Ask HN: How would you invest $20k?

You can buy a profitable business for its future cash flow at market rate. It with adequate capital becomes a matter of not experiencing bad luck versus getting lucky.

At $20k the rate of return for money is swamped by the rate of return for time. There are better uses of time than seeking high return rate investments.

Saving the money means if you stumble upon one, the money is there available quickly. It is also an acknowledgment that you are relying on dumb luck not beating the market.

You talk about a 5 year timeline, do you want a nice 5% return annually for 5 years? End up with 25k. Then you're looking at safer investments into index funds or maybe even high yield bonds.

Do you want it to be 100k or a mil? Then you're looking at trying to pick horses in investments. What will give you 5x return in 5 years, probably picking a single or handful of assets that could see major return. Could be stocks or something crypto. You could certainly yolo it wallstreetbets style and buy GME/AMC/whatever you think is the next meme stock that will pop. Could potentially get that return tomorrow, especially if you bought options and get lucky. I sold a covered call last month, whomever bought it could have potentially made 66x in 2 weeks. Had that been you and your risk tolerance is insanely high, you could have been a millionaire from that 20k (yes, I sold a AMC call, covered of course).

Are you just referring to the default white cell background that google sheets have?

So?

When to buy:

Use Warren Buffet's famous quote: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful." If you're reading an article about why XXX stock is great, it's already too late to get in (meme stocks might be an exception).

If it feels like you have to buy XXX stock NOW or the price will go up, it's already too late. Take a few days to mull it over. Never FOMO.

When to sell:

Set stop losses. I set a stop loss at -10%. Diamond hands is a tactic people tell others to use when they themselves want to sell.

If you are at the point where your gains are good enough that you want to take a screenshot and send it to your friend--this is a good time to sell.

EDIT: Because I realize I answered the question "How would you invest 20k in the stock market?" and not "How would you invest 20k?": I would absolutely run from real estate right now. Prices are sky high due to inflation / lumber shortage / supply. You would be buying at peak.

If I had a spare 20k I would use maybe 1k to attend a conference and learn a skill which would help me earn more money in the future. I would put 15k into the stock market using above method, or crypto. And I would use the remaining money to fund a passive income online business.