A great investment at age 30 can be a

bad choice at age [music] 60. So in this

video I will explain the best investment

strategy for every age based on my 19

years of investment experience both on

Wall Street and here in Europe. I will

also highlight the most common [music]

investing mistake that I see people

making at every age. So let's start with

your 20s. You're on your first or second

job. You're making some money, but

you've got to pay rent and the bills.

And all you can afford to invest is

maybe €50 a month. Building wealth this

way seems slow. So you make the most

common investing mistake at this age

which I also made 19 years ago when as a

young banker on Wall Street I got into

trading. Now here's the difference

between investing and trading. Investing

is long-term. For example, stock

investors normally hold company shares

for years. And that means you benefit

both if the company is profitable and it

pays you a dividend and if the company

becomes more valuable. So, the stock

price goes up over the long term. But

traders don't care about the long term.

They only care what happens to the stock

today. You try to make money quickly.

Buy a stock at 10:00 a.m., sell it at

10:15, make a quick profit, and then

repeat that many times. Trading promises

to make you rich fast, but in reality,

it's just a form of gambling. The vast

majority of traders lose their money. I

certainly did. So, don't make this

mistake. Okay. So, what's the best

investment strategy in your 20s? Well,

first, before you buy any investments,

build up a safety cushion. This is a few

thousand that you keep in the bank for

emergencies. Now, when you're young,

saving up for a safety cushion can be

frustrating because it can take years

before you actually start investing, but

it's absolutely essential that you don't

skip this step. Without a safety

cushion, any emergency can force you to

sell your investments at a bad time or

even worse, push you into debt. Second,

invest in your skills and education. In

your 20s, this is just as important as

buying stocks, maybe more. So, this

doesn't have to be a university degree.

Just find courses or trainings on high

value skills in your profession, whether

that's sales or negotiations or digital

marketing or AI. Instead of academic

knowledge, look for hands-on training

that will let you increase your income

within the next 12 months. And my third

recommendation would be put a little

money into a simple lowcost ETF every

month. An ETF is an investment fund

where you'll put in some money and the

fund buys hundreds or thousands of

different stocks around the world. So

this allows you to invest in the market

while splitting your risk among many

companies and paying very low fees. You

could choose a global ETF like VWCE or

maybe a different fund that is better

suited to the local tax rules in your

country. In your 20s, you want to focus

on building the habit while still

enjoying life and building your earning

power. And besides, when you're starting

early, even small sums can become big

money. For example, look at this simple

investment calculator. Even if you only

put aside €50 a month, well, let's see

what happens if you do this for 40

years. And let's say your profit is the

same as the long-term average for the

stock market, which historically has

been 9% per year. Well, 40 years from

now, you would have €212,000.

This is perhaps not enough for a great

retirement, especially after you adjust

for inflation, which means price is

going up over time, but it is a solid

base. It's a good start. Okay, so here's

a quick visual summary of the dos

[music] and don'ts for investing your

20s. Don't trade. Do have a safety

cushion. Invest in your skills and start

buying ETFs. Now, in a [music] minute, I

will share a step-by-step training that

I put together for how to start

investing in ETFs. But first, let's

[music] move on to your 30s. For most

people, this is the start of your high

income years. But it's also the decade

where you're no longer a kid. So, maybe

you'll want to dress nicer and drive a

better car and live in a nice apartment.

Plus, maybe you get married and have

children, and soon there are school fees

and other costs to pay. This leads to

the most common mistake for people in

their 30s, which is failing to control

expenses. For my wife and I, what worked

was making a deal to keep our costs

artificially low for the first few years

of our marriage. Even as I got a

high-paying finance job, we stayed in a

tiny Soviet apartment that cost less

than €200 a month, and we drove a beat

up old car, and in just a few years, we

built some really strong savings, which

today gives us a lot more freedom. I

highly recommend this approach in your

30s. Push hard in your career, but keep

your expenses fixed for a few years and

then start growing your expenses as life

goes on, but do so more slowly than your

income grows. On the investment side,

here's what I recommend. First, start

investing serious money. Set up an

automatic transfer in your bank. As soon

as your salary lands in your bank

account, move at least 10 to 15% of it

to your investment account. Let's go

back to our calculator. Let's say you're

making €2,000 a month. And you invest

15% of that. So that would be €300 a

month. And let's say you're 30 years

old, so you're going to do this for 35

years. And maybe every year as your

income goes up with inflation, you

increase the amount that you invest by

3%. If again you make 9% per year, then

35 years from now, you would have €1.1

million. And even if you are not as

fortunate and the stock market only

earns you 7% per year, you would still

end up with over €700,000. My second

recommendation in your 30s is to keep

your investments flexible. In many

countries, it is a good idea to invest

in pension funds because this allows you

to claim tax benefits like refunds or

reduced tax rates. If that's the case in

your country, use these products. But

you have to keep in mind that in most

cases, pension accounts don't let you

take out the money before you retire. So

if that's the case, don't make the

mistake of putting all your investments

into pension accounts. You might need

the money sooner, maybe to start a

business, maybe to buy a family home.

