will help you on how to invest your first $1000 to develop a long-term wealth building mindset.
- Make your $1000 work for you
When investing, the key question to ask is what do I get as a return on my investment? Investing is not about buying a stock that goes up and down in value. Investing is about owning a business that creates some kind of value. Over the last 20 years, investors putting their money into Amazon (AMZN), have in return received the best e-commerce ecosystem in the world. Some other businesses pay large dividends like Coca-Cola (KO) has been doing for Buffett over the past 30 years. His dividend now is above 60% per year on what he invested in 1988.
Focus on what are you getting back on your $1000, it could be dividends, buybacks or it could be some new value that is being created. Then, when you know what is the return, you let it compound.
- Let it compound
When you find something that creates value, you have to let it compound over time. The key when it comes to investing for the long-term to become rich is compound interest.
Compound interest is extremely powerful, you just need the patience and right mindset to take advantage of it.
$1,000 invested at 15% per year over 40-years becomes $267,863. That is the power of compounding. Now you are going to say that it is hard to get 15% per year and I agree with you. But you will hopefully invest $1000 many times over in your lifetime and some of those $1000 investments might even hit 20% per year, some will hit 5%, but some will definitely do amazingly. Just 4 investments that compound at 20% per year, something Buffett did over 50 years, thus $4,000, would become $5,879,086 in 40 years. And let’s say you invest $1000 one hundred times in a period, 4 of those 100 investments might give you 20% per year or even more. I invest 1000 per month and I must say how I really enjoy the compounding created over time in the form of business development, higher dividends, reinvested dividends.
This is just to show the power of compounding. And I’ll also tell you the only thing that is certain, if you don’t invest you will surely not take advantage of any kind of compounding. Therefore, invest and let compounding interest do the work for you.
- Even more important than investing is saving, so add up
Source: AZ Quotes
Charlie Munges is a person that says it clearly. Save, thus spend less than you make, invest it and you have nothing to worry. Invest the money in something offering a return, possibly exponential over the long term and that is it. How to find such investments? This is a bit controversial, but I’ll say go into depth.
- Go in depth versus width
Most financial advisers and talking heads tell you to diversify. They tell you that so that they can make you listen to that talk show for longer as there is more to talk about. However, too much diversification is actually diworsification.
If you understand the risks of an investment, i.e. what can go wrong where the best thing is to think about worst case scenarios, and understand the rewards you will likely get. The rewards in the form of dividends, growth, reinvested earnings, a business model that will compound over time, then it is better to go in depth rather than width.
The key is to specialize in a few areas, I am currently researching REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) and if I find something interesting to follow, I’ll start learning more about the specifics of the business over the next few years. I might invest only once in 10 years in a REIT stock, but I’ll probably know it very well before investing. Knowing something very well allows you to understand the risks and rewards of an investment. This makes it much easier to invest the $1000 you have.
Give yourself time and learn about 5 or 10 things to invest in over the next decade. This is mastering only one thing, sector or investment vehicle per year. I can guarantee that when you become an expert, you will be able to find those 15% investments that others might overlook. This can be in real estate, stocks, commodities, businesses…
Over time I have built my specialism in emerging markets, commodities as from time to time Wall Street doesn’t like commodities nor emerging markets. When Wall Street doesn’t like something, prices are usually cheap. For example, something that is going to be developed over the next 3 years is usually extremely under-priced. Most investors are so focused on stock prices that they omit long-term business developments, something we can take advantage of.
- Buy businesses, not stocks – a quick example from my portfolio, a stock to buy
The key when it comes to investing is to be a business owner. Let’s say you own a nice hotel in Paris.
As an owner, would you constantly watch real estate prices to see whether you made something? Or, as a real owner investors do, you would not have any intention of selling such a property and the only thing you would care about is how to increase prices or occupancy rates and manage costs.
The downside to buying stocks is that there is a price that changes every second. However, what you are buying is a business that develops and grows over time.
