<prompt> Human: Hey, Im 16 years old and ive saved up about 6500 by working over the past year. I want to invest the money, but im not really sure what to invest in. All my friends are telling me to invest in stocks like apple amazon facebook and other similar tech stocks. I did some research and Im pretty sure investing in stocks of a single company is a little to risky for me. I decided that I wanted to invest in an etf that follows the sp500 VOO but when I asked my father about this he told me that this is not a very good idea as the market is due for a downturn, he recommended that i invest in some government bonds -, but I think those are a little to low yield for me.x200B;So my question for anyone that reads this, is what you recommend I invest my money in.x200B;Some more information: I dont need this money anytime in the near future or for college or anything like that. I also live in California if that matters.x200B;Im not 100 sure if this is the right subreddit but thanks for taking the time to read this :  <response>: when I asked my father about this he told me that this is not a very good idea as the market is due for a downturn, he recommended that i invest in some government bonds -, but I think those are a little to low yield for me. Your dad is right that the market is due for a downturn. The current bull market is the longest one in US history.But IMO hes wrong to conclude that the best approach is to invest in bonds and wait for the market to did. Why? For one, because no one know when the next market correction will happen. The market might go up another 30 between now and then. Also, no one knows how quickly the market will rebound. It might go down for years. Or it might turn around after only a few months. Since theres no way to accurately predict that and shift money from bonds into stocks at just the right time, by far the most reasonable approach is to invest in stocks now and go along for the ride.Many studies have shown that trying to time the market has very, very low odds of being helpful.That said, you could diversify your savings with a two- or three-fund portfolio. You could invest 80 in stocks and 20 in bonds, for instance. Or 50 in US stocks, 30 in international stocks, and 20 in US bonds. Please read up on three-fund portfolios herePersonally, I recommend opening a Roth IRA at Schwab or Fidelity and using one, two, or three funds to invest. For example, Schwab SWTSX has a 0.03 expense ratio. That makes it slightly less expensive than Vanguards VTSMX or VTI. And I recommend total market funds over SP 500 funds.If I were in your shoes, I would probably invest 50 in SWTSX, 30 in SWISX, and 20 in SWAGX. Whenever the market has its next correction, either rebalance by selling some SWAGX and buying SWTSX or sell all of it and move to 100 stocks. 