Choosing to Invest: Mid-Career

If you have been a working professional for a decade or two, you may be wondering if your savings are enough. You may even have friends or colleagues that are investors and make passive income to supplement their salary. Since you've already been in the field for years, it may seem like it's too late to invest or it's not worth starting out at this point in your life. But, it's actually still something that can help you in the long run, even if you're completely unfamiliar with investing. While it's a learning process and comes with risks, you can assess which methods of investing may be suitable for you and decide if the potential benefits are worth it.

Getting Started

The first step to beginning your investment journey is learning about the ins and outs of the stock market. A great way to do this is by checking out the many different lessons available on Webull Learn. You also might find it useful to ask anyone in your life with investing experience how they approach their investments and how it's been helpful to them. Although, you should never take advice from anyone but a professional—while it's useful to hear real experiences from investors, you should take anything they say with a grain of salt. First-hand experiences are great to learn from, but just because something worked for your peer, doesn't mean it will work for you.

Learn as much as you can, assess your risk tolerance, and maybe try out paper trading to put your new strategies to the test before you dive in. Your investing journey will be unique to you and your needs—only you can determine how you should trade.

The Benefits

As an investor, you have the potential to earn profits as additional income. As someone in the middle of their career, you have many years of working life behind you. Most likely, you've regularly added money to your savings account in the past, or maybe even have a 401(k) through your job, or possibly even an IRA. If this is the case, congratulations! You're already an investor. With these accounts, you're saving for retirement already, and will have access to these funds in the future. Even still, you can choose to invest in other products as well, like stocks, ETFs, or crypto, which have the potential to increase your earnings even more. When you choose to invest outside of a retirement fund, you can add on to the savings you already have. This can act as a financial cushion, as life happens and you never know when you might need to make large payments that could take away from any potential contributions you'd have made to your IRA. If you don't have any form of retirement fund, investing now can still provide you with a way to save. By opening the door to a new stream of income, not only can you save for your own retirement, but you can also help pay off your mortgage, loans, debt, help out loved ones, or set money aside to use at your discretion.

It's important to know that just because you're getting into it at the height of your career, doesn't mean you missed out.

Ready to Invest?

If you've made the decision to take the leap, make sure that you're well prepared to start your investment journey. It's crucial to have a plan and be well aware of all risks involved. You should know your long and short-term goals, risk tolerance, what you want to invest in, and how you're going to set up your portfolio.

Additionally, you should never stop learning. Even once you think you know everything you need to know and have made a few trades, there's always new skills to gain. New lessons come out regularly on Webull Learn, and you can use these to help you adjust your strategy or discover a new method you may be interested in trying. As you take on the rest of your career as a new investor, it will be useful to always have educational tools at your disposal.

Disclosure: All investments involve risk, and not all risks are suitable for every investor. The value of securities may fluctuate and as a result, clients may lose more than their original investment. The past performance of a security, or financial product does not guarantee future results or returns. Keep in mind that while diversification may help spread risk, it does not assure a profit or protect against loss in a down market. There is always the potential of losing money when you invest in securities or other financial products. Investors should consider their investment objectives and risks carefully before investing.

Please note: Information related to crypto and forex, including market data and educational content, provided on the Webull platform is informational in nature and Webull Financial LLC does not offer these products.