SCHG
Schwab U.S. Large-Cap Growth ETF
stock NYSE ETF

I felt the allure of income ETFs and thought "Hey -- if I go in on these, I'll get a phat divvy every month which I can just buy more stocks, plus my monthly contribution will really snowball this thing......"
And yeah I quickly got out of income ETFs and went into SCHD and SCHG.

Depends what you mean by growth. If you mean capital appreciation, plain index funds like VOO or something growth tilted like SCHG or QQQ have beaten SCHD by a wide margin over almost any recent stretch, dividend screens by design exclude a lot of the names doing the heavy lifting in the index. If you mean dividend growth specifically, VIG is the usual alternative, different screening methodology, slightly lower current yield but a longer uninterrupted streak. Neither is a knock on SCHD, it's just not built to win a growth contest, it's built for quality income.

In my Roth I have VOO, VXUS and SCHG. In brokerage, VOO, VT and VTV. (VTV is because I will be spending my brokerage down in retirement, next year.)
Your portfolio doesn’t need to be complex, just cover all or most of the market. The biggest factors are how much you can save and how many years your money can compound.
You are a lot smarter than me at 19, I had very little saved.

This is a solid portfolio as long as you understand why everything is there. It's all based on historical data. This smashes VOO and is a lot more diversified and safe at the same time.
A lot of people in this sub recommend or are all in on things like QQQ VGT VUG SCHG etc but theres usually no explanation besides performance chasing.

I felt the allure of income ETFs and thought "Hey -- if I go in on these, I'll get a phat divvy every month which I can just buy more stocks, plus my monthly contribution will really snowball this thing......"
And yeah I quickly got out of income ETFs and went into SCHD and SCHG.

Depends what you mean by growth. If you mean capital appreciation, plain index funds like VOO or something growth tilted like SCHG or QQQ have beaten SCHD by a wide margin over almost any recent stretch, dividend screens by design exclude a lot of the names doing the heavy lifting in the index. If you mean dividend growth specifically, VIG is the usual alternative, different screening methodology, slightly lower current yield but a longer uninterrupted streak. Neither is a knock on SCHD, it's just not built to win a growth contest, it's built for quality income.

In my Roth I have VOO, VXUS and SCHG. In brokerage, VOO, VT and VTV. (VTV is because I will be spending my brokerage down in retirement, next year.)
Your portfolio doesn’t need to be complex, just cover all or most of the market. The biggest factors are how much you can save and how many years your money can compound.
You are a lot smarter than me at 19, I had very little saved.

This is a solid portfolio as long as you understand why everything is there. It's all based on historical data. This smashes VOO and is a lot more diversified and safe at the same time.
A lot of people in this sub recommend or are all in on things like QQQ VGT VUG SCHG etc but theres usually no explanation besides performance chasing.

