Should I invest further in VOO, QQQ, and SCHD after a $7,000 investment during the tariff drop?

When it comes to making investments, there is always a question of where your money should go, and it’s a difficult question without any easy answers. Even if you talk to a financial advisor, there is a good chance they will all have different strategies.

Key Points

• This Redditor is eager to get back into the market, starting with ETFs.

• There is a big concern about a potential upswing in the market, but this shouldn’t stop anyone from investing.

• These three ETFs are really great at protecting the downside of the market.

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For this Redditor, they are interested in knowing if now is the right time to make an investment in certain popular ETFs. The hope is that this might be a better time than their last investing experience, according to a post in r/ETFs, which was around early April, right before everything fell off a cliff.

Is It a Good Time To Invest?

To be more specific, the Redditor is asking about whether now is a good time to invest in VOO, QQQ, and SCHD. The reason behind the question, in their own words, is that their last investment, made in early April with around $7,000, coincided with a market crash due to tariff concerns. Now that things have leveled out, so to speak, there is a question from this individual about whether it’s a good time to make an additional investment in these ETFs.

Here’s my immediate read and the best advice you can get from almost anyone talking about the stock market. The most direct metaphor here is that the best time to plant a tree was 30 years ago; the second-best time is today.

Recent Market Performance

It’s important to know that, based on the recent performance of these ETFs, everything looks pretty good. You have QQQ, which is up ~17.5% year to date in 2025, while VOO is up ~14.3%, and SCHD is up approximately 2%. The one and arguably only challenge is that if you adjust the overall performance for SCHD based on inflation-adjusted returns, SCHD is actually showing a slight negative return, while QQQ and VOO are positive.

Even so, it’s still hard to argue that SCHD has been underperforming compared to both QQQ and VOO, which is something to consider if these truly are the only three ETFs this individual is considering. That’s one piece of advice I would absolutely give to them if I knew this individual personally and they were my friend, and I wanted to see them earn as much money as possible.

Reasons To Buy Right Now

As the metaphor above says, the best time to buy into the market is right now. The other piece of advice I would give this individual is that trying to time the market is impossible, and it’s a good way to lose money. There are far too many stories of people who try to time the market in both directions and end up losing far more because they were hesitant to make a decision.

Overall, buying into VOO is a good idea because it offers broad exposure and your risk is diluted across a number of sectors like technology, financial services, healthcare, energy, utilities, and more. VOO is simply stated, one of the strongest ETFs you can pick up today, and its one-year return of 18.05% is yet another reason why I would recommend that this Redditor pick it up right now.

While SCHD might be a little low on the year-to-date side, you also have to consider that it has relatively stable dividends and one other major positive factor. Most of the big holdings in SCHD are in energy, consumer defensive, and healthcare sectors, which are less volatile than things like financial services or technology. In other words, the tariff concerns this Redditor has indicates that SCHD might be less exposed to big shifts in trade than the more tech-heavy QQQ or VOO.

Separately, it’s a good idea for this Redditor to consider reinvesting the dividends they are making in SCHD, better known as DRIP. This dividend reinvestment plan can help you dollar cost average, which can help you be in a better position should the market be volatile at any point.

The Best Advice We Can Give

If this were me, or if I could give this individual overall advice, I would tell them that scaling up small buys in VOO and SCHD are probably the best bet right now. This isn’t to say that QQQ shouldn’t be part of the portfolio, but there are stronger benefits of both VOO and SCHD right now.

Separately, as hinted at above, dollar cost averaging is going to be the way in and reduce overexposure to market fluctuations. This means that the Redditor should be in a better place to weather another potential tariff or related fall. In addition, I would absolutely tell them that they need to avoid panic selling during the market fluctuations. These ETFs are built to broaden your exposure, especially SCHD, so you don’t want to get into a situation where you sell out at the first sign of the market turning against you. You have to stay the course and allow the market time to come back.

Most importantly, it’s probably time to talk with a financial advisor and discuss what your goals are as far as returns, retirement planning, etc. They will likely advise you that if you want some advice but also want to handle some of the trading, you want to keep an eye on VOO, QQQ, and SCHD and determine if and when you need to rebalance something based on market conditions.

On the plus side, these ETFs and those like them help give you some diversification based on the different sectors. However, I would also recommend that this Redditor look at something like bonds or treasury bills that provide stable and reliable returns without the same level of volatility as the overall stock market.

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