u/Willing-Spray7476

I am 20 years old and I am invest 15,000 into my individual brokerage and 7,500 maxed out my roth ira first year. I am a week into this and just invested on Wednesday and have been in a spiral of research and am addicted to the market and has been the only thing on my mind recently. I have a split of 40% VTI, 30% SPMO and 30% SMH. Let me explain, I am young as you know and have the ability to be aggressive with the market. VTI is my core and is th entire US market rather than VOO bc that would overlap with SPMO and SMH. Now obviously there’s some overlap, I am in VTI bc I wanted exposure to mid and small cap companies as well as large as you know and didn’t think buying something like AVDV I believe it’s called was worth it. International ETF exposure, now listen this to me makes no sense for my age at least, I don’t need to be ultra safe, I would get less annually returns and i’m not going anywhere for a while if the US fails on me and dips heavy or US markets crash, I will simply stay calm and buy more, the market will always go up eventually, you just have to stay calm. Keep buying. Moving onto SPMO, it’s a tilt/momentum etf and it’s been performing well and it’s a more aggressive version of voo as it covers the top 100 of the S and P 500 and the S and P 500 never fails especially the top 100. SPMP looks really good right now. Now SMH is my biggest risk but I love it, i’m young and see where ai is going, I am the future and I rely on ai as I know so many people my age rely on it as well, even in job interviews they ask how well I am familiar with ai, inferring they plan for the future with ai. I don’t see it going anywhere. AI is the future whether you hate it or not, there is always a risk it could ruin the market but that’s the risk I take, I am curious to hear your guys opinion on ai. The only others ones I considered were if I were to replace the two (not the core), I like QQQM and VGT and obviously SOXX AND SOXQ which are similar to SMH. Let me know your opinions and if I am wrong on anything. The market historically has underperformed with international and I dipped a little into small and medium caps bc they have outperformed in the past.

I am 20 years old and I am invest 15,000 into my individual brokerage and 7,500 maxed out my roth ira first year. I am a week into this and just invested on Wednesday and have been in a spiral of research and am addicted to the market and has been the only thing on my mind recently. I have a split of 40% VTI, 30% SPMO and 30% SMH. Let me explain, I am young as you know and have the ability to be aggressive with the market. VTI is my core and is th entire US market rather than VOO bc that would overlap with SPMO and SMH. Now obviously there’s some overlap, I am in VTI bc I wanted exposure to mid and small cap companies as well as large as you know and didn’t think buying something like AVDV I believe it’s called was worth it. International ETF exposure, now listen this to me makes no sense for my age at least, I don’t need to be ultra safe, I would get less annually returns and i’m not going anywhere for a while if the US fails on me and dips heavy or US markets crash, I will simply stay calm and buy more, the market will always go up eventually, you just have to stay calm. Keep buying. Moving onto SPMO, it’s a tilt/momentum etf and it’s been performing well and it’s a more aggressive version of voo as it covers the top 100 of the S and P 500 and the S and P 500 never fails especially the top 100. SPMP looks really good right now. Now SMH is my biggest risk but I love it, i’m young and see where ai is going, I am the future and I rely on ai as I know so many people my age rely on it as well, even in job interviews they ask how well I am familiar with ai, inferring they plan for the future with ai. I don’t see it going anywhere. AI is the future whether you hate it or not, there is always a risk it could ruin the market but that’s the risk I take, I am curious to hear your guys opinion on ai. The only others ones I considered were if I were to replace the two (not the core), I like QQQM and VGT and obviously SOXX AND SOXQ which are similar to SMH. Let me know your opinions and if I am wrong on anything. The market historically has underperformed with international and I dipped a little into small and medium caps bc they have outperformed in the past.

Whether it is two, three, four, or more ETF’s in each account, I want to see what people genuinely think is best. I have $22,500 to invest total. I’m maxing out my Roth IRA ($7,500) and investing the rest into an individual brokerage account.
I’m young, willing to take some risk, but I do not want to build a reckless portfolio just chasing hype. I want a portfolio that is aggressive enough for strong long-term growth, but still smart and realistic for someone who plans to invest consistently for decades.
I keep seeing combinations like VOO, VTI, SCHD, QQQM, AVUV, VXUS, VUG, IVV, etc. and I’m trying to understand what experienced investors actually believe is the best setup today for someone my age.
If you were 20 again and wanted to build as close to a “perfect” long-term ETF portfolio as possible, what would you choose for:
Roth IRA
Individual brokerage
I want brutal honesty, not hype. Explain why you would structure it that way and what mistakes you would avoid if starting over young.

Whether it is two, three, four, or more ETF’s in each account, I want to see what people genuinely think is best. I have $22,500 to invest total. I’m maxing out my Roth IRA ($7,500) and investing the rest into an individual brokerage account.
I’m young, willing to take some risk, but I do not want to build a reckless portfolio just chasing hype. I want a portfolio that is aggressive enough for strong long-term growth, but still smart and realistic for someone who plans to invest consistently for decades.
I keep seeing combinations like VOO, VTI, SCHD, QQQM, AVUV, VXUS, VUG, IVV, etc. and I’m trying to understand what experienced investors actually believe is the best setup today for someone my age.
If you were 20 again and wanted to build as close to a “perfect” long-term ETF portfolio as possible, what would you choose for:
Roth IRA
Individual brokerage
I want brutal honesty, not hype. Explain why you would structure it that way and what mistakes you would avoid if starting over young.

Here is what I have:
Roth IRA — Total Value: ~$7,556
Holdings:
iShares S&P 500 Growth ETF (IVW) — 30 shares (~$4.1k)
Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD) — 100 shares (~$3.2k)
Cash — ~$268
Individual Brokerage — Total Value: ~$15,079
Holdings:
Invesco NASDAQ 100 ETF (QQQM) — 11.59 shares (~$3.4k)
VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH ETF”] — 6.08 shares (~$3.4k)
Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO) — 9.98 shares (~$6.8k)
Cash — ~$1.5k
Combined Value: ~$22,635