"Investing is not trading for 5 minutes": what does the Nasdaq deputy chairman advise newbies?

Robert McCooey, vice chairman of the Nasdaq exchange, believes novice investors should look to the Nasdaq-100 index as a more balanced alternative to buying individual securities.

"One of the great tools that Nasdaq has is the Nasdaq-100 index. If an investor is not yet comfortable buying individual stocks, because it is always a certain risk - the price of one security can both rise and fall - then the Nasdaq-100 can be a great alternative," McCooey said in an interview with Freedom Broker.

The Nasdaq-100 is a basket of the 100 largest non-financial companies by capitalization whose shares are traded on Nasdaq. Contrary to popular belief, the index's composition is not limited solely to the technology sector, McCue noted. "While Nasdaq is known as a platform for innovative technology companies, the composition of the index is actually very diversified," he emphasized.

McCue recalled that in addition to shares of U.S. technology giants, the index includes securities of such U.S. issuers as hotel operator Marriott, airline JetBlue Airways, coffee chain Starbucks, beverage makers PepsiCo and Keurig Dr Pepper, leading companies in the industrial and medical sectors, as well as foreign issuers - such as Latin American "Amazon" Mercado Libre.

Speaking about the market entry strategy, the Nasdaq deputy chairman advised to choose clear and diversified instruments "which give an opportunity to gradually enter investments and grow together with the market". The exchange's top manager urged novice investors to avoid speculative trading and focus on long-term results.

"Investing is not trading for five minutes, it's a process that is years, if not decades long. Three, five, ten, fifty years - those are the horizons worth looking at," McCooey concluded.

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