Amazon stock

[Mtee]

Hello, Mustachians.

I'm asking for advice about purchasing Amazon stock.

My hope is purchase a small quantity of stock, then wait anywhere from 10 - 60 years, and then sell the stock at a higher price.

I am not stock market savvy. I don't plan to or want to have to do much maintenance or active trading. This would be a sit and wait kind of scenario.

Is this a good idea? Yay or Nay?


The Amazon company seems stable, like Target & Google, and I imagine that even though there may be dips in the value, the customer base & overall company value will continue to grow.

What do you think?

Thank you for time & input! : )

[TheHardenedInvestor]

Just buy a total market index fund and hold that forever.

[Radagast]

I think your idea is spot on, and I only have two small improvements to suggest. First, I would buy Vanguard Total World Stock Index instead of Amazon, because no doubt 60 years ago people said the exact same thing about Sears, and I don’t want to have to guess what will happen. And second instead of doing this one time, I would do it very often over the next few years.

[MrDelane]

You've already gotten some great advice, which echos anything I would have said.

On top of that, you may want to do a bit of reading to get you started.
Here is a post from MMM discussing index investing:
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/05/18/how-to-make-money-in-the-stock-market/

And here is a very well known and respected series from JL Collins that is very much worth your time:
https://jlcollinsnh.com/stock-series/

[JAYSLOL]

...no doubt 60 years ago people said the exact same thing about Sears...

...or Kodak, or PanAm, or Blockbuster, or Schwinn, or BlackBerry, or MySpace, or RadioShack etc...

All those looked like can’t-lose investments at one time.

If you aren’t interested in learning, not just more than the average investor, but more than the average full-time professional investor, then stock picking even for a buy and hold strategy isn’t the best option for you.  Just buy the index and leave the gambling to the “pros”.  Try not to think of your investments as something you buy once, and then sell once, they should always be something you buy to build up regularly over many years and then draw from over many years. 

[Bernard]

Amazon is the biggest single stock holding I have. I bought it at around $300 and saw it climb twice to over $2K now. It made me so much money that it eliminated all of the losses I made with my stupid purchases. But I would not buy in at $1,7K per share. I don't think it will make you enough money. I'm getting out of picking stocks, but I made one exception when I bought ROKU at $41 a year back (It's at around $120 now). ROKU can make you stellar money or eventually crash. No way of knowing. If you want to play it safe, buy BRK.B, which is my second largest holding. Safer yet is low cost index funds. I have VTI, VOO, and VGT, and unless you have what the wealthy accountant calls f*ck it money, you need to be careful with picking stocks.

[PDXTabs]

If you buy a US or globally market cap weighted index fund (like VT) it will have plenty of Amazon stock in it. Right now AMZN is the third largest holding in VT.

[fattest_foot]

I think JL Collins' stock series actually talks about it, but look at the DJIA and compare it every decade.

The amount of turnover of the top companies in the US is a lot more frequent than I think most people realize. That's not to say Amazon will disappear in 30 years, but the odds are stacked against them.

[h82goslw]

Hello, Mustachians.

Is this a good idea? Yay or nay?

No it’s a terrible idea

[Blueberries]

For all the reasons you already listed, this is a bad idea. Basically, you want to gamble.  In that case, don't do it.  Go buy $5 in scratch offs and hope for the best.

"I am not stock market savvy. I don't plan to or want to have to do much maintenance or active trading. This would be a sit and wait kind of scenario."