Let me give you an example. I am a happy owner of a company called Lundin Mining (TSX: LUN, OTC: LUNMF) because of the following reasons:
- I am bullish on copper as I see demand for it rising due to all the electrification that awaits us, due to all the Teslas, a growing global population, especially in emerging markets.
- The company is family owned and the owners are conservative. This means that debt levels are carefully assessed and the goal is to create a vehicle that will grow and increase dividends over time. The current yield is low at 1.78% but a buyback has been announced and they are investing in growth.
- Large investments in the future is what Wall Street rarely focuses on until those investments start to produce cash. They have invested a lot in 2018 and will invest another $745 million in 2019.
Source: Lundin Mining
Plus, they have recently invested another billion into a newly acquired mine.
Source: Lundin Mining
All of the investments will likely significantly increase production over the next few years, increase cash flows and probably lead to higher dividends.
Source: Lundin Mining
Given the 30% expected increase in production over the next few years, I expect a similar increase in the value of the investment, be it through higher dividends or through a higher stock price. Their cash dedicated to investments will significantly decline and therefore there could be much more for dividends or more acquisitions.
I like the management and their style and therefore I am happy holding this for the very long term. My expectations on current prices is for a 12% yearly long-term investing return. I am happy with that and over the past year I have invested $1000 in Lundin twice in my portfolio where I add $1000 on a monthly basis. That is also my plan, I’ll keep buying businesses that I like
- Invest for the long-term
Lundin Mining, the company discussed above had a market capitalization of $14.5 million in the early 2000s and now has one of $3.7 billion. Both Amazon’s and Apple’s market capitalizations were below $100 billion in 2009 with AMZN’s being below $25 billion.
Source: MarketWatch
Their current market capitalizations are around $900 billion and might surpass the trillion for good in the future. This is a perfect example of how Wall Street focuses on what will happen in the next quarter, the longest term analysts might look a few quarters or a year ahead, but few think about how will the business they own look in 10 or more years.
By thinking about how will your investment look like in 10 years, investing becomes easy. You don’t waste time on noise like the current trade war discussions that were about tax breaks a year ago or about going to war with North Korea two years ago. You focus on what is important, the acquisition the management just made, the small but constant increases in dividends, the new facility that is being build etc or you see big structural risks like declining demographics in some countries, piling government debt or trends that take of market share like e-commerce is doing for retail.
By using a long-term common sense perspective, you can eliminate the short term bets from your portfolio and concentrate it on long-term businesses with positive tailwinds. Just think about what will the worlds and the business you own look like in 10 years.
- Compare the investments you own with the rest of your finances
Do you have credit card debt of 11% or student debt of 8%? Pay that because it is an immediate return of 8% risk free. Investing in stocks, be it just $1000 requires a clean personal balance sheet. By clean personal balance sheet, I mean:
- You don’t need the money, ever. If you need the money in a few years or something, you might behave irrationally and sell at the wrong moment in time. Unfortunately, most investors sell in fear of seeing their investments decline further. If you know you don’t need the money and you can weather storms, you can let the investments compound over the long term for you.
- If you have any kind of debt with a high interest rate, pay that first and invest the monthly costs you save in stocks. This gives you an immediate return and gives you also piece of mind.
- You know your life, income etc. doesn’t depend on your investments. If it does, you are again not able to make rational decisions when investing as there are outside, or better to say personal influences that unable you to buy when others are selling for example.
Summary
If you wish to develop a long-term wealth building investing mindset please subscribe to my channel. In this article I have given you the 7 key mindset tools to use long term and an example of how I do it.
The key is to have a long-term orientation even if investing just $1000 because your long-term financial success depends on the mindset you have. A correct mindset means focusing on investing in various good businesses of which I have given you an example of a business I am invested in and finally, the key is to have your stock market investments detached from your personal finances. Sounds easy when written like this but very few adhere to that. The result of not following such simple rules are terrible investment returns.
The average investor did 1.9% per year over the last 10 years even if all other classes did much better. If you have $1000 to invest, start building a vehicle that will make you rich in the long term by having the correct mindset.