Hey everyone! I'm a new member here, though I'm not new to stocks or funds. I'm a 36 year old guy from Sweden and sadly, I have multiple severe disabilities/diseases and I'm expecting to survive for a maximum of 20 more years. When you're disabled or ill in Sweden, the rumors abroad seem to say we have good welfare. That was in the 70's and 80's. Today, hundreds of thousands of us are thrown out on the street, literally. There's no help to find here at all. I live with my mother who is 70 years old and together we manage to survive even though both of us are very, very ill. I'm on social security since public health insurance denies me support and has done so for over a decade. My mother has retirement pension and a very low one, sadly, but like I said, we manage to survive. We live together simply because there is no other way for either of us to keep going and I'm not gonna dig too deep into that, it's a very, very long story. Long story short: We live in an old rental apartment. We have neighbors from hell, making loud noises 24/7 and we've tried everything and again, everything. In 2 years from now we'll literally be thrown out on the street because they're going to "rebuild" the apartments, which is a lie since our landlord is known to just put some new paint on stuff and call it a day. Apartments south of here which received their treatment did not fare well, so if we're to survive we need to move. The queues for rental apartments are endless (think 10-20 years minimum) and the prices to be able to live in a better area without troublesome neighbors are way above what we could ever afford. While our greatest dream is to have an own house where nobody can treat us like slaves, I don't know how it would be possible to make that much money in 2 years. For us both to be able to have that one last chance of a happy end of our lives I think our only chance would be to invest the little money we can afford to save. After selling lots of old stuff and saving for a long time we have about the equivalent of $600. We might be able to add another $50 here and there in the future if we're lucky. I doubt we'd be able to get a loan to invest a bigger sum since we probably can't afford the monthly cost of it. My question to the professionals, analysts, traders, bulls and bears alike, is this: How to invest $600 and make it grow by a large amount? Note that I don't believe in the "genomics revolution" for several reasons which I'd like to keep to myself. I'm also one of the people who believe that we are beyond far into a big stock market bubble that can pop and crash at any moment. What do you guys think, and how to best invest afterwards if it does crash? How to know when it all has hit rock bottom, when is the best time to invest? Also, the way I understand it, a lot of the growth over the last 10 years have been thanks to technology. Do you think this is about to end and something else will rise to be the next growth area? I guess some of you may say what I'd need is to invest in something that'll skyrocket but finding it is like a needle in a haystack and I might as well go to a casino. I still chose to create this thread since I'm in dire need of help to make money for myself and my mother's continued survival. And I don't have much time, about 2 years... I'm sorry if this all had a sad tone to it, it's just how it is. I'd rather be honest than making a pointless short post about a serious issue. I appreciate any answers or discussions about it all and I'm grateful if I'm pointed in the right direction in some way. I don't expect this to be solved in a day but I'm eager to see what some of the more knowledgeable stockaholics can cook up! Thanks in advance! EDIT: Some additional information: In Sweden, it seems impossible to invest in ETFs or penny stocks for example. I think any advice should be about stocks on Nasdaq or NYSE, for example.
I'll keep an eye out on some biotechnology stocks for you. I read what you feel about genomic stocks, and I don't think you're wrong. Nevertheless, you can get big returns from biotech stocks that are passing through phases of the approval process. Square (SQ) is going to have a good future...at some point you may want to try calls on them. Options are great for getting leverage with small sums of principal to start. If you turn take $600 and can turn it into $10,000 that would be great returns.
I'm familiar with Square being one of the big names in the stock market for a while. I have very limited knowledge about options but I'm definitely going to do my homework. EDIT: I've went through some basic tutorials and I get what you mean. Though my problem seems to be my broker only allows trading with options in swedish stocks. I'm not sure which broker one should pick to move the money to, and if it would be a tax trap. EDIT 2: My broker in sweden does allow trading with bull/bear certificates and warrants in american stocks though.
So far I got 2 personal messages from scammers. They sure love to try and steal from the poor. Anyway, back on topic: Since I guess my best bet is using my Swedish broker "Avanza", my choices for American stocks are either stocks themselves, bull/bear certificates or warrants. Note that around here you can't do anything with a warrant until its expiration date.
Yeah, I know the feeling. I lost $400 last year doing the same thing. I was too eager to get into it and didn't do my homework beforehand. I guess for now I'll wait for a major market crash and then invest in something that seems steady. Something that'll recover easily.
