EQT
EQT CORP
stock NYSE

If you buy a reliable ETF, like VOO or VFV, or any of the EQT's, you don't lose money. Even if the value drops by 20%, you don't lose money because you know that if you hold for 5-10 years, not only will it recover all that you lost, it will probably double in value from appreciation.
The issue is some people can' help themselves. They see the value go down and kick themselves thinking "if I just timed the market better, stayed in cash, I could've bought into VFV or any of these ETF's at a discount. But thats normally a losing play.

I tend to buy XEQT when I feel the market is not cheap and load up on QQQs and VFV on dips and corrections. I have also bought SMH when it was correcting and is now 4x my cost basis.
Anyways, just saying EQT is an excellent portfolio anchor but adding other ETFs at opportune moments is also a good strategy. At least for me it has and I find it makes investing more interesting.

thanks! others are also saying to go with an EQT ETF so i may just do that

If I could go back and give my 18YO self some advice it would be : Just invest 100% into *EQT. In your situation that's ZEQT, myself personally it's VEQT (essentially the same thing).
Full disclosure I did do some individual stock picking and sure I did make some money overall however the time investment+ realizing now it was more luck than anything wasn't really worth it tbh. I still have 1 of the stocks I keep in my portfolio as a reminder as it currently sits at -99.99% and is no longer traded.
When I was 18 the products were not easily available like they are now but if I had started then into one of these all in one etfs it would have cut a few years off my working life for sure.
But I am just a random guy on Reddit so take that for what you will ...

If you buy a reliable ETF, like VOO or VFV, or any of the EQT's, you don't lose money. Even if the value drops by 20%, you don't lose money because you know that if you hold for 5-10 years, not only will it recover all that you lost, it will probably double in value from appreciation.
The issue is some people can' help themselves. They see the value go down and kick themselves thinking "if I just timed the market better, stayed in cash, I could've bought into VFV or any of these ETF's at a discount. But thats normally a losing play.

I tend to buy XEQT when I feel the market is not cheap and load up on QQQs and VFV on dips and corrections. I have also bought SMH when it was correcting and is now 4x my cost basis.
Anyways, just saying EQT is an excellent portfolio anchor but adding other ETFs at opportune moments is also a good strategy. At least for me it has and I find it makes investing more interesting.

thanks! others are also saying to go with an EQT ETF so i may just do that

If I could go back and give my 18YO self some advice it would be : Just invest 100% into *EQT. In your situation that's ZEQT, myself personally it's VEQT (essentially the same thing).
Full disclosure I did do some individual stock picking and sure I did make some money overall however the time investment+ realizing now it was more luck than anything wasn't really worth it tbh. I still have 1 of the stocks I keep in my portfolio as a reminder as it currently sits at -99.99% and is no longer traded.
When I was 18 the products were not easily available like they are now but if I had started then into one of these all in one etfs it would have cut a few years off my working life for sure.
But I am just a random guy on Reddit so take that for what you will ...

put all your money into *EQT and you stop thinking about it. Your time is better spent on learning and improving your life skills. That will earn you so much more than whatever time you spend doing research on stocks and ETFs.

VEQT/XEQT/ZEQT all do the same basic thing, hold a tiny piece of every public company in the world (10,000+ companies).
The idea is no one can see the future, no one knows what company will take off, just buy a little bit of everything and get the market average return. It'll never make you rich overnight, but any investment that can make you rich overnight can also make you poor overnight.
There are other ETFs out there, like VFV, which invest only in the US's 500 largest companies. If you believe US companies will do better than companies from other countries you could make more money than the _EQT family. But will they? They didn't last year, or the year before, but they did for a few years before that. There's really just no way to know the future.