For example, I got a lot of my personal

wealth through business opportunities

and investment opportunities that I

could not have used if everything was

locked up in a pension account. My third

recommendation is do passive investing.

Unless you plan to become a finance

professional, your 30s are not the time

to read the Wall Street Journal, study

company annual reports, and pick

individual stocks. You will get much

better results with a simple ETF

strategy. Just buy and hold. If you do

this right, it takes literally just 3

hours per year. And then you can use the

rest of your time for more productive

purposes like improving your skills and

making more money at your job or

business. Okay, so here's a quick

summary for your 30s. Keep your costs

artificially low. Send 10 to 15% of your

income automatically to your investment

account. Use [music] pension accounts

for only part of your savings. And save

time by investing in ETFs. Now, by the

way, if you're wondering how [music] to

start ETF investing here in Europe, if

you've got questions like which ETFs are

best to pick and what investment app you

should use and how to handle your taxes,

well, [music] I've got a step-by-step

training that covers all of that. It's

called the Index Masterass. [music] and

thousands of beginning investors have

used it to start investing. Just follow

the first link in the description to

find out more. Okay, next up, your 40s.

The good news is you still have a few

decades until retirement. But the bad

news is you will need those decades.

Let's go back to our investment

calculator. If I change nothing else

about this scenario, but I reduce the

time frame from 35 years to 25 years,

then instead of ending up with over

€700,000,

you would end up with €310,000.

So it's a big reduction. And then if you

keep delaying and only invest starting

from age 50, so that would mean you have

15 years until retirement, your final

balance would only be 111,000. So the

longer you wait, the more difficult it

will be to build up significant

investments. So the point is in your

40s, you better get started. Which leads

me to the most common mistake among

40somes, which is feeling like

retirement is not yet relevant to you.

As one 40some to another, let me tell

you, yes, we're still young, but it is

time to take action. My first

recommendation is if you're starting

from scratch, you should be investing 15

to 20% of your income at least. That

automated transfer to your investment

account is a must-have at this age.

Second, check your investment portfolio

for money leaks. The two most common

leaks are fees and taxes. On the fee

side, don't ask your bank to invest for

you. Most banks in Europe will charge

you 1 to 2% of your money every year to

manage your investments. And it might

seem like a small amount, but over

decades, this can eat up a third of your

future wealth or even more. Instead of

letting your bank invest for you, learn

to set up your own lowcost ETF

portfolio. On the tax side, one of the

key things I teach my students is how to

choose ETFs that work well with your

local tax rules. And also, you want to

make sure to use pension funds if they

get good tax benefits. Okay. And my

third recommendation in your 40s is keep

taking risk. Now, by risk, I don't mean

the chance to lose everything. I mean

that your investments can go up and down

a lot in the short term. Too many

40somes invest like 70 year olds. You

don't want to take any risk with your

money. You want to stay safe. So, you

keep everything in a lowrisk investment

like bonds. Now, a bond is a loan to a

company or government. And bonds can

indeed be very low risk from a

short-term perspective. The price will

not go up and down very much. And if you

lend to a solid company or government,

you will almost certainly get your money

back plus some interest. But the problem

is from a long-term perspective, these

kinds of investments are actually not

safe at all. That's because safe bonds

typically earn you very little profit.

Something that seems like a safe

investment in the short term can make

you broke 20 or 30 years from now. So,

as a 40some, you need to learn how to

tolerate risk. In my personal opinion,

most 40 year olds should have most of

their portfolio invested in the stock

market. Yes, stock prices shoot up and

down a lot, and this can be unpleasant.

In a typical bad year, your portfolio

might fall by 10 or 20%, which is bad

enough, but in a really massive crash

like we saw during the big financial

crisis, you might even lose 40 to 50% in

the short term. That said, even such a

massive crash is not the end of the

world if you're in your 40s. That's

because you've got decades of time to

recover. The real challenge here is

psychology. Before putting most of your

money into stocks, you need to be

confident that you will not panic and

sell in the middle of a crash. So,

here's what I recommend. Read about

investing history to discover how common

market crashes really are. Teach

yourself to fully expect market trouble

instead of fearing it. Write down a

clear plan of action for what you will

do when the next crash happens. With

this kind of solid preparation, market

problems are much less scary and you can

get the full benefit of stock investing.

