Daily advice thread. All questions about your personal situation should be asked here

I'm 26 and making ~$160-180k/year, depending on bonuses. Base salary is $140k. No major debts besides mortgage. Live in NYC so a very high COL area. My assets are:

1) Condo in Boston worth ~$500k. $340k left on the mortgage. Most of this equity was being lucky and riding the Boston property boom. Currently being rented out for about $300/month more than my mortgage, which I consider a wash after repairs and maintenance.

2) Around $60k in my 401k invested roughly 50% small cap, 25% mid cap, 25% pacific international. All index funds.

3) Around $15k in cash just sitting in my checking account. Currently I save about $500/month on average in cash but that can vary depending on vacations, condo maintenance, etc. I want to keep about $5k of this for any emergency situations.

I want to put about $10k of #3 to good use. I want to use it as training wheels for when I have more assets later in life. I don't want to invest in any index funds or baskets since my 401k is covering that.

Currently my plan is to invest in 3 different stocks in 3 different sectors (for 9 total stocks) and follow each sector very closely so I can learn how they interact. Eventually I will cycle through the different sectors and hopefully get a good grasp on all of them. For my first three I was thinking of starting off "easy" with Finance, Tech and Energy, since those are my job and interests respectively.

I'm wondering what do you guys think of my plan to learn the ropes? I know 9 stocks is hardly diversified, but I'm pretty risk neutral with this money. Obviously making money would be great, but if I lose money in the short term to learn good lessons then it's worth it IMO.

/r/investing Thread