The US share markets are huge. In October 2024, the NYSE had a total market cap (total dollar market value) of US$39.18 trillion, and the Nasdaq had a total market cap of US$30.22 trillion. This compares to New Zealand's stock exchange, the NZX, which at the same time, had a total market cap of around NZ$381 billion (approximately US$233 billion).

And with Hatch, you can invest in more than 5,800 companies and over 1,900 exchange-traded funds (ETF). So it's understandable that one of the biggest barriers we've heard from people new to investing is that they're worried they'll make a 'wrong' decision.

But no one can know how a company or ETF will perform in the future. This is because there are never any guarantees when it comes to investing - whether in property, gold, cryptocurrency or the share markets - and all investing carries risk. Even one of the world's most famous investors Warren Buffett hasn't always got it 'right'. He just made more financially 'good' decisions than 'bad' ones.

You can browse stocks and ETFs on Hatch by filtering - just like you would buying clothes or footwear online.

Want to invest in Healthcare, Entertainment or Transport? Filter by industry to see the companies and exchange traded funds (ETFs) in those industries, and add them to your watchlist. First click on 'All industries' to bring up the list of available stocks and ETFs, then click on the industries you prefer.

To narrow down the investments you're researching, you can filter by features, like:

You can sort how the filtered companies and ETFs appear while you browse:

However you research shares and funds, the most important step before you start investing is to do your research. The Hatch LearnHub and our Investment News has everything you need to research the companies, funds and industries that you're interested in. And our free Getting Started Course takes just 10 minutes a day for 10 days and covers the basics of investing in bite-sized morsels.