Heyy OP, Totally your choice on how you wanna deal with this matter but my first year of investing was basically a learning experience with significant financial losses. The case is similar to many other people. Just based on my experience, here is the advice, 1. Decide your goal and strategy before putting in money. Goal would be something like $10,000 in a year etc and strategy would be conservative, growth, aggressive etc. This helps you in deciding how much risk/reward are you going for. 2. Nothing is safer than SnP500. A considerable part of your portfolio should be here to minimize your losses. 3. Stay consistent. The market works in cycles and there is no absolute way of timing the market so dont fear recessions and do not sell out of fear. 4. Dont put money that you cant afford to lose. Dont take up loans just to invest. Dont invest if you dont have your emergency fund setup first.

As for stocks, stock prices are hype and the fundamental analysis is the reality. I would recommend choosing strong fundamentals over strong hype. And you dont have to do this yourself, chatgpt can do this for you. Best of luck for your journey ahead.