So, that covers your 40s. Don't delay

investing. Put aside 15 to 20% every

month. Watch out [music] for fees and

taxes and keep taking risk. Next up,

we've got your 50s. And the single

biggest mistake I see among people in

their 50s is thinking that you're too

old to start investing. Yes, it is late,

but no, it is not too late. Let's say

you've got 15 years until retirement.

And so maybe you can save €500 a month.

And again, every year you increase that

by 3%. And let's say you earn that

moderate return of 7% per year. Well,

you're going to end up with €186,000.

Even if you only have 10 years, so you

start at age 55, you would end up with

€97,000. So the question is, do you want

to arrive at retirement with nothing or

with a h 100,000 or 180,000? That's a

big difference, right? It's worth

bothering to save and invest. Now, the

way that you invest does start to change

in your 50s. So here are my three

recommendations. First, if you are

starting from zero, max out your savings

rate. By your 50s, your kids are

probably grown up, and that should free

up a good chunk of your budget. Use some

of that money to travel and enjoy life.

But if you've got no savings, most of it

should go toward investing. Second, if

your local tax rules are beneficial,

really prioritize your pension accounts.

In your 30s and 40s, I recommended

keeping plenty of cash outside these

accounts so that you have easy access

for emergencies or opportunities. But in

most European countries, you will get

free access to these accounts as you

approach retirement. So now is the time

to take full advantage. The ideal

solution is holding efficient

investments like ETFs inside a pension

wrapper. Okay. And the third

recommendation for your 50s is start

reducing risk gradually. Now, this does

not mean sell all your stocks and switch

to cash or bonds. In your 50s, you

should still have most of your

investments in stocks because you've got

decades of investing ahead of you, but

you should start adding lower risk

investments like bond ETFs as the years

go on. This will protect your portfolio

from market crashes as you approach

retirement. Now, by the time you reach

age 65, your portfolio should probably

be 6040 stocks versus bonds or maybe

50/50. So, keep that goal in mind and

reduce risk gradually toward it over the

years. Okay, so here's the summary for

your 50s. Don't [music] think that it's

too late to start investing. That is not

true. But you do need to maximize your

savings [music] aggressively. Make sure

to take full advantage of pension

products and derisk only gradually so

that your investments have the

opportunity to keep growing. Now we get

to your 60s and your retirement years.

The biggest mistake to watch out for

here is panic selling in a market crash.

As long as you're getting a monthly

paycheck from your job, it is relatively

easy to tolerate a stock market crash.

But when you depend on your retirement

account for all your income, this gets

scary really fast. And this is why you

need a rock solid plan for how you will

act when the market falls because sooner

or later that will happen. For a

long-term ETF investor, the best

approach is usually just stick to your

strategy and don't make selling

decisions based on the market going up

or down. Now for my three

recommendations. First, have clear

withdrawal rules. You need to know

exactly how much money you are allowed

to take from your portfolio and when.

You could start with a classic 4%

withdrawal rate where you calculate 4%

of your portfolio at the start of

retirement and then every year you

increase the amount by inflation. But in

practice, a more flexible approach which

adjusts your spending to how the market

is doing is likely better. That said,

the key thing is to have clear rules so

you don't overspend and go broke.

Second, consider locking in a minimum

income by purchasing what is called an

annuity. This is an insurance product

where you give the insurance company a

lump sum of money and they pay you a

fixed sum every year for the rest of

your life. No matter what happens, you

will always have a predictable amount of

cash coming in. This can really lower

the stress level associated with the

market going up and down. Just keep in

mind that annuities typically don't

adjust for inflation and here in Europe,

many products can be quite expensive.

So, you have to research this and know

what you're doing. Okay. And my third

recommendation in your 60s is don't

underspend. You worked hard to build

your retirement savings, so now enjoy

them, especially in the early years of

your retirement. Travel and pursue

hobbies while your health is good. A

million in the bank does little for you

when you're 90 years old. Now, of

course, if you aim to leave an

inheritance, you should make a plan for

that, working with a qualified expert.

But aside from that, spend your money

while the spending is good. Now, whether

you are 25 or 65, the best investment

that I know for amateur investors here

in Europe is called an ETF. With just a

few clicks, you invest your money in

hundreds of different companies all

around the world. [music] So, if you

want to find out how to get started with

ETFs, just watch this video next where I

will walk you through it step [music] by

step.