Yes, times a thousand. But I would go even further.
Never give investment advice. You might explain what investments you have made and why you made them, but never give advice and never urge or prompt someone to invest. You should also end every conversation with "but that's not advice and I'm not an expert." It is too easy for either the investment to not work out, or for them to do it wrong (wrong timing, panic sale, misunderstood the options, etc).
The last thing you want on your conscience is someone investing a life changing amount of money just for it to go down in flames. I might invest $1000 in something that I think might pay off, tell someone they should invest, and next thing you know they drop in $40k and panic sell on a dip in two weeks, when I was planning to hold for five years. You never know.
Honestly in my other comment I said never give investing advice, but as far as it goes, recommending investment in indexed funds is probably there exception with the caveat that it is a multi-year investment and there are dips.
Right. Which gets us full circle, to never give investment advice, lol. That being said, at some point someone may sincerely look too you for guidance and you need to make a call as to whether you want to take that risk, what advice you give, and are you sure it is good advice.
I used to mentor student employees years ago, and when they wanted advice I always told them to max out workplace matches first, and then after that if they can save more, put it in tax advantaged savings programs that let you buy into indexed funds and never sell. In those cases you usually can't even sell unless certain conditions are met and you sign disclosures, unlike most brokerages. Now, students you are giving them advice for the rest of there life and they likely don't have $40k to panic sell/buy/sell to zero.
I'll be spending Christmas with Lemmy this year, thank you (lemmy.ca)
Guys/Gals it’s posted in the meme community, clearly this did not happen. The joke is funnier in the first person.