New to investing- please help!

[Sweetchocolatecandy]

So I set up a S and P 500 index fund with vanguard today and invested £500. I’ve just logged on and it’s telling me I've made a loss of £3. I’m not panicking much (yet!) but I've checked the news today and apparently this stock has done well so I’m confused as to why I’m in the minus. So my questions are- will this £500 automatically be invested again tomorrow? Also, it says I have cash available if £49- but this should have been invested so why is it showing as available?

Sorry if these are silly questions but I’m completely new to this and eager to learn, thank you!

Watching with interest as I'm also looking to invest.

Do you have a contract note with the trade? This will show you the number of shares you purchased, the price per share and any trading costs. The unrealised loss of £3 is likely because the price changes throughout the day so the price you bought at was higher than the closing price.

You hold the investment until you sell.

@Taciturn thank you, that makes sense.

past performance is no guide to the future performance. Its done well in the past but might now do so well, or might do even better in the future. Expect some ups and downs, funds/shares/investment trusts rarely ever go in a straight line up. A loss is only a loss when you sell it at a loss. I saw some of my investments dip to loss of 25% upto 50% during early part of coronavirus when all the markets took a dip. I held on and most have recovered and some now in profit.

Another tip is not to look every day!!!

I'm not sure what you mean will the £500 be invested again tomorrow. If you only have £500 and have made a purchase with that, then that is that. You bought at whatever price (on your contract note) and then that will go up and down with the market value of the share. Tomorrow it might go up 1%, 2% 0.5% or down by that. Who knows. Longer term what you can probably say is that is a much much better investment than sticking it a bank account or ISA.

I remember panicking a bit when I first started investing. In the early days there seem to be a lot of losses, and there were times when the amount I had invested was just dropping and dropping. I'm sure you've read that you just have to hold your nerve and keep invested, and to resist checking so often. It's obviously too easy to check these days when you can just hop online or check an app to see how your investments are doing. My mum and dad only check theirs once a year!

A few years down the line, I like to check every month or so to see how the market's gone, just to try to educate myself a bit really. My investments have done well over the last few years so I was wrong to worry about losses in the early days.

Investing in stocks and shares is like walking up a mountain with a yo-yo. The value will go up and down but will steadily increase over time. Agree with PP who says you probably bought high today, hence the £3 loss.

Best advice for passive index investing is just leave it alone and don’t watch it!

You’re not day trading. Forget about them and check every once in a while. The market fluctuates but investments are for the long haul and tend to trend upwards over time so I really wouldn’t worry.

but will steadily increase over time

We had investments in many funds over more than 10 years with Invesco perpetual - some went up alot but some went down.
Asia Pacific / China did well , USA poorly and lost money to generalise