Afternoon - I'm a 75 year old retired engineer, who started investing at 15. It's very good that you do start to invest, however let's do this intelligently and with some malice of forethought. As a firefighter, you just don't pull up to a fire and rush in without a plan. Investing without a plan and knowledge of what you are doing is an absolute *Recipe for Disaster* in the making.
You are good to go with your pension and 457 - that is excellent planning!!!
Your thinking of taking a position in SCHG is pretty reasonable. SCHG is the Schwab Large Cap Growth, which is fine.
Your considering other positions in SMH (VanEck Semiconductor ETF) and Bitcoin - in my current opinion is that you are a newby pig going in to be slaughtered. Don't do it. Please save your money.
I take a very small part, less than 0.1% of my portfolio and I sometimes day trade Semiconductors options (SOXL, and SOXS) and I do alright - stripping off about $1K to $4K/day profit when I trade. I don't day trade every day, only when I feel I have some advantage and things line up in my view. I use technical tools to give me an advantage and some guardrails. I'm usually in a position for an hour or two, take my profit - and then go about the rest of my day. Right now Semiconductors are rolling over and going down - not a good time to buy SMH (just my opinion). On Bitcoin, it appears to be maybe putting in a bottom, but who knows. Historically speaking, Bitcoin usually goes up about 18 months before it goes into a halving (you need to do some research on bitcoin halfing) - which would start around September. But who knows - certainly not me.
So, what should you do? Here are a few suggestions. Start doing some research and self education on investing. Also, target aggressive investing if that's what interests you. I'll tell you right now, the slow steady turtle beats the fast rabbit every time. If you don't understand something, don't invest in it.
Educating yourself on investments will be key.
I would suggest start watching youtube videos on basic investing to start to understand the basic concepts. Fidelity has an excellent library of them.
\* [https://www.youtube.com/fidelityinvestments](https://www.youtube.com/fidelityinvestments)
\* [https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/trading/trading-made-simple-videos](https://www.fidelity.com/learning-center/trading-investing/trading/trading-made-simple-videos)
\* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqho\_Yz2PvI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqho_Yz2PvI)
\* [https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing](https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing) \- good overview
\* [https://www.finra.org/investors/investing/investing-basics](https://www.finra.org/investors/investing/investing-basics) \- good overview
Next, there are youtube channels on investing that are very useful. Here are a few - they have new content, on a daily and/or weekly basis
\* [https://www.youtube.com/@NolanGouveia](https://www.youtube.com/@NolanGouveia) \- This is a university finance professor, who teaches investing on line. Just start watching and you will start self learning. He keeps it very simple for the 40 year olds just starting out.
\* [https://www.youtube.com/@RobbieMoney](https://www.youtube.com/@RobbieMoney) \- Robbie Money - follow along. Overtime you will pick things up and start understanding more
\* [https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/investing-101/](https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/investing-101/) \- basic investing for doctors - they know medicine but nothing about investing.
\* [https://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/11/3-s-simple-investing.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/11/3-s-simple-investing.asp) \- excellent information
There are also youtube channels that go over daily economic and market activity. Note - Do I watch everything every day - NO, way too much to take in, but choose what appeals to you. You are learning, and to learn you need to practice. Listening to these are both learning and practicing together.
\* [https://www.youtube.com/@fxevolutionvideo/videos](https://www.youtube.com/@fxevolutionvideo/videos) \- this channel provides free daily overview videos (about 20 minutes) and also weekly - weekend recap videos.
\* [https://www.youtube.com/@AndreiJikh/videos](https://www.youtube.com/@AndreiJikh/videos) \- a good free youtube channel covering finance and economics
\* [https://www.youtube.com/@jesseLivermorestradingcode](https://www.youtube.com/@jesseLivermorestradingcode) \- another fr

One thing I would be curious about is the overlap between SCHG, SCHD and DGRO, and how much of the portfolio may ultimately be concentrated in the same companies or sectors.
I’m building a portfolio analytics platform called Moneyta that looks at concentration, diversification, ETF overlap and how a possible change could affect the complete portfolio. I’m not trying to recommend any trades, but portfolios like this are exactly what inspired me to build it.
Would you find an ETF-overlap and portfolio-health breakdown useful when evaluating a pie like this?

OMG ….. That’s a recipe for disaster. He should just do 70% VOO / 10-15% VXUS / 15-20% QQQM or SCHG or VGT whichever he prefers of those 3

40%SCHD, 25%SCHG, 15%NNN, 10%VXUS, 10%SGOV

I added a little, if their investments payoff itll have a nice run. They may also spinoff XBOX which would be nice, since I would sell the shit outta that … its only like 3% of my portfolio though, not including ETFs which if I included DGRO & SCHG it’d be higher of course
Any company thats in both SCHG & DGRO I also would assume is a pretty solid company seeing its posed for growth & dividend growth … we shall see
Maybe this year theyll raise the dividend to over $1 a quarter, that would be nice …

I would start with SCHG. Crypto, yes, but wait until it bottoms in October. BTC only.

SCHG